Compared to the other people who were on this list, Obama did not deserved 3rd place. I guess 2008 hype is still banging in your ears.

As usual, FP's list of 100 Global Thinkers is just a list of global leftist thinkers with a few neo-liberals and Muslims thrown in there for diversity.

If by global thinkers you mean bland techocrats who are barely sentient and haven't done anything interesting then yeah I get it (I don't mean all of course)

Otherwise where is Chomsky? Where is Tariq Ali?

this man is anything but a thinker.

Let's be serious. How about some thinkers who think differently from the Editors, apart from the token inclusion of Ron Paul? How can you not include Paul Ryan? Or Geert Wilders? Would Obama still make the top 100 without his teleprompter?

Good choices -Buffett, Gates, Merkel, Lagarde and Clinton (Hillary) for insight, intelligence, strength and high-caliber personal images they project.

Why Petraeus at such a high ranking? His admitting that the U.S. should leave Afghanistan in 2011 and taking action toward that means would show an improvement in his strategies. His hoodwinking an inexperienced president doesn't say much for his abilities. And why would Mrs. Petraeus ever answer her cell phone if she thinks her self-absorbed husband is calling? She needs to go out and have some fun while commander daddy's away.

Possibly the list makers could explain why the Finnish president Tarja Halonen has been put on the list?

I am a Finn and I follow carefully the politics. I have never seen Ms. Halonen would do something important or would be an important woman. She has been active only sexual questions.

The best what will happen in little over one year is that she will not any more be a president of Finland.

Without doubt the best idea of 2010. It has been called the human face from capitalism.

There are other Finnish well known people who can think and even have thought matters, such like professor Esa Saarinen or ex. president, "peace maker" Martti Ahtisaari. But never Ms. Halonen.

The beginning of your list is interesting. Mr. Gates and Mr. Buffet have really made a great matter, a very human matter. We can consider it means they are global thinkers. Anyway we can respect them and they work.

Fabulous factual article. Of course the knuckle heads that can't fathom facts will spew their ridiculous media/republican meme non factual comments. Just because you can repeat lies over and over again does not make it facts

Sorry to bust your bubble folks but President Obama is better than you or any of the people you praise. God bless him .

BHO couldn't find his ego without a teleprompter. Does FP realize what this does to their credibility...

Zak

Methinks you made a big typo. Surely you meant the 100 top Global Stinkers? A gilded tongue doth not make a golden mind.

Not even one RUSSIAN included ???????????????

Such fact tells everything about author and his real intentions in composing this " list ".

Anglo-Saxons, Anglo-Saxons, ccc You will never change :)

Have all of you nice travel into your countries’ unstoppable economic bankruptcies.

Why should there be a Russian? Ms. Halonen is so much a Russian as needed. She does not look at Finland's rights, but Russia's benefits. She is quite useless president and has never showed to be a thinker.

While there are some very legitimate consevative thinker out there, the folks complaining about their inclusion this on these posts probably consider Glen Beck and Rush Limbaugh to be thinkers. Says volumes about the wave of anti-intellectualism currently sweeping the U.S. (you won't see Sarah Palin on this list). This is a list of global thinkers, and many other regions of the world are clearly moving beyond the influence of the U.S.

Are you sure you have considered the Greek Prime Minister as one of the "Great Thinkers" , his father once said that if he ever had a job in an official capacity he will destroy Greece.
I would love to know what Criteria did you use for your choice, you have certainly for the first time created an uproar and disappointment for millions of Greeks
We are normally very proud of our country but this time your choice was an insult

Its extremely difficult to select world thinkers. Was Einstein a thinker? Or Leonardo da Vinci? Is there any such thinkers? Or do we not know them?

I think practically all the politicians are no thinkers. Possibly the name of the list is wrong?

I could not help but laugh when I saw Papandreou, Cameron, and Bolton listed as great global thinkers. The absence of great rightwing thinkers in the USA is not surprising to any rational person, the Tea Party has been a source of much amusement for the rest of the world. But is a signal that the time of US control of the world is ending, whether for good or bad, this judgement depends on the individuals concerned and their beliefs and agendas.
The blatant bias towards the English-speaking world is just plain ridiculous, even as a monolingual English speaker (although being Scottish some might dispute that). I cannot believe that more than one half of the worlds top thinkers are US americans. I have friends that are much more intelligent than some of the people on this list, and definitely far better thinkers.
The grotesque absence of many scientists, and the skew towards economists (who we all know are brilliant beyond us mere mortals!!!!) makes the list very suspect.

