| Morning Joe just popped out with an MSNBC poll rating the ten most influential people in the 21st Century: 10. Colin Powell, 9. Rush Limbaugh, 8. Ted Kennedy 7. Allan Greenspan 6. Hillary Clinton, 5. Bill Gates 4. Bill Clinton 3. Oprah 2. GW Bush 1. Barak Obama.
First, it's hard to believe that 2010 is over and we're.....er?.....11 years into the 21st century.
My rankings would be considerably different. Absolutely, positively the two people who influenced the last decade are Osama bin Laden and GW Bush. Both in dubious ways.
OBL completely changed our lives in America and the free world by "leading" the 9/11 attack. It lead to a complete transition from one the more free democracies in the west to the virtual police state that we live in today. He also duped our country into the longest war in our history, the Afghan Occupation.
The author of all this policy was, or course, GW Bush (but let's not forget the evil accomplice Darth Cheney). Bush also made the economic "policy" changes that led to the Great Recession and started two foreign wars. I'm thinking hard to find his best accomlishment: It would have to be "plan D" precscription drug coverage for seniors. So, I'll make him #1 and OBL #2.
I think that the third most influential person #3 is Steve Jobs. He transformed cell phone communications into an electronic human interface that links billions of people together. The CP became the iPhone became the iPod became the iTouch. This has changed the internet into the humannet that is no longer software based or even web site based, but now "app based". Those apps and interactive web sites (e.g.Facebook) have decreased the degrees of separation between individual to one or two.
I would rank Alan Greenspan #4. Has head of the Federal Reserve Bank from 1987 to 2006, how could we not? Clearly, he influenced the prosperity of the'90s and the Great Recession that followed. Although SEC Chair Chris Cox can shoulder some of the blame too.
Bill Clinton at #5 is certainly one of the most influential, clearly because some of his policy changes allowed much of the prosperity and led the tech boom. However, Clinton's signature on recall of Glass-Steagall also led to the derivative boom that underpinned the housing boom and the Wall Street collapse. Clinton's political contributions are also huge i.e contributing (plus and minus) to the election of Barak Obama and it was his VP, Al Gore who blew the 2000 election and allowed GW to become Prez.
I'm not all that big on figuring out 6-10, but certainly it would include some fothe following: Warren Buffett, Timothy Giethner, Rupert Murdoch, Darth Cheney, Carl (Turd Blossom) Rove, Bill Gates, Sadam Hussein, Tony Blair, Barak Obama, Tom Delay, David Petreus, Mark Zuckerberg, Oprah, Paul Krugman, Teddy Kennedy, Henry Paulson and Richard Fuld.
Note that Barak Obama hasn't been in office long enough to allow judgment of his impact. He will most certainly have a great impact on the next ten years. As will Sarah Pain, Mike Bloomberg, Chris Christie, Jerry Brown, Harry Reid, John Boehner, Hillary and Bill and Steve Jobs.
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