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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."
I was going to try winning one, but now? Forget it!
org.slashdot.post.SignatureNotFoundException: ewg
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.
Good thing I didn't get selected for a Nobel Prize this year. I think I'll wait til they raise the prize back up before unleashing my brilliance upon the world. I do feel sorry for those suckers winning one now. They're getting screwed over. Just another data point that shows hard work is never the fastest way to riches.
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.
You can't handle the truth.
If you're a Nobel laureate at Berkeley, you know the Nobel parking permit is worth at least 2 million kronor.
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. --Will
Or vagina.
it would be less economically volatile to just give out a brick of gold with the award... or better yet, just make the medal out of gold, it would only weigh about 44 pounds
It's value was lowered by a lot more than that when Obama won it.
Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so. ~ Douglas Adams
Care to explain how Krugman's predictions on how the crisis would pan out have been so accurate if he doesn't understand any economics? Care also to explain where the inflation, long predicted by the likes of senator Paul and other epigones of Hayek, has been hiding?
As for the nobel peace prize awarded to Obama: that was political indeed, but how could the peace prize not be?
Obama got one for being elected President. Nobel hipsters can suck my balls.
They've lowered the standards over the last years, why not lower the award as well?
Of course, I think about $1 is where it's worth today.
-Styopa
... Peace, and Economics. Forget that what most people look for when they announce the prizes is to see who/what topic won the Physics and Chemistry prizes.
They lowered it to 80% of its former value? A sure sign that they're planning to give them to women this year.
They cut the current awards to fund a comedy prize. Sorry none of you guys joking about getting the other prizes made the cut. It's all mine, baby.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Nobel Committee Awards itself the Nobel Prize in Economics for their keen insight into the current world economic situation.
they became political far too long ago making a mockery of the prize.
The areas of hard science are still doing well, time will tell if they become as corrupted.
and yes, I too shook my head when President elect Obama received one, if anything it probably had the complete opposite effect those who rewarded wanted it too. As in, they are as connected to the opinion of the world as Washington DC is to the rest of America
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
The value of the Nobel prize has been deflating for several decades, which has resulted in (correlates with) an increase in wars and conflict. This latest cut could trigger a new set of skirmishes.
Gently reply
I'm totally doing that, but the new prize level isn't *nearly* low enough to count as being treated like a bitch, so I'm out.
The enemies of Democracy are
This absolutely kills the comeback that I used to use to the question: "if you're so smart, how come you ain't rich", to which I would say "when I win my Nobel, I will be". Now I can win a Nobel and not be rich. Very sad.
Ummm... how about instead of pegging the prize money at a set purse, they just set it to a simple formula such as "Amount of money we expect the principal to earn between now and the next time we award the prize." ?
Couldn't they just phone up one of the many Nobel Prize-winning mathematicians of the last couple of decades and ask them for help?
coding is life
Peace, Economics and Literature, too many omissions and subjective criteria.
BTW I find it funny to see how the scores of both your post and my first post jump up and down all the time. It appears there are a number of libertarians modding out of political motivation being barely held in check by more intelligent moderators. Just kidding with the interpretation, but the observation is funny nonetheless.
I'm not doing a bunch of groundbreaking work in physics to be treated like a bitch.
Please, no! The world needs a versatile quark!
If God forks the Universe every time you roll a die, he'd better have a damned good memory.
The Nobel Prize has lost all it's gravitas, since it gave one to Obama for NOTHING!
I killed da wabbit -Elmer Fudd
I like how non-Americans, living in privileged western countries, tend to think that the majority of Americans voted for Bush in the first place, and quickly rush to lump all Americans into a "batshit crazy" category over it.
Bush got ~51% of the vote in 2000. That's out of a roughly 50% voter turn-out. Which equates to around 1 in 4 Americans actually voting for the guy.
But we are the ignorant ones who don't understand how the world really works. And by works, I mean living in a society so buffered from the reality in poor countries that many deny the existence of limited resources, and do so with an air of moral superiority.
Decide that nobody really deserves the prize for economics this year.
... over the years, it's only fitting that they lower the amount of the prize as well.
Yasser Arafat won one. The man was a terrorist, who wanted Israel gone. Now while one can argue about the legitimacy and necessity of his cause and tactics, a man of peace he was not.
It was again a political BS thing of "Oh lets hand out a peace prize to those engaged in the superficial mid East peace talks because that'll totally convince them to be serious and stop killing each other."
Well screw it then, I'll go back to playing Starcraft II instead of curing cancer. Zerg kind of is a cancer anyway.
Oh wait, I already said the same thing when Obama won it.
... I'll just aim for an Ig Nobel Prize instead.