Live data from Hacker News

Is The Economist Always Wrong?

economist.com

21–30 of 189 posts

Re: Is The Economist Always Wrong?

#21
post #12

After subscribing for 15 years or so, I noped out after their "walker" cover. The world has enough "both sides" journalism, and I had thought them somewhat immune from that.

Wait, what? People were offended by that? It seemed an apt cover in light of the situation. For those unaware, the economist ran this [1] image after Biden’s historically disastrous debate in ‘24 (as a result of Biden’s age based senility being on full display after months of party and media complicity). [1] https://www.economist.com/leaders/2024/07/04/why-biden-must-...

I missed that as my subscription ran out in 2017. Hilarious. Would have framed that cover.

Re: Is The Economist Always Wrong?

#22
post #8

The tricky thing about predictions made by public entity or persona is that, the fact that they are making public predictions creates a major influence on the outcome itself. People react to predictions made by them.

A major reason why the new Fed chair is refusing to provide forward guidance, in a major departure from all(?) previous Fed chairs and will likely require textbooks to be rewritten.

Re: Is The Economist Always Wrong?

#23
post #8

The tricky thing about predictions made by public entity or persona is that, the fact that they are making public predictions creates a major influence on the outcome itself. People react to predictions made by them.

A major reason why the new Fed chair is refusing to provide forward guidance, in a major departure from all(?) previous Fed chairs and will likely require textbooks to be rewritten.

Strange to eschew the only actual power they have. Interesting times.

Re: Is The Economist Always Wrong?

#25
post #8

The tricky thing about predictions made by public entity or persona is that, the fact that they are making public predictions creates a major influence on the outcome itself. People react to predictions made by them.

A major reason why the new Fed chair is refusing to provide forward guidance, in a major departure from all(?) previous Fed chairs and will likely require textbooks to be rewritten.

Yes, one can see it this way, therefore they don’t want to provide forward guidance. One can also see it another way that ‘their job’ is to purposely use forward guidance to impact direction. Not sure which is the right way.

Re: Is The Economist Always Wrong?

#27
post #8

The tricky thing about predictions made by public entity or persona is that, the fact that they are making public predictions creates a major influence on the outcome itself. People react to predictions made by them.

I don’t think The Economist has that kind of power. More likely that when they make covers like these every normie feels that way and it’s going the other way soon, as it has exhausted every buyer or seller and it has reached the ends of your earth and your Mom and Dad even feel that way.

https://www.readtrung.com/p/the-economist-cover-curse-explai...

Re: Is The Economist Always Wrong?

#29
post #12

After subscribing for 15 years or so, I noped out after their "walker" cover. The world has enough "both sides" journalism, and I had thought them somewhat immune from that.

Just because Fox News crowed about it doesn’t mean it’s bad journalism. Arguably toeing the party line is what resulted in Democrats being in that situation (fielding a weaker candidate against Trump) in the first place.

Re: Is The Economist Always Wrong?

#30
post #8

The tricky thing about predictions made by public entity or persona is that, the fact that they are making public predictions creates a major influence on the outcome itself. People react to predictions made by them.

A major reason why the new Fed chair is refusing to provide forward guidance, in a major departure from all(?) previous Fed chairs and will likely require textbooks to be rewritten.

Alan Greenspan (fed chair from 1987-2006) was famous for deliberately confusing forward guidance. Ben Bernanke and Janet Yellen are the historical anomalies for clearly communicating their intent.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fedspeak

Quote from Greenspan himself:

> As Fed chairman, every time I expressed a view, I added or subtracted 10 basis points from the credit market. That was not helpful. But I nonetheless had to testify before Congress. On questions that were too market-sensitive to answer, 'no comment' was indeed an answer. And so you construct what we used to call Fed-speak. I would hypothetically think of a little plate in front of my eyes, which was the Washington Post, the following morning's headline, and I would catch myself in the middle of a sentence. Then, instead of just stopping, I would continue on resolving the sentence in some obscure way which made it incomprehensible. But nobody was quite sure I wasn't saying something profound when I wasn't. And that became the so-called Fed-speak which I became an expert on over the years. It's a self-protection mechanism ... when you're in an environment where people are shooting questions at you, and you've got to be very careful about the nuances of what you're going to say and what you don't say.

Post reply on HN