After a few months off, Wonk Watch is back! To the quick hits:

Felix Salmon uses Microsoft (MSFT) to teach a lesson on M&A. He cites Dave Methvin and Daniel Dilger, saying that Microsoft dropped the ball after spending $500 million on Danger, the company that makes the Sidekick mobile device. Last week, Sidekick users experienced a major data outage that cannot be reversed—because after the acquisition, Microsoft seemed to overlook the merging of systems. “If you’re going to be spending billions of dollars on acquisitions, you should certainly invest a chunk of time and money ensuring smooth integration,” tsk-tsks Salmon.

Paul Krugman, now a Nobel laureate emeritus, tips his hat to the newly minted Nobel laureates in Economics: Elinor Ostrom and Oliver Williamson. Krugman says that the nods to Ostrom and Williamson make a larger statement on the philosophical progression of economics. Williamson pioneered much of the thinking behind New Institutional Economics, which focused on the “origins and nature of economic institutions,” and fell out of favor during the Great Depression to the more strict mathematical models. NIE thinking has been making a comeback over the past few decades, Krugman says, and today’s prizes help reinforce its importance. 

Barry Ritholtz offers his perspective on smart moves in the market, which, he says, means not fleeing the stock market altogether. Although the past couple of years have created mistrust and fear in investors, wise picks—both what to buy and what to avoid—are still valuable (says the man giving pick advice). Ritholtz is still avoiding big banks, saying they’re carrying too much bad debt that they don’t know what to do with and are still being “propped up” by the government. Two bright spots, Ritholtz says, are Arch Coal and Disney (DIS). Arch Coal, among other energy companies, has bottomed out and is now moving in an upward direction, he says. And Disney (DIS)—following its merger with Marvel—looks to be in a good position as the country emerges from the recession and people begin travelling again.

Brad DeLong criticizes Washington Post writer Ceci Connoly for what he claims to be inadequate reporting. Connoly’s piece today discusses a report released by PricewaterhouseCoopers warning that typical health care premiums will rise sharply beyond what has been projected. But, as DeLong points out, Connolly fails to mention that PricewaterhouseCoopers has a track record in faulty analyses in favor of lobbyists. In the 1990s, while Clinton was building to his health care failure, PWC released a report claiming that an excise tax on tobacco would have destroyed hundreds of thousands of jobs. An independent team at Arthur Andersen concluded "the cumulative effect of PW’s methods ... is to produce patently unreliable results" (as noted by Post blogger, Ezra Klein, a post that DeLong excerpted on his blog). Today’s report—and Connoly’s alleged omission—comes one day before the Senate committee’s vote on the much-debated legislation.