Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein Named Financial Times Person Of The Year

Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein has been named Person of the Year by the Financial Times. The investment bank "not only navigated the 2008 global financial crisis better than others on Wall Street," the paper writes, "but is set to make record profits, and pay up to $23BN in bonuses to its 31,700 staff."

But while the FT may agree that Blankfein is doing "God's work," others view the bank as indicative of exactly what is wrong with Wall Street. Indeed, Blankfein himself apologized last month for Goldman Sachs' role in the financial crisis. And Goldman Sachs's trading practices are currently under investigation by the federal government.

In response to the FT's decision to honor Blankfein, noted bank analyst Christopher Whalen has canceled his subscription to the paper. "Mr. Blankfein and his colleagues at Goldman Sachs, in my view, have done more to damage the reputations of global financial professionals than any other organization in 2009, yet you applaud them," he wrote in a letter to the paper. "Not only is your suggestion ridiculous and repugnant, but it illustrates to me the fact that the FT is part of the problem in global finance, not as one would hope and expect, part of the solution."