A Nobel Prize without prize money?

The administrators of the estate of Alfred Nobel, founder of the Nobel Prize, have lost money in the financial crisis due to speculation. This could lead to a major reduction in the prize money, writes the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung: "If the bosses of the American car industry are ready to work for one dollar a year, perhaps Nobel Prize winners will also have to settle for less in the future. ... This would not be the first time that the golden Nobel Prize belt has had to be tightened. Two world wars and the depression of the 1930s caused prize sums to sink by up to two thirds in some years. The low point was in 1920, when [author] Knut Hamsun had to make do with a measly 134,100 crowns - measured in terms of buying power that represented just 28 percent of the original sum from the year 1901. Knowing Horace Engdahl, the Academy's clever general secretary and a declared enemy of American culture, the emergency plan has already been drawn up. If the foundation's tills are empty the Nobel Prize in Literature can finally go to the United States. The estimated prize money: one dollar."

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