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One Forbes List: A roll call of criminals, psychopaths and megalomaniacs

2016 has ended and there has been the inevitable list of the best of 2016 of this or that.     

The just published Forbes List of the Most Powerful People is another thing altogether.    It is truly shocking to think that those listed are as downright awful and the worst of humankind has to offer.....yet wield enormous power.     The Age newspaper in "Who's who list a roll call of criminals, psychopaths and megalomaniacs" provides the details.....

"It's that time of the year again. In an effort to celebrate or sum up, or maybe just expunge the events of a year that's just wound up, we've become obsessed with rankings. Top 10 Christmas hits, bestselling books, the most excruciating movie moments, the seven things we're doing to wreak havoc on our planet. This year, courtesy of US presidential election, we also have the top 20 fake news stories, the 10 steps for adjusting to a Trump presidency, and the best destinations for those that find they simply aren't able to make the necessary adjustments. The worst, the best, the sexiest, most beautiful or most influential.

Amid all this frivolity, though, is a list that's genuinely frightening – a troubling sign of what the world has become, or maybe just a grim reminder of what it's always been. Forbes magazine's "Most Powerful People": an index of 74 individuals – one for every 100 million people on the planet – "whose actions mean the most'', according to Forbes contributor David M. Ewalt. If the ratios are unnerving – the notion that the fates of so many could be determined by so few – then the line-up is downright Kafkaesque."


It's worth a look, though, at the close of a year that, according to one BBC broadcaster, "punched truth in the face", because the candidate right at the top is Russian president Vladimir Putin, who's not too busy denying his complicity in Syrian war crimes to plot the release of a cache of 19,000 emails hacked from Democratic National Convention, thereby clinching electoral victory for none other than N0. 2 on Forbes' list, US president-elect Donald Trump; a man whose disregard for the truth has become the pivotal theme of 2016."

Continue reading, here, to see who the other revolting people on the List are.  

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