to quote Taleb: those who can, do (trade). those who can't, write about it (financial press)
I like to say, traders and people you put money on the line are often far more honest about economic policy, than economic influencers like The Economist.
Is The Economist Always Wrong?
31–40 of 84 posts
Re: Is The Economist Always Wrong?
#32I really like the economist, they are quite centric in their views but don't hide a certain bias for strong representative democracies, deregulation, globalism and open (publicly traded) markets. Their writing style is probably the cleanest in the industry and they always point out potential conflict of interest even though I've never seen the write anything really positive about the companies Exor controls (Stellant…
The Economist Group is largely owned by the Agnelli family ("Italy's Kennedys"), Canadian billionaire Stephen Smith, the Rothschilds and others, which is likely a significant factor in those biases.
One things I like is that when the economist talks about a business or an author, they mention if there is a conflict of interest (this and that works for this or is owned by that)
Re: Is The Economist Always Wrong?
#33They should have checked if they are more accurate than the consensus, the data doesn't show this.
They are the consensus. Making up stories to support the consensus is their job.
Of course they're reliably wrong. The stories are immoral by default and often objectively insane. But the Serious People either believe them, or put a lot of money and effort into making sure politicians and the media repeat them.
The public don't set policy and don't read The Economist, so they're handed their beliefs by other means.
Re: Is The Economist Always Wrong?
#34I don’t see any other publication doing this kind of analysis of themselves, pointing out the mistakes they’ve made in the past. Even in this article they mention “The Economist was convinced by the false claim that Saddam Hussein was hiding weapons of mass destruction”, something they remind the reader of each time the Iraq War is discussed. I remember an article from 2017 that said the Economist got it wrong, while…
This is a very charitable reading of why The Economist does not have bylines.
You’ve misread what I wrote. I wasn’t explaining why there are no bylines. I was saying that when there are no bylines, any mistake reflects poorly on the newspaper as a whole. It wasn’t Shashank Joshi who got it wrong, it was the Economist.
Re: Is The Economist Always Wrong?
#35I’ve noticed The Economist having odd ways of interpreting statistics and data, and this article makes me even less trustful.
Re: Is The Economist Always Wrong?
#36to quote Taleb: those who can, do (trade). those who can't, write about it (financial press)
Taleb is literally mostly an influencer who once traded (and sucked at it).
Re: Is The Economist Always Wrong?
#37Re: Is The Economist Always Wrong?
#38What a slimy headline.
You can imagine some narcissistic abuser saying the same thing.
Maybe "not always wrong" isn't the bar you should be shooting for.
Re: Is The Economist Always Wrong?
#39to quote Taleb: those who can, do (trade). those who can't, write about it (financial press)
The quote originated with George Bernard Shaw back in 1903, not Nassim Taleb. And it has always been a lazy take. Some people just prefer to write (or teach).
Re: Is The Economist Always Wrong?
#40One should do this analysis for various politicians, political parties, TV and news media and so on. How do we know how good or bad the Economist is if we have no other source to compare against? Presumably it isn't trivial to predict the outcome of millions of people's reactions to all the complicated things that are happening to them.
Economists actually don't do that. They only use math. It's why they always get it wrong- they ignore the social sciences.