For the third consecutive year, Russian President Vladimir Putin has been named the world’s most powerful man by Forbes magazine. The insulting news to American President Barack Obama is not only he didn’t manage to overtake the highly popular Putin; he has actually lost his second place to a woman to settle for a third place this year.

Last year, Obama was in second place behind Putin but as he enters the final year of his presidency without any achievement, German Chancellor Angela Merkel easily kicks the lame duck U.S. president out of the second place. Putin continues to prove he’s one of the few men in the world powerful enough to do what he wants – and get away with it.

 

Putin engineered the seizure of Crimea with little resistance from the supposedly superpower United States and NATO. Although international sanctions together with tumbling oil price and freefall of Ruble have sent Russia into recession, they haven’t hurt Mr. Putin one bit. In fact, his approval ratings in June were an all-time high of 89%, something which Obama could only dream of.

In October, 63-year-old Putin bombed ISIS terrorists in Syria with mind-boggling results that were so insulting to President Obama that in an interview on “60 Minutes” with Steve Kroft, the American President was lost for words when he was grilled about the Russian leader challenging U.S. leadership.

 

The second most powerful person in the world – German Chancellor Angela Merkel – jumps up from #5 last year to take the runner-up spot on the list. As the backbone of the 28-member European Union, her decision to accommodate Syrian refugee problem and the Greek credit crisis helped bump her up the list.

Some have even started speculating that Chancellor Angela doesn’t really care for the local Germans. She knew her “open door refugee” policy could lead to civil war but proceeded anyway because she was interested of getting Nobel Peace Prize. Her personal approval rating has fallen to 54%, its lowest level since 2011.

 

There isn’t any mystery how and why President Barack Obama fell one spot on this year’s list to #3. While the United States remains the world’s greatest economic, cultural, diplomatic, technological and military power, the same cannot be said about its president. His weak leadership earned him 50% in approval ratings domestically.

Under Obama, America is slowly but surely losing its influence globally, so much so that presidential candidate Donald Trump could easily get most of Americans to agree with him by simply attacking Obama administration. Obama, whom many regards as the worst president America has ever produced, has been outshined by Merkel in Europe and outmanoeuvred by Putin in the Middle East.

 

Pope Francis retained his place at number four from last year, ahead of Chinese leader Xi Jinping at number five, who fell two spots from last year. Bill Gates is at #6 while Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen and UK Prime Minister David Cameron take the #7 and #8 slot respectively. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is the ninth most powerful man. The tenth place goes to Google’s Larry Page.

There are only 73 slots on Forbes’ list – one for every 100 million people on the planet. To make it to the list, it depends on many factors such as the amount of money they control, the number of people they impact, their total spheres of influence, and how actively they wield their power. Nine out of 73 are women while 28 (38%) of them are billionaires so money matters.

 

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November 5th, 2015 by financetwitter

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