The top 10 most powerful people

8. Ben Bernanke, Chairman (Federal Reserve)
Some argue Fed's influence is at all-time high, given size of its burgeoning balance sheet ($2.3 trillion) relative to the underlying economy ($14.3 trillion). But Bernanke's options have waned since peak of the financial crisis. He now has essentially only one arrow left in his financial quiver: quantitative easing--in layman's terms, "printing money." He last employed the technique in 2008 and is widely expected to repeat the move this month. At least he's honest: "The US government has a technology, called a printing press, that allows it to produce as many US dollars as it wishes at essentially no cost."
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Some argue Fed's influence is at all-time high, given size of its burgeoning balance sheet ($2.3 trillion) relative to the underlying economy ($14.3 trillion). But Bernanke's options have waned since peak of the financial crisis. He now has essentially only one arrow left in his financial quiver: quantitative easing--in layman's terms, "printing money." He last employed the technique in 2008 and is widely expected to repeat the move this month. At least he's honest: "The US government has a technology, called a printing press, that allows it to produce as many US dollars as it wishes at essentially no cost."