Paul Krugman has been one of the strongest and most articulate progressive economic voices on the public stage for some time now — even when being a strong, articulate progressive wasn’t exactly popular. And he has consistently worked hard to make the notoriously Byzantine subject of economics comprehensible to ordinary people, which is not a trait your average economist is known for.

So I wanted to take a moment to join in the chorus of congratulations for Dr. Krugman on yesterday’s announcement that he had won this year’s Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science for his work on trade theory.

If you’re interested in learning more about the work that won him the prize, libertarian-ish econoblog Marginal Revolution has some great links to get you started. And of course, Krugman has his own blog so you can always go over there for more info as well.

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On the first Monday of George W. Bush’s presidency, the Dow Jones Industrial Average opened for trading at 10,581.90.

Yesterday, the Dow closed at 8,579.19 — 19% lower than it was on January 20, 2008. And it’s continuing to drop even further.

That means that if you followed the advice of the prudent money managers and put your retirement savings into indexed mutual funds, President Bush made a fifth of your savings disappear. If your savings are invested in individual companies that have been particularly hard-hit, you may have lost even more.

President Bush has long been concerned with his “legacy”. Based on the numbers, I’d say he doesn’t have to worry about being forgotten by the American people anytime soon.

Looks like Wachovia — the bank that got in so far over its head that the Federal government had to step in and broker a sale of their assets — has pulled a page from AIG’s playbook:

As ailing Wachovia Corp. waits to see whether it will be acquired by Wells Fargo & Co. or Citigroup Inc. — possibly with taxpayers paying the tab for hundreds of billions of dollars in bad loans — some of the company’s top brokers are preparing to depart Saturday for an all-expenses-paid cruise of the Greek Isles.

The weeklong trip for up to 75 employees of brokerage A.G. Edwards, which Wachovia acquired last year for nearly $7 billion, will also include spouses and significant others, said Teresa Dougherty, a Wachovia spokeswoman.

“This is one way that we recognize our top financial advisors,” she said.

Words fail me.

If you were a corporate executive, what do you think you’d be doing immediately after you had gone before the government hat in hand begging for an $85 billion bailout to save the nation from the consequences of your own ineptitude?

For executives at failed insurance giant AIG, it turns out that the answer was “go on a luxury retreat on the company’s dime”:

Days after it got a federal bailout, American International Group Inc. spent $440,000 on a posh California retreat for its executives, complete with spa treatments, banquets and golf outings, according to lawmakers investigating the company’s meltdown.

AIG sent its executives to the coastal St. Regis resort south of Los Angeles, California, even as the company tapped into an $85 billion loan from the government it needed to stave off bankruptcy.

The resort tab included $23,380 worth of spa treatments for AIG employees, according to invoices the resort turned over to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

That’s pretty appalling, even by the stunted moral standards of modern corporate America.

Showing their commitment to even-handedness, CNN managed to find one person willing to go on record and defend AIG (!):

Eric Dinallo, superintendent of the New York State Insurance Department, said he could see the value of such a retreat under the circumstances.

“Having been at large global companies and knowing what condition AIG was in … the absolute worst thing that could have happened” would have been for employees and underwriters in its life insurance subsidiary to flee the company.

“I do agree there is some profligate spending there, but the concept of bringing all the major employees together … to ensure that the $85 billion could be as greatly as possible paid back would have been not a crazy corporate decision,” Dinallo told the House committee.

Let’s grant Mr. Dinallo his point that it might be worth pulling the execs together to figure out what comes next. But I’m pretty sure that could have been accomplished without flying all the way across the country (AIG’s headquarters are in New York) to play golf and get hot stone massages.

Pathetic.

UPDATE (Oct. 9): So what’s the punishment for blowing all that cash? An extra $38 billion:

The Federal Reserve Board said Wednesday that it would provide up to $37.8 billion to the embattled insurer the American International Group to help it deal with a rapidly dwindling supply of cash.

The additional assistance is on top of $85 billion in a bridge loan that the Federal Reserve extended to A.I.G. in September, but it will take a different form. A spokesman for A.I.G., Nicholas Ashooh, said the new assistance was intended to keep the company from having to draw down the Fed loan so quickly.

I had no idea the Federal government was so understanding about how you use the money they loan you! I totally should have added a few thousand dollars onto my student loans for hookers and blow.

UPDATE (Oct. 10): Wachovia execs take their turn at the trough.

In a speech in Newport News, Virginia on Saturday, the American Dream Candidate, Senator Barack Obama, explained why reforming the health care system is such a high priority for him.

Here’s the video:

With just a month to go until election day, I know you’ve all been hearing a lot about politics out here in Virginia. I know you’ve been seeing a lot of ads, and getting a lot of calls, and reading a lot about this election in the newspaper. But being here today to talk with you about health care - this isn’t about politics for me. This is personal.

I’m thinking today about my mother. She died of ovarian cancer at the age of 53. She fought valiantly, and endured the pain and chemotherapy with grace and good humor. But I’ll never forget how she spent the final months of her life. At a time when she should have been focused on getting well, at a time when she should have been taking stock of her life and taking comfort in her family, she was lying in a hospital bed, fighting with her insurance company because they didn’t want to cover her treatment. They claimed that her cancer was a pre-existing condition.

So I know something about the heartbreak caused by our health care system.

I know something about the anxiety of families hanging on by a thread as premiums have doubled these past eight years, and they’re going into debt, and more than half - half - of all personal bankruptcies are caused in part by medical bills.

I know about the frustration of the nearly 40 percent of small business owners who can no longer afford to insure their employees - folks who work day and night, but have to lay people off, or shut their doors for good, because of rising health care costs.

I know the outrage we all feel about the 45 million Americans who don’t have health insurance - kids who can’t see a doctor when they’re sick; parents cutting their pills in half and praying for the best; folks who wind up in the emergency room in the middle of the night because they’ve got nowhere else to turn.

But I also know that this is not who we are…

Let me be clear - I don’t think government can solve all our problems. But I reject the radical idea that government has no role to play in protecting ordinary Americans. I reject the thinking that says preserving our free market means letting corporations and special interests do as they please.

I know that nothing is more important than the health and well-being of the people you love. And if you work hard and do everything right, you shouldn’t live in fear of losing everything because of a fluke of genetics, or a bad diagnosis, or a stroke of bad luck.

That’s why I believe that every single American has the right to affordable, accessible health care - a right that should never be subject to Washington politics or industry profiteering, and that should never be purchased with tax increases on middle class families, because that is the last thing we need in an economy like this…

[Y]ou have my word that I will never back down, I will never give up, I will never stop fighting until we have fixed our health care system and no family ever has to go through what you’re going through, and my mother went through, and so many people go through every day in this country. That is my promise to you.

(Emphasis mine)

Ezra Klein calls the speech “powerful”. Watch it yourself and I think you’ll agree.