Time names Barack Obama the "Person of the Year."
Apparently the voting was closed before Bernie Madoff took center stage. But don’t worry, Time isn’t ignoring the swindler. It has this first-person piece by a man named Robert Chew titled "How I Got Screwed by Bernie Madoff":
I think everyone knew the call would come one day. We all hoped, but we knew deep down it was too good to be true, right? I mean, why wasn’t everyone in on this game if it was so strong and steady? We deluded ourselves into thinking we were all smarter than the others. When it came to the investment game, we had it figured. And what was the game anyway? The way it was vaguely described to us was that the ‘New York people’ had a system whereby they placed a series of instant trades — at once with futures, currencies and stocks — and out of this magic recipe fell a tiny 1% guaranteed, no-risk profit for the group. You do that 20 times a year, take away management fees and, voilà, a steady 15% return. Man, these guys were good.
