Are we at a bottom?

Paul Krugman wins the economics Nobel prize. The temperature in hell may have briefly dipped below 0 degrees Celsius. Alex Tabarrok nicely summarizes Krugman's New Trade Theory.

Russell Roberts is disappointed.

Bryan Caplan makes a prediction:

When Obama wins, Krugman will quickly drop his partisan hackery. He's unfair to his enemies, but he does not suffer fools gladly. And it's safe to say that a year into Obama's presidency, there will be plenty of folly for Krugman to decry.

Tom Firey affirms Bryan's call, in juxtaposing Krugman's treatment of Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan.

Former New York Times ombudsman Daniel Okrent captured it best:

Op-Ed columnist Paul Krugman has the disturbing habit of shaping, slicing and selectively citing numbers in a fashion that pleases his acolytes but leaves him open to substantive assaults.

Megan McArdle once said:

Paul Krugman is voting for doom. It's worth keeping in mind, however, that Paul Krugman has predicted eight of the last none recessions under the Bush administration.

Jon Henke rounded up Krugman's recession predictions during the Bush Administration. People who would have sold stock at the newly minted Nobel laureate's doomsday prediction would still be underwater, given the Dow was trading around 8,000 from 2001-2003 and it paid out a couple of percentage points annually in dividend yield.

Don Luskin says:

Krugman's New York Times column drawing on economics is the equivalent of 2006's Nobelists in Physics, astronomers Mather and Smoot, doing a column on astrology -- and then, in that column, telling lies about astronomy.

Earlier prediction market prices and observations here.