Committee Lowers Nobel Prize Award

Snirt writes "The Nobel Committee has chosen to lower this year's Nobel prize winnings by two million kronor ($283,030) due to turbulence in the current economic climate. The prize now stands at 8 million kronor, down from the 10 million of 2011. 'The reason behind this decision is that the financial markets are really unstable and there are reasons to suspect that this turbulence will continue for a while still,' said Lars Heikensten, head of the Nobel Committee, to the TT news agency. 'Long term, we aim to raise the figure, even though we think that the Nobel Prize's value should lie in the prize itself and not the prize money,' he said. While Heikensten admits that it was a 'tough decision' to cut the prize money, he told the news agency that it's not the first time the prize sum has been altered, adding that it has been lowered and raised several times over the past few years."

Comments

Much of a difference?

[jbuk]

Yes, they've cut it down to 80% of what it was before -- but the prize money will continue to fund the same scale of project as before, and people are not going to stop aiming for the award. It's still serving its purpose.

Re:Much of a difference?

[sam_handelman]

Nobel prizes aren't grants, they don't fund projects. The prize is cash money you get to keep yourself; although I think most people donate it to charity. Unfortunately, google is swamped with discussion of what Obama did with his, but Smoot donated his(http://phys.org/news93885786.html), which I understand to be typical.

They are irrelevant

[roman_mir]

They are completely irrelevant, at least to people who understand that this is all politics and nothing else. Obama has gotten his for 'peace' and Krugman has gotten his for 'economics'. More so called 'economists' have gotten theirs, with their only contributions being that they support the status quo. They insist that counterfeiting fiat currency supports the bubble economies (of-course that's not what they call it), and they see this as a positive and give governments the green light justifications to print and spend more money when in fact counterfeiting must stop and governments must shrink to fix the economies. You will never hear this from the 'economists' who get their Nobel prizes, not since Hayek has gotten his. Nobel prize is irrelevant, it's a political tool and nothing else.

Re:They are irrelevant

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed. Ever since Obama got his for Peace-In-Advance I've been skeptical. After 4 years of not doing shit and the Nobel Committee saying nothing of note they must condone his warlike actions as peace prize worthy.

Already tainted

[vuke69]

It's value was lowered by a lot more than that when Obama won it.

I stopped caring when...

[sdguero]

Obama got one for being elected President. Nobel hipsters can suck my balls.

Re:To republicans maybe

[Anonymous Coward]

Care also to explain where the inflation, long predicted by the likes of senator Paul and other epigones of Hayek, has been hiding?

Education, Gas, Corn... It's where the government puts the money after it prints it.

Re:Forget it

[Anonymous Coward]

Go for the Nobel peace prize. It's got a lower bar.

Re:Forget it

[siddesu]

There is no Nobel Prize in Economics, there is a similarly named award that is presented alongside the real Nobel Prizes. Also, there should not be one, as economics hardly qualifies as a science, and there is already a Nobel Prize for literature.

Re:Forget it

[siddesu]

The "Peace Nobel" is such a joke that it does not deserve any consideration. It has been awarded to terrorists, to heads of states that use terror as a matter of course and to organizations that ought to be protecting the peace, but fail or promote less honorable agendas.

It turned into a particularly sad joke after it was awarded in advance of any actual achievement.