Paul Krugman wins Nobel Prize: The world is changed, and is changing

Aren't the newspapers fascinating these days?

First, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson -- former Goldman Sachs banker and current Republican -- announces plans for the US government to buy stock in private banks. This does not, I repeat does not, have anything to do with socialism in any way but substantively.

Now, Paul Krugman -- noted left-wing economist, partisan Democrat, and fellow blogger -- has won the Nobel Prize in economics.

Just who are the socialists and who are the mainstream economists?

It's tough keeping all this straight . . . I can't say I understand exactly what's going on . . . but I can say I love it. In fact, I want to say thank you Sec. Paulson and the Nobel Prize committee for all this fascinating social change. It keeps me busy all day. Keeping up with all these happenings, while progressing in stride with my usual research on consumer sentiment and social structure, ain't easy, but it sure is fun. (Although I have more time since I am not teaching this semester.) So, thank you, Sec. Paulson -- indeed, all you socialists in the Bush Administration and on the Nobel committee -- for keeping the wheels of social change moving!

(And in all seriousness, congratulations to Dr. Krugman, whose work I greatly admire. Even though I don't always agree with him and his politics, he is an exceptional analyst and I appreciate his insistence that analyzing economics requires an analysis of politics. My quibble: Does economic analysis really require his political partisanship?)