Nobel laureate Paul Krugman says he's confused by the current US economy - and predicts the Fed will keep fighting inflation until it's clearly won

• Paul Krugman can't get a good read on inflation, unemployment, and the health of the US economy.
• The Nobel Prize-winning economist blamed rolling price shocks and faulty, lagged data.
• The Fed will keep hiking interest rates until it's sure inflation is receding, Krugman said.

Paul Krugman, a Nobel Prize-winning economist, doesn't know what to make of the current US economy.

"We don't have a very clear picture of what's happening to inflation right now," he said in a recent New York Times column, describing the situation as "murky" and "genuinely confusing."

The pace of price growth surged as high as 9.1% last summer, spurring the Federal Reserve to hike interest rates from nearly zero to upwards of 4.5% in a bid to cool inflation.