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Committee Lowers Nobel Prize Award

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the economics-of-the-prize dept.

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."

6 of 178 comments (clear)

  1. Forget it by ewg · · Score: 5, Funny

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

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  2. Much of a difference? by jbuk · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  3. They are irrelevant by roman_mir · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

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    1. Re:They are irrelevant by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

    2. Re:They are irrelevant by the+eric+conspiracy · · Score: 5, Informative

      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.

    3. Re:They are irrelevant by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      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.