Paul Krugman thinks we dodged that bullet but nobody’s noticed Krugman ‘s newsletter today lays out the data: Until quite recently there was a near consensus among forecasters that the U.S. economy was headed for a recession. In fact, it’s been exactly one year since Bloomberg declared that, according to its models, the probability of a recession by October 2023 — that is, now — was 100 percent. Oops. OK, it’s possible — barely — that a recession has begun but isn’t in the data yet. Economists of a certain age remember that for much of 2008 some commentators denied that there was a recession underway, but the official business cycle chronology now says that the worst slump since the 1930s began in December 2007. That said, warning indicators like the Sahm rule, which looks at the unemployment rate compared with its previous low, were flashing red by the summer of 2008, in a way they aren’t now: And forecasters, most of whom were very gloomy at the beginning of this year, have been backing off, with slightly fewer than half in a recent survey still predicting recession. My visceral reaction on seeing that headline was to say “Uh-oh” — given the track record of economic prediction, an optimistic consensus may be a reason to worry — but the truth is that the case for a soft landing, which I debated with Peter Coy a few weeks ago, keeps getting stronger. The most important reason for optimism is that an ever-widening range of indicators suggest that the conventional wisdom…