It's Time "Person of the Year" Time (Big Ben)

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That's right, Time's person of the year for 2009 is Ben Bernanke, the "mild-mannered man who runs the Federal Reserve and prevented an economic catastrophe." Bernanke, whom Time describes as "a technocrat in an ink-stained shirt and an off-the-rack suit," was selected in part because he hurled unprecedented amounts of cash into the banking system, and in part because the tenuous spot on which the American economy sits could have been far, far worse. However, that's not the whole story. From the great (and long) article:

...the main reason Ben Shalom Bernanke is TIME's Person of the Year for 2009 is that he is the most important player guiding the world's most important economy. His creative leadership helped ensure that 2009 was a period of weak recovery rather than catastrophic depression, and he still wields unrivaled power over our money, our jobs, our savings and our national future. The decisions he has made, and those he has yet to make, will shape the path of our prosperity, the direction of our politics and our relationship to the world.

If nothing else, he's a much more interesting choice than you would be.