Nice guys do finish first sometimes.

"Paul Krugman, a professor at Princeton University and an Op-Ed columnist for The New York Times, was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science on Monday.

Mr. Krugman received the award for his work on international trade and economic geography. ..."

On his blog, The Conscience of a Liberal , he says:

"A funny thing happened to me this morning …"

Speech-acts don't impress me so much anymore. Nor do websites. Or rallies. Cucking Stool reminds us of the real cost of the continuation of the clusterfuck that is Iraq, and it's hefty:

Nobel Economics Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz and his co-author, Harvard professor Linda Bilmes, have estimated the total cost of the war, just to the United States, to be three to four trillion dollars. The rest of the world will pay similar amount. They wrote a book called The Three Trillion Dollar War, but that estimate is apparently out of date, although the book just came out:

All of the war-price tallies include operations in the war zone, support for troops, repair or replacement of equipment, reservists’ salaries, special combat pay for regular forces and some care for wounded veterans — expenses that typically fall outside the regular Defense Department or Veterans Affairs budgets.

The highest estimates often include projections for future operations, long-term health care and disability costs for veterans, a portion of the regular, annual defense budget, and, in some cases, wider economic effects, including a percentage of higher oil prices and the impact of raising the national debt to cover increased war spending.

The debate raging on Capitol Hill, on the presidential campaign trail, in research institutes and in academia touches on such esoteric factors as the right inflation index for veterans’ health care costs; the monetary value of nearly 4,000 soldiers killed; and what role, if any, the war has had in higher oil prices.

Some economists who track the war expenses say they worry that politicians are making mistakes similar to those made in 2002, by failing to fully come to grips with the short- and long-term financial costs.

“The relevant question now is: what do we do now going forward? Because we can’t do anything about the costs that have already happened,” said Scott Wallsten, an economist and vice president of research with iGrowthGlobal, a Washington research institute. “We still don’t hear people talking about that.”

In discussions about the economy, the elephant - boy, is that an apt metaphor - in the room is the war. The national debt has soared, as has the price of oil, and the dollar has plunged. The Fed keeps throwing "liquidity" on the fire; it seems to help for a little while - at least in terms of buoying the stock market - but only for a little while. As the Fed accepts dodgey-er and dodgey-er debt as collateral, the prospect that the taxpayer is going to foot the bill becomes more and more inevitable.

Privatize the profits and socialize the losses!

I was out at the grocery store today. I shop for others, so I have to go down aisles that have things I would never buy for myself; candy and cookie and potato chip and meat sections. There I often see people different than me, and it pains me to see how many sick and obviously economically distressed people exercise the most foolish of the consumerist impulses with what little money they have. But in the produce section, I saw a thing I've not seen in a while. Two aspects of it made my hamsters frollick.

You know the 'day old' displays or racks? Those foodstuffs that are on the verge of being tossed away (or, donated to shelters, if it's a better store) by the seller? I mean deeply discounted food that doesn't look so good, and you probably shouldn't eat unless you eat it that day, cooked thoroughly, perhaps masked with a little heavy spice or other strongly flavored foods. Normally, those racks are pushed off to the side, they don't compete with "top shelf" displays of more expensive, fresher/better/prettier food. Today, it was out, not exactly in the center of the produce area, but Right There in your face. Not next to the loading dock walk-out door, like I've seen before.

Further, the food on the rack looked...really gnarly.

If you didn't see this coming, I have no idea where your head has been stuck up for the last few years. I guess Great Economic Minds and corporate types just don't mingle enough with us Po Folk. Too bad they supported Republican policies that killed the middle class golden consumerist goose:

By Martinne Geller

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. chain stores, reeling from the slowest holiday shopping season in five years, got some more bad news on Sunday: 2008 will not be any better and could see changes that may shift the retail playing field forever.

As the National Retail Federation kicked off its annual convention in New York, two retail consultants offered negative outlooks for the U.S. retail industry, which has seen consumers pull back amid higher gasoline and food prices, a credit crunch and a prolonged housing market decline.

"It's anarchy," said Wendy Liebmann, chief executive of WSL Strategic Retail, frequently repeating the word she used to sum up the latest results of her company's bi-annual shopper study.

And we do mean Too Rich, on every level.

Or, as Max Speaks: "The Vice President is bullish on America. Not.

And as the Kiplinger Report analyzes:

Vice President Cheney's financial advisers are apparently betting on a rise in inflation and interest rates and on a decline in the value of the dollar against foreign currencies. That's the conclusion we draw after scouring the financial disclosure form released by Cheney this week.