Those who made the list do not seem to be good thinkers,

___If Ms Dilma Rousseff was a terrorist in the sixties, assolted banks robering houses of prominent politically important people, She was encharged of manufacturing house bombs, molotofs and one of that bombs manufactured by Dr Dilma Rousseff Expert in terrorism killed one souldier of the Braxilian police and kidnaped the American Embassador in Brazil, and thaking these considerations I have to ask! Many prominent people with all becground have had theyr vizas to enter the U.S.A negleted. And if Ms Dilma Rousseff did kidnapped the American Embassador in Brazil to bargain with his life, how can the United States of America give a viza to a terrorist that kidnaped the American Embassador in Brazil??? How can that hapens??? I hope the republicam party pronunciate about it, because the democrats are wimps!!! O hope her viza will be negleted by the American imigration department.

Dear FP

It would be better, before you add someone in the list, firstly to make an investigation to who-is-who and not just by reading the Headlines.

PM G.A.Papandreou maybe had wins few votes more nearly 18% of the voters, but that you dont know is that he controls the 90% of Mass Media, something like Berluskoni in Italy. So it is almost impossible, for any other opinion, other than governance to be heard.

To explain my title "looser" please read the followings.

1. Becomes PM and the previous goverments delivers to him the spreads 130 in now there are almost 1000 !

2. The debt of Greece is almosto 300 billion Euros. And what is he doing firstly? He cut down the very low pensions and payment of social officials and saves only 1 bil/year only! Hoora! He led thousand of people to poverty to go from 300 to 299! What a thinker!

3. The cut down of wages is leading to depresion and the Bankruptcies goes up in 2010 44% from 2009's! What is he thinking?

4. What he thoughts next? To raise taxes!
a. 25/3/2010 he raise taxes from 13% to 15% and from 19% to 21%. The
incomes of the state collapses. FAILED!
b. 1/7/2010 he raises again the taxes 15% to 16% and from 2% to 23%. A bigger failure! FAILED!
c. He raise up the taxes in fuels, another failure to increase taxes incomes! FAILED
I wonder if Harvard or Yeal is good institutes at all! Is it possible from anyone to know that if you reduse someones income and increase prices, nobody buys? If he was an financial advisor in Coca Cola and he increases the Colas price 50% and nobobys buying, wouldn't he be fired?

5. He said that despite the above failures the loss (incomes to expenses) would fall from 13% to 8% and today is only 11%. They even add more expenses 2009 to excuse their failure. FAILED.

6. They tax more companies to collect money, because of thei failure! As a result they predict depresion 1-2% and now is 3-4%! FAILED

7. They predict inflation almost 3% and now is 5.8% and raising! FAILED.

8. The unemployment will be increasing to 12% this year, and to 14%-16% next year! Who's going to buy anything in 2011 to move the real economy? FAILED!

9. As I said above the debt of Greece is 300 bill Euros. Before the elections of 2014 will be 480 bill Euros ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! FAILED!

10. The above 480 bill Euros must be returned until 2021! Didn't they learn math in US Colleges? The incomes of Greece are 50-55 billions/year how is it possible to return 480 bill/ 7 years = 68.57 billions/year cash! Kinderkarden MATH! FAILED!

11.All the financial investments in Greece were either canceled or aborted! he even canceled oil pipes project! I suppose Arabs or Russia who sell oil are jerks! FAIILED!

Please recosinder again your top 100 catalogues! It is not a shopping list.

Th

take it for granted that FP engaged the world seriously. This list shocks me to my senses.

"Global", hell yeah. But "Thinker"? This has to be the Joke of the Year.

P.S. I'm Greek

I watched Susan Glasser, Editor in Chief of the magazine, on C-Span taking about Chairman, Berkshire Hathaway | Omaha, Neb. ,which in my opinion is a crook and ought to be in jail and Co-chair, Bill and Melinda Gates| Seattle. Glasser talked about all the money that these dudes are giving away and how great it was in the way of changing the world. Yet not mentioned was the fact that the reason Hathaway pays so little tax is that his donated money is all tax deductible. If he paid taxes on the money given away, let's see how much he would give way. Give me a break, these dudes would do the economies more good by paying their workers more. It's about control Glasser.
From a Republic of Vietnam Disabled Combat Veteran that's seen American foreign policy up close and it's NOT good.

