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

Forget it

[ewg]

I was going to try winning one, but now? Forget 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

[identity0]

You forgot Peace. There is no strict requirement that the award be for science, and in the past they've awarded the scientific prizes for social policy stuff like wiping out smallpox.

Also, the other awards are given out by different groups as well, according to wiki:

"The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awards the Nobel Prize in Physics, the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, and the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. The Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet awards the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. The Swedish Academy grants the Nobel Prize in Literature. The Nobel Peace Prize is not awarded by a Swedish organisation but by the Norwegian Nobel Committee."

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.

Re:Forget it

[Sulphur]

A wooden spoon?

Due to budget issues, this year it's just a stick...

It started as a boomerang, but it failed its initial tests.

Re:Forget it

[siddesu]

Yours is a knee-jerk reaction to a sound and factual criticism. The "Peace Nobel" is a worthless PR exercise which only lowers the value of the original prizes. The "few others" make a pretty large group on the list, and the rest of the "right" people with the "important causes" have, at least since WWII, been mostly connected to whatever political fad was current the West at the time of the award.

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.

I lucked out

[million_monkeys]

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.

Re:I lucked out

[K. S. Kyosuke]

I think I'll wait til they raise the prize back up before unleashing my brilliance upon the world.

Sorry to break it to you, but removing your wig doesn't count, no matter how dazzling you think your head is.

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.

Re:They are irrelevant

[Anonymous Coward]

The economics "Nobel" is separately administrated, and not funded by the Nobel estate.

Re:They are irrelevant

[arth1]

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'.

Unlike the other prizes, the Nobel Peace Prize is not awarded by the Swedish Nobel institute, but by Norway.
In general, the Swedish prizes are awarded as a recognition for past work, while the Peace Price is just as often meant as an incentive.
So very different politics are at play.

Re:They are irrelevant

[SteveFoerster]

The Peace Prize is hit or miss. I just about gave up on it after they blew one on the worthless UN, but then they sucked me back in a little by giving it to Muhammad Yunus, someone who's actually praiseworthy. (Unlike Barack Obama, who's launched more cruise missiles than all other Nobel Peace Prize winners combined, although I realize that even among the committee that made the decision it was a controversial decision.)

Re:They are irrelevant

[million_monkeys]

The Peace Prize is hit or miss. I just about gave up on it after they blew one on the worthless UN, but then they sucked me back in a little by giving it to Muhammad Yunus, someone who's actually praiseworthy. (Unlike Barack Obama, who's launched more cruise missiles than all other Nobel Peace Prize winners combined, although I realize that even among the committee that made the decision it was a controversial decision.)

Those were Cruise Missiles for Peace. So that's completely different. It's like that old saying goes, "you got to spend money to make money". In this case you've got to kill people to save people.

Re:They are irrelevant

[camperslo]

Maybe those in economics should be given reward futures instead?

Re:They are irrelevant

[the eric conspiracy]

The so-called Nobel Prize in economics isn't really a Nobel prize like the one say in Chemistry. It's a prize started by the banksters running the Nobel foundation much later. The complete name is something like "The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel".

It's shenanigans.

Re:They are irrelevant

[Anonymous Coward]

I think that whole "We shot Bin Laden" speech would have been more effective if he'd delivered it with his peace-prize medal draped around his neck.

Should switch to the gold standard

[DSS11Q13]

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

Already tainted

[vuke69]

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

To republicans maybe

[Bananenrepublik]

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?

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:To republicans maybe

[Sir_Sri]

besides that, the Nobel is awarded for a specific piece of work in science or economics. It's not supposed to reward a long illustrious career, it's about a specific piece of work with lasting impact. Granted in physics especially it tends towards people with long illustrious careers.

Krugman happens to have had a good track record on economic theory. But just as easily he could be a complete trainwreck on macroeconomic theory but have very correctly described one specific phenomena. That would still warrant a nobel prize. http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economics/laureates/2008/krugman.html specifically lists what his prize is for.

I remember a few years ago UBC was looking to hire a nobel in physics. I don't know if they got him, but that's immaterial. His nobel was in some actual physics research, but everything he was doing at that point was about innovation in teaching physics.

You can write one ground breaking science paper, and then be a complete loon for the rest of your career, as long as that specific paper is sound you can still theoretically be considered.

Re:To republicans maybe

[roman_mir]

how Krugman's predictions on how the crisis would pan out have been so accurate if he doesn't understand any economics?

- Krugman couldn't see the crisis coming until he was already IN it, near the collapse, there (2005 and 2006) are people (2002) who predicted (2006) it and explained why it would happen in advance.

Krugman in fact WANTED a housing bubble, same as him wanting a fucking war with aliens actually, he believes destroying assets, counterfeiting money and creating bubbles is good for economics, he is a charlatan, not an economist. He is one of those 'economists' used to justify the policies of the gov't, regardless of the administration, they use him - he is 'main stream'.

Re:To republicans maybe

[roman_mir]

I just watched his stupid remarks in that clip: "it's very hard to get inflation in a depressed economy" - fucking retard.

Depressed economy with his recipe - counterfeit as much currency as possible and finance gov't spending that way (and taxes and borrowing, but print print print) - that's how you get inflation, that's what inflation is.

