Lehman Brothers are Time Person of the Year

New York, USA. Time magazine has announced Lehman Brothers as the Person of the Year in 2008 after the legendary investment bank, founded by the brothers, signaled the beginning of the global financial crisis. For the first time since the title began in 1927, Time Person of the Year has been given to a group of brothers.

Time Person of the Year is covered on the front page of the magazine’s special edition and is given to a man, woman, couple, group, idea, place, or machine that "for better or for worse, has done the most to influence the events of the year.”

It seems Lehman Brothers were categorized as either a group or an idea. Some people also suspect that they were categorized as a couple, as the cover page shows only two of the three brothers, but Faking News doesn’t subscribe to such views. Time magazine didn’t elaborate upon the categories.

In a closely contested race this year, Lehman Brothers edged ahead of other finalists, who included US president elect Barack Obama, Pakistani president Asif Ali Zardari, future US presidential hopeful Sarah Palin, Iraqi shoe-throwing journalist Zaidi, the common terrorized Indian, and the common American housing loan defaulter, the favorite of many to win the title.

Despite repeated requests by Faking News, it seems Indians didn’t vote for the common terrorized Indian, as it was the first finalist to fall out of the race. The Iraqi journalists was racing ahead but was declared ineligible by Time editorial group, causing protests from various quarters. The protests finally ended when Time editors promised to include Zaidi for next year’s title if he survives the criminal case.

The rest of the finalists i.e. Lehman Brothers, Obama, Palin, Zardari and the American defaulter were running neck to neck until supporters of Zardari started flirting with those of Palin. The volume of voting in favor of the two leaders came down drastically while volumes of comments went up. This shift in supporter behavior caused both of them to fall out of the race.

In the final round, Lehman Brothers had tough competition from American housing loan defaulter and US president elect Barack Obama, but a huge surge in international votes, i.e. non-American votes, helped the Lehman Brothers to win the Time Person of the Year title.