Globally, inequality is falling. You may not have known that, because within countries, inequality is rising. We live in dangerous times. Why? We talked to the man who wrote the book on it.

Here is a wild idea you might like: the government giving money to everyone, for free. This lovely idea is growing more realistic by the week, friends!

Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel Prize-winning economist, is one of the world’s most influential thinkers in the battle against economic inequality. He’s trying hard to remain optimistic. But it ain’t easy.

Except for a few hedge fund guys, no one had a better 2014 than French economist Thomas Piketty, who managed the once-in-a-century trick of writing an economics book that became a best seller and made Thomas Piketty, French economist, "cool." How hard is Thomas Piketty balling right now?

Tyler Cowen, a professor at George Mason University law school and one of the most popular econobloggers in America, was pepper sprayed in class yesterday by someone trying to make a "citizen's arrest."

Experts who support the new health care law haven't been able to sway public opinion much with the drab language of health economics. So now they'll just make a comic book — sorry, graphic novel — about it and see if that does the trick. You love comic books and movies about comic books, don't you, America? Well just wait until the comic book ethos is applied to such sexy topics as risk pooling and the medical-loss ratio, by an MIT economist author!

So hot-shot MIT economist Peter Diamond won a Nobel Prize in Economics today, remember? Good for him. Now can the single senator who's blocked Diamond's confirmation to the Federal Reserve board for months, over a lack of qualifications, maybe reconsider that?

Economist (and frequent Daily Show guest) Austan Goolsbee will be named chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers.

Christina Romer, the chair of the White House's Council of Economic Advisers, will step down in September.

The Way We Live Now: Reacting quickly. No sooner did we issue a call for a savior to soothe our nerves and promise us that this recession is over, than one appeared. Riding a stock rocket to the moon!

Party-having economist Nouriel "Dr. Doom" Roubini is no longer inviting reporters to parties in his vagina-studded loft, we hear! *(A single tear)*

In the vulva corner: Gloomy, sky-is-falling, party boy economist Nouriel "Dr. Doom" Roubini. In the bug-eyed corner: Jim Cramer, hollering CNBC stock shill. They're fighting, and we all win!

Uberfameball Julia Allison attended newly-minted recession-era wackofameball economist Nouriel "Dr. Doom" Roubini's 50th birthday Saturday night, causing both to explode in a blinding flash of self-interest! But not before JA took this "vulva wall" pic.

You know the old joke about how a recession doesn't turn into a depression until an economist loses his job? Economists are losing their jobs. Run for the hills!

Gloomy economic party-haver and enthusiastic Facebook user Nouriel Roubini is in Davos, working hard to bring our own fameball Photoshop works to life. [His panel was aptly named "What Went Wrong"]

Tra la, our superstar economist friend Nouriel Roubini is back in the news! Roubini, a.k.a Dr. Doom, is still upset with us for the whole "Vagina Loft Party Facebook" thing. But we like him regardless!