Ben Bernanke is Time's `Person of the Year'

Time Magazine has named US Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke the `Person of the Year' for 2009 for helping to steer the US economy through its darkest days since the Great Depression.

Ben Shalom Bernanke, 56, a former professor with the Princeton University, is an expert on business cycles.

"He's Bailout Ben, the patron saint of Wall Street greedheads, or King Ben, the unelected czar of a fourth branch of government. He's soft on inflation, bombarding the country with easy money, or soft on unemployment, ignoring Main Street's cries for even more aggressive action," Michael Grunwald wrote in the Times.

"In 2009, Bernanke hurled unprecedented amounts of money into the banking system in unprecedented ways, while starting to lay the groundwork for the Fed's eventual return to normality. He helped oversee the financial stress tests that finally calmed the markets, while launching a groundbreaking public relations campaign to demystify the Fed. Now that Obama has decided to keep him in his job, he has become a lightning rod in an intense national debate over the Fed as it approaches its second century," Times wrote.

Bernanke guided the world's most important economy in its most difficult days, Times wrote, adding "His creative leadership helped ensure that 2009 was a period of weak recovery rather than catastrophic depression."

"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," it added. (Also see: Chapters yet to be written on the Bernanke legend)