Forbes Releases Its List of The Most Powerful People In The World

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If you had to guess as to who is the most powerful person in the world, who would you choose?

I think that many people would automatically choose the current President of the United States, Barack Obama. After all, the United States is the most powerful nation in the world, so it would make sense, right?

If you think that President Barack Obama is the most powerful person in the world, then Forbes Magazine disagrees with you.

Forbes Magazine listed Hu Jintao (President of the People's Republic of China) as the world's most powerful person earlier this week, with Barack Obama coming in at the #2 position.

Forbes points to the following reasons why they think that Hu Jintao is more powerful than Obama:

-exercises "near dictatorial control" over 1.3 billion people and has much more outright authority and power than Barack Obama does in the United States

-controls the world's largest army (by size)

-China oversees the world's largest reserves, of which a good portion is in US dollar holdings

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As a matter of fact, China had a number of people appear on the list:

#11 Zhou Xiaochuan, People's Bank of China
#30 Lou Jiwei, China Investment Corporation
#32 Li Changchun, People's Republic of China
#62 Wang Wong, SASAC

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According to Forbes, the top five most powerful person in the world are:

1. Hu Jintao
2. Barack Obama
3. Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz al Saud
4. Vladimir Putin
5. Pope Benedict XVI

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The world is changing before our very eyes - who would have ever thought that the president of the United States would be anything but #1?

Source: Forbes.com - World's Most Powerful People