The announcement was the best news I'd heard in a long time.

I'm with Paul. I literally Whoop!ed.

Cabinet post in an Obama admin?

Cue wingnuts' heads exploding in 3...2...

The right decision at the best moment!
If there was a prize for the best world wide teacher, he should get that as well!

Seems to me I remember many posters on Steve's blog attacking Krugman when he said negative things about Obama. "Washed up" was one of the nicer things said.

a nice side-benefit here (one that Krugman himself seems aware of) is that his several-week old criticism of the Paulson plan and his endorsement of the Swedish model (which the Brits have made their own) will get a lot of play in the media

For most of the past eight years it was depressing to compare our current president with Nobel laureate in economics who was president in the T.V. series The West Wing. In contrast with Bush, Josiah Bartlet was brilliant, thoughtful, intellectually curious, and was guided by an integrity, sense of honour and a deep respect for the Constitution and the office of President.

It always made me sad that it was only fiction, with no chance of ever becoming reality . . . .

The Nobel is a wonderful and appropriate way to honor Krugman's past work in economics, but it will be very hard to find a way to acknowledge and honor the simply irreplacable public service he has performed as a Times columnist and public intellectual over the past decade. My hat will always be off to him. I have no doubt that he will continue to be a clear voice of grumpy but thoughtful reason for years to come (and the clarity of his popular writing is one of its most important features, along with accuracy and reliance on evidence and data).

Krugman has often said that his personality is ill suited for a high ranking position within government, and I think he will best serve the public interest by staying in the role he has already chosen to fill.

Krugman is still a kook. Before the bailout vote he called it "sufficiently not awful". A few days after it passed he went on Rachel Maddow's show and complained that Paulson never even explained how it might help. He also insists that gas prices are merely a function of supply and demand. Speculators had nothing to do with it, nor, apparently, geopolitics or the weak dollar. I would love to hear how he reconciles his belief that speculation couldn't be a factor in gas prices, with Paulson's suspension of short sales.

First Gore, then Krugman. Will Obama make it a triple?

Gonna be a day of apoplexy from the right. Good Lord, the NYT and Princeton will never live this down. Commie socialist terrorist institutions, they.

And then there's Paulson's original bailout plan, looking pretty tarnished already.

Almost immediately after the ceremony, Paul Krugman gave an Special interview on U.S. economy to FOX. watch here: http://tubedirect.net/index.php?q=Nobel-Prize-2008-ec
Highly recommended!

The video recommended at 10:32 requires an ActiveX update that sent my computer into emergency hysteria over a Trojan horse.

Another sucess for the Reality-Based Community.

Before I discovered blogs in general and the Carpetbagger report in particular, Krugman was my only link to sanity during the 2000 election and early Bush/Cheney years. His brilliance nonchalantly came through in his columns via his dogged persistence on getting the basic fact right and his clear expression of general concepts. It was therefore no surprise, although I know next to nothing about his academic writing, to find that he had won the Nobel Prize. Congratulations!

Congrats to Paul. This is good news not only for one of America's best and most prescient economists and commentators, but I don't see how it can make a worse Monday for the folks over at NRO, WorldNut Daily, Larry Kudlow, et al. I hear Donald Luskin just crawled back into bed with his Sarah Palin doll and a bottle of cheap brandy.

Cue wingnuts' heads exploding in 3...2...

Yeah - this is just further proof of the extent of the global, evil liberal conspiracy to suppress the truth that the scrappy, brave rag-tag band of heroes at Fox are trying to defend.

And, no, based on recent conversations I've had, I'm neither being sarcastic nor exaggerating in the slightest.

I would love to hear how he reconciles his belief that speculation couldn't be a factor in gas prices, with Paulson's suspension of short sales.

That would be the suspension of short sales in financial stocks only. Danp is a spoof poster, right?

The Swedes are trying to make up for all those University of Chicago "Ayn Randies" they gave the prize to.

That means a Nobel prize winner says the Washington Monthly is a must-read!

Go Washington Monthly!

The Nobel is a wonderful and appropriate way to honor Krugman's past work in economics, but it will be very hard to find a way to acknowledge and honor the simply irreplacable public service he has performed as a Times columnist and public intellectual over the past decade

That's what the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary is for.

dj, a Pulitzer for Krugman would be far too trivial, and too deadwood focused.

I agree with bdbd and rege. This is great news for an obviously brilliant economist, but I will never, ever forget that he was one of the very, very few with a national audience who was willing to speak truth to power against the Bush-Cheney criminality. For that, I will always be grateful. Bravo, Paul!

Krugman's long been seen as a possible Nobel winner.

That he devoted himself to taking down the intellectual foundation of Bush's economics -- and that of the rightwing in general -- is why the Swedes chose now as a time to honor him.

We're on the cusp of a second Great Depression and Krugman is the only serious commentator who warned that the sky is falling.

Bravo, Paul.

You and Frank Rich are the only reasons to ready the NYT.

Krugmaniacs of the world, unite!

Great to know that someone who has been right on everthing is being honored.

Alan Greenspan, your thoughts?

Paul Krugman for Secretary of the Treasury in the Obama Administration.

Some left folks were calling Krugman "gauche"? Really?
-- A word that, used unironically, guarantees the speaker to be a douchebag.

That would be the suspension of short sales in financial stocks only.

The reason Paulson suspended shorts (on financial stocks, agreed) was because he asserted they were being used to drive down prices. Meanwhile, Krugman was arguing that oil speculation was not driving oil prices up. My argument is that there is no significant difference between oil shares and stocks, since oil shares actually do represent barrels of oil. Either you can manipulate both, or neither.

Paul Krugman for Secretary of the Treasury in the Obama Administration. -- TCinLA, @12:51

I seriously doubt it. Obama might offer -- he's pragmatical enough to forget the past slights -- but I really don't think Krugman would accept. For one thing, Krugman is way more to the left than Obama will ever be. For another, I've long had a suspicion that Krugman is one of those Jews who (like my own Mother and all her friends, back in Poland) are, theoretically, very tolerant but who, in practice, have never been able to warm up to the "schwartze".

Krugman has long been my "economy for dummies" author, whom I read to try and understand what's going on; he's a "natural born" teacher, who can explain the most complex ideas in terms which are simple enough even for a tyro to understand. But he seems to have that little blind spot, when it comes to humans (common enough among the truly brilliant).

By exlibra; "but he seems to have that little blind spot" Your evidence please?