Monday, October 13, 2008

Paul Krugman Wins "Nobel"

It warms my heart that one of the Bush administrations most unrelenting critics has won the "Nobel" Prize in Economoics. He has brought the only other intelligent voice to the Times' besides Bob Herbert.   Alternative history--to counter page 1's Miller's and Bumiller's--was being written as history happened.

Refreshing.

Of course, it's easy to kick the Republicans when they are down, but thanks anyway to the Swedish banking community.

You'll note that I didn't say the Nobel Foundation.  You see, the The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel is an invention of the extremely conservative Swedish banking community.  For years it was (and probably mostly still is) a mouthpiece of neoliberal policy à la Milton Friedman.  Ironically, Sweden suffered a horrible banking crash in the early 90's.  Ironic because Paul Krugman has been a great opponent of Greenspan's bubble and his allies in the White House, that is, Krugman opposed the Sweden-styled bubble that is now popping all over the U.S. and the world.

Having possibly learned their lesson, do the Swedes know something we don't?