&gt; So, I mean, you can argue a Nobel Laureate is so ignorant of his field that you are correct if you want.<p>I rather see Krugman&#x27;s piece here as leveraging the media narrative on the issue to his own ends; his real issue in the piece is that policymakers are listening to the wrong voices. Accepting the dominant media narrative that &quot;few economists&quot; foresaw the collapse is a lot better for getting people to listen to his explanation of what was wrong with the approaches that were influencing policy than challenging that narrative.<p>&gt; Yes, one group of folks went out and found something they believed to be true but that doesn&#x27;t represent the majority view simply by its existence.<p>There&#x27;s a big excluded middle between &quot;few&quot; and &quot;majority&quot;. I would characterize the group that predicted a significant, housing-bubble-collapse triggered recession as a significant near term probability before it occurred as a significant (both in number and notability) minority, neither &quot;few&quot; nor a &quot;majority&quot;.<p>&gt; This is a comforting conspiracy theory but the fact economists, as a class of people, failed to capitalize on this for their own financial gain based on knowing that the public perception was in error ... well, that would imply they failed to predict it in sufficient numbers.<p>Or that successful economists tend to be fairly likely to be at the income level where increased income has (as studies have shown) minimal contribution to experienced utility -- and unusually likely to be <i>aware</i> of that fact. Or, well, a lot of other things.<p>&gt; If many economists predicted a recession on that scale, we would have many rich economists.<p>If lots of economists actively invested based on such a prediction, sure; but that an economist makes a prediction does not mean that they actively invest based on it (or that they are actively investing at all).