American 1st Female Nobel Economics Winner

(AP)  Americans Elinor Ostrom and Oliver Williamson won the Nobel economics prize on Monday for their work in economic governance.

Ostrom was the first woman to win the prize since it was founded in 1968, and the fifth woman to win a Nobel award this year - a Nobel record.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences cited Ostrom "for her analysis of economic governance," saying her work had demonstrated how common property can be successfully managed by groups using it.

Williamson, the academy said, developed a theory where business firms serve as structures for conflict resolution.

"Over the last three decades, these seminal contributions have advanced economic governance research from the fringe to the forefront of scientific attention," the academy said.

The economics prize was the last Nobel award to be announced this year. It's not one of the original Nobel Prizes, but was created by the Swedish central bank in Alfred Nobel's memory.

Nobel Prize winners receive 10 million Swedish kronor ($1.4 million), a gold medal and diploma from the Swedish king on Dec. 10, the anniversary of Nobel's death in 1896.

Last week, American scientists Elizabeth H. Blackburn, Carol W. Greider and Jack W. Szostak shared the Nobel Prize in medicine for discovering a key mechanism in the genetic operations of cells, an insight that has inspired new lines of research into cancer.

The physics prize was split between Charles K. Kao, who helped develop fiberoptic cable, and Americans Willard S. Boyle and George E. Smith who invented the "eye" in digital cameras.

Americans Venkatraman Ramakrishnan and Thomas Steitz and Ada Yonath of Israel shared the chemistry prize for their atom-by-atom description of ribosomes.

Romanian-born German writer Herta Mueller won the literature prize and on Friday, President Obama was named this year's winner of the peace prize.

[dsnj1-2009]

Wow, many downers on this post, but hey Elinor Ostrom , you go girl! Proud of you, good job!

[Mortarman29]

In a decision as shocking as Friday's surprise peace prize win, President Obama failed to win the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences Monday.

While few observers think Obama has done anything for world peace in the nearly nine months he's been in office, the same clearly can't be said for economics.

The president has worked tirelessly since even before his inauguration to wrest control of the U.S. economy from failed free markets, and the evil CEOs who profit from them, and to turn it over to wise, fair and benevolent bureaucrats.

From his $787 billion stimulus package, to the cap-and-trade bill, to the seizures of General Motors and Chrysler, to the undead health-care "reform" act, Obama has dominated the U.S., and therefore the global, economy as few figures have in recent years.

Yet the Nobel panel chose instead to award the prize to two obscure academics -- Elinor Ostrom and Oliver Williamson -- one noted for her work on managing collective resources, and the other for his work on transaction costs. See full story on the Nobel winners.

Other surprise losers include celebrity noneconomist and filmmaker Michael Moore; U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner; and Larry Summers, head of the U.S. national economic council.

It is unclear whether the president will now refuse his peace prize in protest against the obvious slight to his real achievements this year.

[G-I_Jesus]

Ha! Ha! Very funny Mortarman29!

It is also obvious that Ostrom's work on economic governance and Williamson's conflict resolution should have won them the Nobel Peace prize for the resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict instead of the Economics prize.

[cbs_tom]

Whatever happened to personal responsibility? It amazes me that most will blame an opposite political party for all of the nations woe's. Yes, much is within the political process that causes damage to our economic system, but most of the crisis has been caused by individual practices. Taking on mortgages, credit-cards, and small loans totaling more than the ability to pay them off within a reasonable time or be able to handle the extra debt with hard times, is only the fault of the debtor. We would like to believe that it is the actions of others that cause are dismise, but no one twisted our arms. Did we need that big screen tv, new car, over priced home, new clothes, and time share? We need to live within our means and control our own lives. The political hacks that wish to blame and constantly blame crisis on the other side, only do so for their personal political gain.

So, don't be played and take personal responsiblity for your own actions. Or, one day, the government will make all decisions for you!
Live Free

[tmittelstaed]

We also all know that when you give money to people most of them will take it and waste it. The easy credit essentially did just that. Didn't you know - the credit card companies were even sending representatives to personal bankruptcy hearings to buttonhole the people as they left the bankruptcy court to sign them up for new credit cards.

Don't forget it was the Republitards that allowed people to roll capital gains on non-primary residence homes sales over indefinitely - so if someone flipped a home, they either gave most of their "profits" to the government in taxes - or they immediately went out and bought another home to flip. It was the Republitards that stood back and allowed the banks to bundle these worthless ARM loans into securities and declare insane rates of return which of course got all the large investors dumping their money into them - which funded more rounds of home-flipper ARM loans. And it was the Republitards and their trickle-down economics that encourage income disparities to the point that the average CEO today makes 100,000 times the salary as their rank-and-file workers - and gets it all shielded from taxes by the "bush tax cut", with no tax encouragement to actually use their gains to raise salaries for the people working for them who are making it possible for them.

[bubbadubba]

Awe gee, I was hoping Bernanke would win the economics prize for the fine work he has done with the US and world economy since he took over the FED.
LOL

[novamba]

I rode my bike yesterday, I hear the Tour De France is looking for me to give me the yellow jersey. and no, I am not a republican. And while we are at it, dont forget the democratic party (congress) was looking over while the mess was created, including all funding for the wars before they had the majority in congress.

[hungry1968-16]

How could the democrats oversee the wars, the financial sector, or anything else, when the republicans were in charge, and let Bush do whatever the FFFF he wanted?

[inketolstoy]

I played touch football yesterday and ran for over a hundred yards. Still waiting on the Heisman committee to call. I guess football still follows the rules of common sense. Still, it has been a good year for the US. Chemistry, Physics, Economics and the Peace Prize (I think I left one out).

[hungry1968-16]

Isn't it funny that mindless lemmings like pecandrive blame Barney Frank and Chris Dodd for the economic meltdown, even though Mike Oxley and Richard Shelby were Chairmen of the House and Senate Banking Committees while all of the garbage mortgages, credit default swaps, etc, etc were created?

[pecandrive]

Why not Barney Frank and Chris Dodd? They have done as much for economics as Obama has done....

[antoniof123]

Let's not forget Senator (America is a nation of whinners) Graham and John (Keaton 5) McCain and lets give a post mortom to Regan and his trickle down.

What moron you wing nuts are give it a rest.

[patocc123]

You know solely putting the blame on one party makes you guys look like lemmings too.

So much hate between the RNC and DNC lemmings that they will never admit thier wrong doings.