-George A. Papandreou, the insightful politician, who first acknowledged that there was a global financial crisis in October 2009, about a year *after* everybody else on the planet.

-George A. Papandreou, the man of action, who spent his first eight months in office procrastinating and doing absolutely nothing to avert fiscal disaster (But wait; he *was* doing something. He was... thinking!).

-George A. Papandreou, the man with the plan, whose idea of austerity was not to curb government OVERspending, but rather to impose indiscriminate salary cuts across the board, hurting worst those most in need i.e. low-income employees and pensioners.

-George A. Papandreou, the champion of global financial reform, who posed as a vocal polemicist against market speculators abroad, while at the same time his administration passed regulations that actually *encouraged* speculation against Greek bonds back home.

-George A. Papandreou, the man with a sense of pride, who - in what I believe to be a global first for a country leader - embarked on an unprecedented campaign of defamation against his own country and his fellow citizens, collectively stigmatizing Greeks as a corrupt and fraudulent people in pretty much every interview and speech he has given abroad this past year.

-George A. Papandreou, the "white knight" of virtuous governance, who promises to fight nepotism and corruption. Of course he conveniently forgets that he has repeatedly held key offices in the cabinets of his "former socialist PM" father (Nope! No nepotism there, mate!) in administrations which have gone down as some of the most corrupt over the last 30 years in Greece's history. Which begs the question: How can you be part of the solution, if you are already - and have been for some time - part of the problem?

-George A. Papandreou, the man who single-handedly turned Greece into a battering ram against the cohesion of the Eurozone and the common currency.

And more importantly:
-George A. Papandreou, the man who took over a sovereign country and turned it into a protectorate of the IMF.

Frankly, with achievements like these under his belt, I am surprised that George Papandreou didn't make it to the top spot of your 'thinkers' list!!!

Are you joking? George A. Papandreou is the Forest GA(M)P of Greece!
Ok, we undersand that you have to promote every single American citizen, such as Papandreou, but...enough is enough...!

Thinking about the title, it came into my mind the Faith No More's album with the title "King for a Day/Fool for a Lifetime" .

I couldn't find better descreption for our PM G.A.Papandreou.

Since his father Andreas Papandreou was a PM of Greece (my family was followers of his father's Political Party), he is preparing himself to be a PM for 20 years! He is in Parliament since 1981! Almost his whole life!

His father firstly made him vice Minister of Coulture, after Minster of Education, after Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and so on!

He is training himself to be someday a PM!

And when he finaly achieves his dream, this kid from Minesota, by becoming PM of the the Greek, turns to be the world's TOTAL FAILURE!

No need to explain to you the meaning "GREEK STATISTICS". You heard them 24/7 in the headline news!

He received a rich country with problems with debt but for 2-3 years issue and a debt approx.368 biilion $ and he will deliver a devastated state, like Ethiopia with approx.500 billion $ and starving population until 2060!

I believe that you should put him in #1 thinker.

He help all others (banks, hostile countries) but his own nation!.

To do thatm it needs more than a thinking!

Sir,
Being a diplomat you should know the exact date of Turkey's declaration of the War against the Nazis in WWII. That was prerequisite to become a member of the UN. My information is that Turkey has never declared the war against the axis forces because as a evasive neutral managed to become a UN member without doing it.

Never was so much owed by so many to so few was a wartime speech made by the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill on 20 August 1940. The name stems from the specific line in the speech, Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few, referring to the ongoing efforts of the Royal Air Force pilots who were at the time fighting the Battle of Britain, the pivotal air battle with the German Luftwaffe with Britain expecting a German invasion. With the battle won a few months later and German plans postponed, the Allied airmen of the battle ultimately became known as "The Few".

Mr. Davutoglu, you state that you are a fan of Winston Churchill's sayings. The above has been told by him, when your country was playing diligently the role of the evasive neutral during the WWII and she was fully aligned with German axis forces. I am curious to know where and when the Turkish pilots were fighing the then days, Were they operating in accordance with the Strategic Depth of the Free World? or were they flying under Luftwaffe's command and control promoting thus nazism's criminal interestings.

