Please don't put anything with the paywall here.
Agreed. Does someone have a summary of the article?
Is The Economist Always Wrong?
71–80 of 189 posts
Re: Is The Economist Always Wrong?
#72I'd love to know if "the pink" has the same problem because I used to find the editorial very good. As a non-investor, left leaning voter, it interested me that I found much to agree with in "the financial times" while still finding much to disagree with in "the times" and "the daily telegraph" and "the spectator" -as if money was more neutrally stanced on left-vs-right.
Yes. The pink is also wrong more often than not when they're talking about non-European issues. When they talk about Europe they lie. Subtle difference.
Today both "newspapers" lie about everything. Sad.
Re: Is The Economist Always Wrong?
#73After reading their newspaper (their label, not mine) for years, I've come away with three revelations: A) More than gaining insight and staying abreast of events, what I was really purchasing was the /feeling/ of being in-the-know. B) Whenever I met with "certain" people, they were likely to also read The Economist which turned out to be another, tremendously handy means of anchoring conversation. C) The trade balan…
This but for every major "serious" publication
Re: Is The Economist Always Wrong?
#74After reading their newspaper (their label, not mine) for years, I've come away with three revelations: A) More than gaining insight and staying abreast of events, what I was really purchasing was the /feeling/ of being in-the-know. B) Whenever I met with "certain" people, they were likely to also read The Economist which turned out to be another, tremendously handy means of anchoring conversation. C) The trade balan…
+1 on C. I actually started reading it back to front and have been having much more fun.
Re: Is The Economist Always Wrong?
#75The Economist has been publishing since 1843. As such, one could be forgiven for expecting an article entitled "Is The Economist Always Wrong?" to engage meaningfully with the track record of either the publication or the field with which it shares its name in any meaningful way. Alas.
> To assess our record with something approaching neutrality, we took the 7,000 or so leaders The Economist has published this millennium and fed them into GPT-5.5, an artificial-intelligence model.
"This millennium" is 26 years old. This millennium is still getting charged extra for renting a car. This millennium never saw the Soviet Union. This millennium never used a payphone, doesn't know what a collect call is, and doesn't know why you might need to make one.
This millennium is also entirely, utterly, absolutely defined by the short-sighted ideas of the economist.
Re: Is The Economist Always Wrong?
#76They don't have any real skin in the game. Who cares if they're right about something? Are they putting money on the line? What is their P/L for being "right"?
I think that's the wrong way to look at it. They do have skin in the game, in the sense that their readers wouldn't want to pay for a newspaper that is consistently wrong. And, even if they don't, it doesn't mean that it's not valuable
Re: Is The Economist Always Wrong?
#77After reading their newspaper (their label, not mine) for years, I've come away with three revelations: A) More than gaining insight and staying abreast of events, what I was really purchasing was the /feeling/ of being in-the-know. B) Whenever I met with "certain" people, they were likely to also read The Economist which turned out to be another, tremendously handy means of anchoring conversation. C) The trade balan…
+1 on C. I actually started reading it back to front and have been having much more fun.
Obituary first?
Re: Is The Economist Always Wrong?
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sorry, who are you exactly to give people orders?
"lalitium" -- it says so, right above the text.
Perhaps you misunderstood. I know what the user’s username is. Since being “lalitium” alone doesn’t give one any authority here to give commands, hence my question.
Re: Is The Economist Always Wrong?
#79The 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.
Yep. That's why predicting the future of a system you're a part of is sometimes literally impossible; it boils, fundamentally, to the fact that logical negation doesn't have a fixed point.
That's a beautifully simple characterization. I've never heard of of that. What keywords do I need to find more on this topic?
Re: Is The Economist Always Wrong?
#80The Economist has been publishing since 1843. As such, one could be forgiven for expecting an article entitled "Is The Economist Always Wrong?" to engage meaningfully with the track record of either the publication or the field with which it shares its name in any meaningful way. Alas. > To assess our record with something approaching neutrality, we took the 7,000 or so leaders The Economist has published this millen…
> [...] the field from which it draws its name [...]
The Economist was founded in 1843 and draws its name from a then-current term for something like a 'free-trade liberal' (with perhaps a fiscal conservative bend). Not the modern day field of economics.
Their big beef at the time of founding was a fight against the Corn Laws, a protectionist tariff against importing grain into Britain.