NOBEL PRIZE NEWS: Sargent’s Sharp Pencil. “Today, The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced that it had awarded this year’s Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences to Prof. Tom Sargent (along with Prof. Chris Sims). Prof. Sargent is not only a high priest of economic theory — the rational expectations variety — but also one of the last in a dying breed of economists who can read a balance sheet and wield a sharp pencil.” Not much chance he’ll get a NYT columnist gig, then. . . .