A Fall in GDP in the Last Half of 2010?

2008 Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman agrees with Joseph Stiglitz, 2001 Nobel Laureate, that this is a sizeable chance the US will slip back into recession in the last half of 2010:

Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman said he thinks there’s a “reasonably high chance” the economy will contract in the second half of next year.

On the "This Week" Roundtable, Krugman said he agreed with the assessment of fellow Nobel-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz that there is a significant chance the economy will shrink in 2010.

“I would go with Joseph Stiglitz,” Krugman added, “I’m really worried about the second half.”

Here is a video clip of Krugman making this statement.

My personal viewpoint is that the US economy will continue to grow, but that it will slow down to 2.5% during the last 9 months of 2010. This is slower than Q4 2009 and Q1 2010, but 2.5% is better than contraction. So I agree with Krugman that there will be a slowdown. I disagree that the US will fall back into recession. But, I have no special expertise in the area, so my viewpoint is essentially putting a finger up to the wind. All I'm doing is digesting the diverse opinions and weighting them according to my assessment of their credibility. So I'm making a guess, an 'educated' guess, but I believe almost everybody is flying blind right now because these are unusual times. I simply think Krugman and Stiglitz are too pessimistic.