Krugman's pessimism

Megan McArdle points us to QandO, where we find that Paul Krugman has predicted a recession in every single year since Bush came to office (except 2001, Bush's first year, presumably because he hadn't had time to do anything yet):

Like Megan, I think "a recession seems likely-ish", but "Krugman predicts" is generally a good sign to bet the other way.

• "[R]ight now it looks as if the economy is stalling..." — Paul Krugman, September 2002


• "We have a sluggish economy, which is, for all practical purposes, in recession..." — Paul Krugman, May 2003


• "An oil-driven recession does not look at all far-fetched." — Paul Krugman, May 2004


• "[A] mild form of stagflation - rising inflation in an economy still well short of full employment - has already arrived." — Paul Krugman, April 2005


• "If housing prices actually started falling, we'd be looking at [an economy pushed] right back into recession. That's why it's so ominous to see signs that America's housing market ... is approaching the final, feverish stages of a speculative bubble." — Paul Krugman, May 2005


• "In fact, a growing number of economists are using the "R" word [i.e., "recession"] for 2006." - Paul Krugman, August 2005


• "But based on what we know now, there’s an economic slowdown coming." - Paul Krugman, August 2006


• "this kind of confusion about what’s going on is what typically happens when the economy is at a turning point, when an economic expansion is about to turn into a recession" - Paul Krugman, December 2006


• "Right now, statistical models ... give roughly even odds that we’re about to experience a formal recession. ... [T]he odds are very good — maybe 2 to 1 — that 2007 will be a very tough year." - Paul Krugman, December 2006

Atrios, Huffington Post, Media Matters/Eric Boehlert, The Daily Show's Jon Stewart and Glenn Greenwald are constantly telling me things like how "it's worth taking note of just how constantly wrong all of our Most Serious Political Analysts are" (Glenn Greenwald, again) and how there should be some sort of consequence for that sort of relentless wrongness. Doesn't seem to apply to their own, though.

Krugman's latest column? He predicts a pretty horrible recession which the Fed is powerless to control or stop.

I think the likelihood of a recession is pretty strong. But I don't expect it to be especially long or especially deep. Still, the fact that Krugman is now predicting one for '08 gives me pause, and reminds me of Lewis Black's joke:

"President Bush now says that he believes in global warming. As a result, I'm no longer sure."