Stephens again passed over for Nobel

Northern Mariana Islands (Gonzo Wire Service)–People in this small tropical commonwealth were shocked when their resident economist, Ed Stephens Jr., was not awarded the Nobel Prize for economics yesterday. The award instead went to Robert A. Mundell of Columbia University.

Stephens had long been favored for the prestigious prize, after his ground breaking observations on developing economies received a popular following in a leading Pacific newspaper, the Saipan Tribune.

Mr. Stephens was contacted at his As Lito estate on the island of Saipan and said “we’re all surprised about this Nobel affair, but I offer my sincere congratulations to Mr. Mundell.”

In a telephone interview with the Gonzo Wire Service, Mr. Mundell said “Ed Stephens Jr? Who the hell is he?”

Stephens had been so confident that he would receive the prize, which comes along with a $960,000 cash award, that he had gone on a spending spree.

“I bought a new financial calculator and ordered a new pair of shoes from J.C. Penney,” he stated.

As islanders followed what soon became known as the “Nobel Scandal,” details about Mundell’s background began to surface, including his Canadian heritage.

An angry mob gathered outside of the Canadian embassy in Saipan. Demonstrations soon turned violent, and the embassy was burned down after several Molotov cocktails were hurled through windows. An unidentified man said “at two dollars a gallon for gasoline, Molotov cocktails aren’t cheap, but our sense of injustice and indignation over the Nobel Scandal is profound.”

Another man in the mob, who identified himself only as “Spike,” railed against a Canadian being awarded the Nobel Prize in economics. “Canada? A socialist country known only for producing low-grade maple syrup and toothless hockey players? Canada? The world has gone mad.”

Stephens is the alleged mastermind of the Budweiser Rebellion of 1997, in which a gang of mercenary economists staged a bloodless coup in the Kingdom of Mffubi, a sleepy chain of islands in the tropical Pacific. The economists engineered the coup by tainting the Kingdom’s Budweiser supply with sleeping pills. They held a reign of terror for several months, herding suspected Keynesians (followers of a discredited branch of economics) into brutal re-education camps. NATO forces finally liberated the islands after a bloody campaign in which three entire infantry battalions were obliterated by a renegade guerilla band known as the Free Market Boyz.

This bloody and brutal event is hard to mesh with Stephens’ kindly image, and many people think his links to the coup were not as strong as some rumors suggest. The soft-spoken economist is often described as “affable,” “gentle,” and even “meek.”

Still, the mere allegations surrounding his involvement in the Budweiser Rebellion may have been enough to derail his otherwise assured path through he Nobel selection process.