Well,I'am from China.

I think you chose him as one of a hundred large global thought, even to such a front ranking the first 16-bit, it did very well. But now, the PRC government departments, does not recognize the teacher Liu Xiaobo, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2010, he was still being in prison and blocked the majority of the media have about him. December 10 is the date at the awards ceremony, and to be associated, and the champion of democracy who has been limited to the country.A word to say: Government departments are all ways to stop him through the relationship between the people to attend the awards, the Government does not want people to know things about him too much.

In China, the network is controlled by the government, there was a saying that "China has no internet, only LAN", and all bad news for the government are being deleted and blocked. You may not believe that, in the Chinese search the name of Liu Xiaobo, and he really can not find any relevant information. About the Nobel Peace Prize in 2010 the news, any news reports of Mr. Liu Xiaobo site pages, all network information by government departments forced to close, unable to see the details.

The only pages that can be opened, only one minor celebrity in China, the so-called academia academic organization "Utopia" site. This site has been able through the review, to maintain their wild nature of Mao Zedong, the Cultural Revolution of the ultra-conservative identity is not unrelated to the organization. It is for this academic organizations strongly defend the Communist Party, the deification of Mao Zedong, or even recognition of their great fault, so its ridiculous remarks - "Why is the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize is not awarded to Osama bin Laden", to appear in the search results page the top.

It sounds ridiculous, but the truth is. This time on your evaluation of Mr. Liu Xiaobo, the domestic news media, no one mentioned. They are all talk at length about - about Zhou Xiaochuan, the writer Han Han, Zheng, Fan Gang, Hu's everything, but still being willing to overlook the existence of prison champion of democracy. This is even we have outraged the Chinese people themselves: the law did not deprive Mr. Liu Xiaobo of the Chinese nationality. He is still a legitimate Chinese citizen, he is for democracy in China, the suffering of the progress of freedom of speech, but those who fully obey the command of the stupid government news media, puts him out of the "Chinese" away!

In fact, in China, many people do not know of Liu Xiaobo and 08 Democratic Charter, and the Nobel Peace Prize award, although the relevant reports of the Chinese people will not know through normal channels, but your magazine on the hundred largest global thinkers selection, has torn a crack - because this news, the China News Weekly published in its official website, although the micro-blog, were forcibly removed, but we believe that the truth was seen by people as long as it will through the rule who do not want to see all the way to spread out. The truth will be known by people.

When you have money, you have clout.

The only innovative thinker on this list is Celso Amorim.

The rest are completely conventional in their thinking, including many who firmly believe that the middle class should pay for the mistakes of super-rich bankers and the poor should be ignored.

Bah!

And Ron Paul...seriously...he is a genuine fool

I thought that overall the list was put together fairly well. However, for the most part, the listed "thinkers" were considered for their contributions to political and economic thought only. There are a few academics and scientists along the way, but I feel there is a latent assumption within this list that the thoughts that really matter are thoughts about power and money.

And in the secular West, maybe that works. But if you want to understand how the vast majority of the world works, you can't ignore religion. If you notice, even the religious leaders and scholars that made the list, made it becasue of politcal contributions, not their thoughts about their religion.

Religious thinkers matter.

I understand, that this statement might draw ridicule. I realize that thoughts about God are no longer in intellectual vogue. But to say, or even assume, that religion doens't play a role intellectual thought is a materialistic pipe-dream. Likewise, to assume like Mr. Hitchens (who did make this list) that religious thought only "poisons everything" is simplistic and reductionist.

We need to look at Christian thinkers like Timothy Keller, Francis C. Collins, and N.T. Wright. Go ahead, "google" them if you don't recognize their names. We need to know what Muslim thinkers think about Islam. We need to know what Confucian thinkers are thinking about Confucius in the 21st century. And take a look at a secular religious scholar like Boston University's Stephen Prothero (author of Religious Literacy and God Is Not One) while you're at it. These thinkers matter. They are adding to a conversation that matters profoundly.

Power and money are important; there's no doubting that. But if you want to understand geo-political thought in three dimensions and not two, you need to put God into the mix.

