SmartMoney's Power 30

Most of us know that when it comes to the economy, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke is an important player, and that when we ponder the next big thing on the Web, we need to watch the folks at Google. But few of us are keeping an eye on Sheila Bair and Herbert Allison Jr. Never heard of them? Bair, chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., has been in the thick of the battle to shore up America’s banks. Allison, the new CEO of Fannie Mae, has the unenviable job of fixing the mortgage giant.

As the U.S. sweats out one of its toughest financial periods in decades, Americans may wonder not only how we’ll get through it all, but also who will lead us. Wall Street’s crisis has already claimed some of the nation’s best-known financial companies, spooking investors around the globe. On Main Street consumers face a double whammy: declining portfolios and the steepest drop in home prices since the Great Depression. Each year we pick an elite group, names big and small, that will have an important impact on the economy, investments and other areas vital to your pocketbook. As always, people like Warren Buffett and Carl Icahn will play a big role. But so will Sheila Bair and Herbert Allison Jr.

Financial Services

Henry Paulson
Treasury Secretary
Paulson once said there was no “silver bullet” to solve the credit crisis and slumping economy. Then things got worse. So the Treasury secretary helped orchestrate the takeover of investment bank Bear Stearns and steered the government bailout of mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. He drew the line at rescuing investment bank Lehman Brothers, but proposed a massive bailout of the financial system, including a plan for the government to buy stakes in nine of the nation’s biggest financial institutions. Paulson’s moves will help shape the economy long after the next administration takes office, and his successor will have to pick up where he left off. “If Hank Paulson had his hands full, the next guy will be at least as busy,” says David Rosenberg, Merrill Lynch’s chief North American economist.

Jamie Dimon
CEO, JPMorgan Chase
JPMorgan’s well-heeled customers in New York finally have a convenient place to put their money when they spend their winters in Florida. The bank’s dramatic acquisition of the 2,200 branches of failing thrift Washington Mutual gives JPMorgan Chase more than 250 new outlets in Florida and another 700 in California—and customers Dimon has coveted. Unlike many of his competitors, Dimon, 52, entered the financial crisis with one of the healthiest balance sheets in the business. JPMorgan’s financial muscle enabled the tough-talking CEO to swoop in last spring to acquire investment bank Bear Stearns, for what many see as the bargain price of $1.2 billion. Now former customers of Washington Mutual can expect to see JPMorgan Chase roll out a host of new banking and investment products.

Meredith Whitney
Financial-Services Analyst, Oppenheimer
Bank executives and investors were in denial mode last October, when Whitney predicted that Citigroup would have to shore up its finances by either cutting its dividend, raising capital or selling assets. But then Citigroup stock promptly tanked, CEO Charles Prince lost his job, and the financial-services giant was forced to take all three of those steps. Although Whitney has made her share of mistakes (she was too bearish on Wells Fargo’s performance), her biggest influence now may be in cautioning investors who want to return to financial stocks too soon. She does, however, like the preferred shares of certain banks: JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Wells Fargo.

Ben Bernanke
Chairman, Federal Reserve Board
Bernanke, 54, has made eight interest-rate cuts to help stimulate the economy. He’s also joined Treasury Secretary Paulson in presiding over the biggest restructuring of the U.S. financial system since the Great Depression. The success or failure of the historic moves won’t be known for some time, but no one can accuse Bernanke of standing idly by. “We well not stand down,” he said in an op-ed essay in The Wall Street Journal, “until we have achieved our goals of repairing and reforming our financial system, and thereby restoring prosperity to our economy.”

Technology

Investment Bloggers
Wall Street has always functioned like a giant chat room—the Internet just made it official, says Paul Kedrosky, 42, who writes the blog Infectious Greed. He and other bloggers make their voices heard with sharp analysis that’s sometimes missing from the rest of the media. Plus, they get to curse and go on tangents. “If I had to do nonfarm payrolls, blah, blah, blah, my head would explode,” says Barry Ritholtz, 47, of the blog The Big Picture.

Kedrosky says traffic on his blog has nearly doubled in the past year, to 210,000 unique visitors a month. And BloggingStocks, one of the most popular financial blogs, has seen traffic grow 36 percent since last year. As the credit crisis continues to pound the economy, they’ll have plenty of fodder in the months to come.