In the 70s USA was exactly in that situation for 10 years - huge inflation (gold going from 35 to 800 etc.) and a recession or depression, whatever the official definition spin is - the production capacity is falling so fast that people are losing jobs and even all the printing doesn't lower the wages fast enough to make it worthwhile keeping them employed.

What do you think 0 or negative interest rates are in relation to the employment? How do you think Federal reserve (with Krugman's ideology) is supposed to 'increase employment'? Do you KNOW HOW? Inflation - it means that the REAL WAGES ARE FALLING.

So the fucking gov't is printing money so that the real wages are falling, and that is what its fucking solution is - lower the wages of employees.

Well fuck me sideways, first they implement fucking retarded minimum wage laws and various welfare programs (and years of EI is also welfare) and then they want to keep people employed by lowering their real wages.

The people are not good at understanding that it's not the number on the dollar bill that counts, it is what it can buy, the equivalent purchasing power of that dollar is NOT stable, it depends on various things, but when gov't prints, it depends heavily on all that inflation, the purchasing power is destroyed by gov't.

Now, Krugman will tell you that gov't must hire and keep all sorts of people hired with all that FAKE money and taxes, and what does that do?

It doesn't allow the economy to restructure the debts it is in, that's first.

Second, it doesn't allow the economy to reduce the amount it's spending on gov't, and that amount has to be reduced. Gov't is a luxury, not an essential of some sort. The bigger the gov't the bigger the luxury, and somebody is PAYING for that luxury, and it's the productivity of the economy that is suffering.

Third, it steals purchasing power from the private sector, misallocates the resources to the public sector, and look at the trade deficits - record high trade deficits for 15 or 20 years now, right? What is it, 54 billion USD a month? That means that US economy is that unproductive, it consumes 54 Billion USD / month MORE than it produces. Why is that? Because:

Fourth, inflation destroys savings and savings are investment capital. Investment capital is destroyed by the inflation and investment capital leaves.

That's why the US is in this crisis today, it's because the dollar is fake, it's because in 1971 the dollar was defaulted on completely and since then everybody who had any savings and investment in production capacity moved their savings and investment in production capacity out of the country.

Krugman's solution? MORE OF THAT SAME THING THAT CAUSED THE DESTRUCTION IN THE FIRST PLACE.

Yeah, and if the bail out didn't work, in Krugman's world it means it wasn't big enough.

The 800 Billion USD of bail outs? Not big enough by Krugman. He wanted it to be another 2 or 3 hundred billion. As if that would have done the trick - fixing economy with fake money doesn't work, because fake money does not equal real investments.

Real investments cannot happen with fake money, because fake money is only good for gambling and not for productive capacity, because inflation is faster than any return on any real business. That's why the bubbles are inflated and burst, the next one is in dollars and bonds.

You won't hear that from Krugman. But if you listen to that clip, you'll hear that an alien invasion would be good, because it would create fake demand. He is for a war like spending.

Krugman believes that WWII was the key to ending the Great Depression, as if all that employment making bombs a

Re:To republicans maybe

[roman_mir]

CPI? You are serious, aren't you? CPI?

It's been a long time since 1970s, and they have redrawn the way they measure that pathetic index in so many ways, it is absolutely irrelevant. They are going to pass more measures this year to make it smaller, they are saying even now it 'overstates inflation'.

If inflation is measured the way they used to during Nixon, it would be anywhere between 11 and 15%, and it's been there for a couple of decades.

Of-course there are plenty of my comments, where I show simple examples of inflation based on commodity prices, I don't need to redo that, I can just link to one of them.

As to my world view - at least I have one and I base my decisions on my world view, that's how I do business, that's how I invest my money.

I stopped caring when...

[sdguero]

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

Seems appropriate

[argStyopa]

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.

Re:Seems appropriate

[Sir_Sri]

So you could have done for the discovery of the accelerating expansion of the Universe through observations of distant supernovae http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/2011/ and think it's only worth a dollar?

or:
for palladium-catalyzed cross couplings in organic synthesis http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/laureates/2010/

How about "for their non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women’s rights to full participation in peace-building work" http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2011/

maybe "for his long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China"." (http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2010/)

Maybe something so fundamentally pointless as "for the development of in vitro fertilization" http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/2010/

or how about something that no one would ever use like ", one half awarded to Charles Kuen Kao "for groundbreaking achievements concerning the transmission of light in fibers for optical communication", the other half jointly to Willard S. Boyle and George E. Smith "for the invention of an imaging semiconductor circuit – the CCD sensor"." http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/2009/

Because you know.. those achievements are low standards. Cutting the prize money is unlikely to matter much. By the time people get it they are either young enough that the real money is in speaking fees and in the huge salary boost they get, or old enough their estate planning is already done and adding more to it is giving money to their kids or charity.

When you develop a cure for aids, develop a quantum computer that can actually solve a meaningful problem, find a way to replace the government in north korea and china with ones that respect human rights, or lift a couple of billion people out of poverty, then you get to claim the nobel prize is worthless. Until then, you're talking out of your ass.

Gender equity

[icensnow]

They lowered it to 80% of its former value? A sure sign that they're planning to give them to women this year.

Comedy prize

[istartedi]

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.

Don't judge all the awards by the peace group

[Shivetya]

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

Re:Well, that's it, count me *OUT* Nobel Committee

[Chris Burke]

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.