I Hope Paul Krugman is Right

In Sunday's New York Times, Paul Krugman wrote:

So it seems that we aren’t going to have a second Great Depression after all.

I sure hope his desk is made of wood and he knocked on it loudly while writing that column. Since it's still early, and the Great Depression took years to become "great". :-( What follows in Krugman's column isn't all that cheery.

Just to be clear: the economic situation remains terrible, indeed worse than almost anyone thought possible not long ago. ... We haven’t yet reached the point at which things are actually improving; for now, all we have to celebrate are indications that things are getting worse more slowly.

In praising the ARRA stimulus package, he writes

Nonetheless, reasonable estimates suggest that around a million more Americans are working now than would have been employed without that plan

Who made these estimates? Articles I have found basically say nobody can really tell how many jobs the ARRA has saved or created. In one article I found, even President Obama only claims 600,000 jobs saved or created. In general, the responses to these job claims range from skeptical to outraged.

Now, I would assume that Nobel Prize Economist Paul Krugman knows more about this than I. But he should cite a source for these reasonable estimates. Because, even though I sometimes disagree with Krugman (and President Obama) on policies, I'm rooting for them to be right. I'm rooting for an Obama landslide victory in 2012. Not because I love Obama, but because that will, most likely, come about because the US economy has recovered. Which is good for me, and most everybody. Probably even good for Beck and Rush. :-)