Who's got power

Newsweek's end of year issue had articles about the Global Elite. These are the people who have or are coming into power. The first article in the series defines power as either command (the capacity to make others do as you wish) or control (the capacity to reorder the environment around you. If you want a better definition than that I'll let you read the article for yourself. Along with that discussion of power were profiles of 50 powerful people in the world. In the case of American government, it is those coming into power, not those leaving it. Here is the list. The actual article has a sidebar with links to all 50 which will explain why each was chosen and their primary task in 2009.

The Global Elite

1. Barack Obama, US President-Elect
2. Hu Jintao, President of China
3. Nicolas Sarkozy, President of France
4. Ben Bernanke, head of US. Federal Reserve
5. Jean-Claude Trichet, head of European Central Bank
6. Masaaki Shirakawa, head of Bank of Japan
7. Gordon Brown, Prime Minister of Britain
8. Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany
9. Vladimir Putin, Prime Minister of Russia
10. Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud, king of Saudi Arabia
11. Ayatollay Ali Khamenei, supreme leader, Iran
12. Kin Jong Il, dictator of North Korea
13. Hillary Clinton, Secretary of State
14. Bill Clinton, potential diplomat
15. Timothy Geithner, Secretary of Treasury
16. David Petraeus, General of Central Command
17. Sonia Ghandi, President of Congress Party, India
18. Luis Inacui Lula da Silva, President of Brazil
19. Warren Buffet, Financier
20. Gen. Ashfaq Parvex Kayani, Chief of Army Staff, Pakistan
21. Nuri al-Malaki, Prime Minister, Iraq
22. Bill Gates, Philanthropist
23. Melinda Gates, Philanthropist
24. Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House
25. Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Presdient of United Arab Emirates
26. Mike Duke, CEO-Designate Wall-Mart Stores
27. Rahm Emanuel, Presidential Chief of Staff
28. Eric Schmidt, CEO Google
29. Jamie Dimon, CEO JPMorgan Chase
30. David Axelrod, Presidential senior advisor
31. Valerie Jarrett, Presidential senior advisor
32. Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Director International Monetary Fund
33. Res Tillerson, CEO Exxonmobil
34. Steve Jobs, CEO Apple
35. John Lasseter, head of Pixar
36. Michael Bloomberg, Mayor of New York City
37. Benedict XVI, Pope
38. Katasuaki Watanabe, CEO of Toyota
39. Rupert Murdoch, CEO News Corp.
40. Jeff Bezos, CEO Amazon.com
41. Shahrukh Khan, star of Bollywood
42. Osama bin Laden, Terrorist
43. Hassan Nasrallah, Hizbullah leader of Lebanon
44. Dr. Margaret Chan, Director World Health Organization
45. Carlos Slim Helu, Mexican tycoon, second richest man
46. The Dalai Lama, Tibetan Leader
47. Oprah Winfrey, Television Personality
48. Amr Khaled, Egyptian Televangelist
49. E.A. Adeboye, Nigerian Pentecostal preacher
50. Jim Rogers, CEO Duke Energy