George Papandreou is 79th ?? Come people he is certainly not a thinker but a doer...he does exactly as told by his European and American "friends". He is just a very effective pawn ... !!

Let me first say that I thought this was a "People" 10 most beautiful or Barbara Walters' 10 most fascinating people. Please, stop with the lists.

I was born in Brazil and lived there for most part of my adult life. Today I am a proud American living in the US.

Brazil today is harvesting the efforts of previous governments and is sailing on a very good economy (sponsored in part by US fall). That gives its population and the world a sense of wonder.

The truth is: Celso Amorim is the mastermind of a huge PR campaign created to transform Brazil's image, a real PR firm is promoting the country. In essence almost nothing has changed. Brazil is like the nouveau rich who's buying a house in the Hamptons and desperately wants to be accepted in the high society.

Besides a self promoting campaign, Brazil, through its President Lula, never fails to bash the US, the evil of all evils according to the President's ideology. Lula, an egomaniac who's proud of not having had an education and becoming President. Sad thing, he advocates it, education is not a priority.

Brazil bad mouths the developed nations in trying to grow stronger and better than they are. It's putting great nations down in order to grow in importance instead of developing itself to their levels.

Brazil's image is of Dr Jekyll but its reality is Mr Hyde.

Yet again, I find the western world fascinated by the communism of china. Awarding the nobel award to Liu XiaoBo is a way westerners are trying to tell China what it is doing is apparently wrong. Unfortunately the fact is that if China loses it's communism it will probably turn into something similar to the separation of the Soviet Union. So China really has no choice.

What kind of thinkers list is this if it includes G.A.P. (G.A. Papandreou)?????
Are you serious?????
G.A.P., from the very first moment that he became a prime minister, 1 year ago, has globally discredited our country and Greek citizens, he caused Greek spreads explosion, he denied low-interest loans from Russia and China and sold out every singe greek property, together with our cultural heritage and our mineral resources to the IMF and the Globalists.
If treason equals thinking for you , then, yes he may be considered a thinker.
For normal people though, Papandreou is not a thinker, but a National Criminal, the biggest Traitor ever passed from Greece.
This list is a shame.

States capabilities to feed the needy is on dwindle now its time for supremepowered individuals to come forward and feed the hungry millions.

These two billionaires are a lot smarter than we think, I mean its no just anyone that can get to the $50ish billion mark. They do great things for society an help improve the world e live in. When Buffett gave 99% of his assets away it showed how much he valued life over money. Money is not as important as it is to some. website value

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Finally someone says it out loud - many of this "thinkers" especially the economists, are more often wrong than right, and never called out for it. Case in point Roubini - he never calls the bull markets??!!

Dan Gardner: The world’s top 100 thinkers cement their record of failure

http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2010/12/29/dan-gardner-the-worlds-top-100-thinkers-cement-their-record-of-failure/

Criminally ignored, but the school of World Systems Analysis which Wallerstein pioneered at the Fernand Braudel Centre provides one of the most powerful and far-reaching critical analyses of Capitalism and its chaotic, crisis-ridden and turbulent nature.

Unlike the mathematical myopia of much of “mainstream” economics, World Systems Analysis is historical, international and socio-political in nature.

The test of such theories lies in their *predictive* power. As a quick example, compare the two following works.

In 1998 Andre Gunder Frank published ReOrient: Global Economy in the Asian Age. This book predicted the rise of both China and India based upon their respective histories and positions in the global political economy as examined from the historical standpoint of several centuries.

In the same year of 1998, David Landes published what some reviewers proudly described as the “politically incorrect” work of neo-liberal boosterism, namely his The Wealth and Poverty of Nations. Whilst pretending to be historical, Landes’ book was essentialist to the point of borderline racist in nature. (Landes didn’t even distinguish the Capitalist period from the pre-Capitalist period.) Armed with his supremacist nature, Landes was completely unable, even in his wildest dreams or nightmares, to conceive that the US economy could EVER possibly decline, nor that the IMF prescriptions of the Washington Consensus could ever produce the disasters that they did.

From the standpoint of 2010/2011 Landes has now been shown to be quite, quite wrong!

See also Immanuel Wallerstein The Decline of American Power, published in 2003 and compare the geo-political place of USA now in 2010/2011 and beyond.

Cassandra-like figures are often ignored at our peril.