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This is uncharacteristically poor journalism from the Economist. The graph shows excepting 2009 and 2016 there has been effectively no significant downturn, whe

This is uncharacteristically poor journalism from the Economist. The graph shows excepting 2009 and 2016 there has been effectively no significant downturn, whereas the title suggests an order of magnitude change in the last two years.

knolax 6y ago
I wouldn't say uncharacteristic. The economist has always been short on details and overflowing with unecessary snark.
- 9nGQluzmnq3M 6y ago
  Unlike, say, HN comments?
- supernova87a 6y ago
  Agreed, the Economist's habit of laying out a few kindergarten-level facts and then extrapolating to what the world should do is pretty irritating. Enough that after one subscription I swore off reading them generally.
  - Austin_Conlon 6y ago
    Can you provide some examples? I think this would only apply to the Leaders sections, but the point of it is to serve as introductions for later articles. The rest I've found to be thorough, especially the Briefing section and Technology Quarterly. It's definitely full of "shoulds" from a classical liberal perspective.
  - logicslave12 6y ago
    Yeah I stopped reading the economist a long time ago. Zero good information from them
theptip 6y ago
Sorry, I'm not following your complaint -- the article leads with: > When the pandemic hit in March, initial public offerings, particularly those by technology startups, were predicted to be among the early victims. After all, who wants to go public in a once-in-a-century crisis? Quite a few people, it turns out. In the past couple of months ipos, which all but dried up until late May, have come back with a vengeance in America And then presents a graph comparing YTD with previous years, showing more IPOs in 2020 YTD than any point in the last 15 years, with tech company IPOs in (eyeballed) the top quartile of the last 15 years. I read this article as claiming: 1) The prediction was that IPOs would go down; they are not (any more). 2) IPO volume for YTD is historically strong, though not at '90s dot-com boom levels. (I'd have preferred their IPO volume chart to go back 25 years so that it showed the build-up to 1999, but that's a different complaint I think.) Where are you getting the suggestion of an order of magnitude change?

knolax 6y ago

I wouldn't say uncharacteristic. The economist has always been short on details and overflowing with unecessary snark.

9nGQluzmnq3M 6y ago
Unlike, say, HN comments?
supernova87a 6y ago
Agreed, the Economist's habit of laying out a few kindergarten-level facts and then extrapolating to what the world should do is pretty irritating. Enough that after one subscription I swore off reading them generally.
- Austin_Conlon 6y ago
  Can you provide some examples? I think this would only apply to the Leaders sections, but the point of it is to serve as introductions for later articles. The rest I've found to be thorough, especially the Briefing section and Technology Quarterly. It's definitely full of "shoulds" from a classical liberal perspective.
- logicslave12 6y ago
  Yeah I stopped reading the economist a long time ago. Zero good information from them

theptip 6y ago

Sorry, I'm not following your complaint -- the article leads with: > When the pandemic hit in March, initial public offerings, particularly those by technology startups, were predicted to be among the early victims. After all, who wants to go public in a once-in-a-century crisis? Quite a few people, it turns out. In the past couple of months ipos, which all but dried up until late May, have come back with a vengeance in America And then presents a graph comparing YTD with previous years, showing more IPOs in 2020 YTD than any point in the last 15 years, with tech company IPOs in (eyeballed) the top quartile of the last 15 years. I read this article as claiming: 1) The prediction was that IPOs would go down; they are not (any more). 2) IPO volume for YTD is historically strong, though not at '90s dot-com boom levels. (I'd have preferred their IPO volume chart to go back 25 years so that it showed the build-up to 1999, but that's a different complaint I think.) Where are you getting the suggestion of an order of magnitude change?