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What drove me off was the double standards applied by the economist, e.g.: "Yanis Varoufakis, a self-proclaimed erratic Marxist, [...]" vs "Jeroen Dijsselbloem
by atmosx 6y ago
What drove me off was the double standards applied by the economist, e.g.:
"Yanis Varoufakis, a self-proclaimed erratic Marxist, [...]" vs "Jeroen Dijsselbloem, the President of the Eurogroup, [...]"
What about "Varoufakis, a PhD economist who taught economics in three continents, [...]" vs "Jeroen Dijsselbloem, the President of the Eurogroup who accidentally claimed he obtained an MA from University College Cork, [...]"
See what I did there? :-)
Truth of the matter is that Varoufakis dwarfs the Eurogroup in terms of knowledge much like Keynes dwarfed everyone else at the Bretton Woods. Both of them, came from a position of weakness and for <reasons> failed to deliver.
The Economist doesn't like Varoufakis, so Varoufakis must always be always shown in a derogatory light, while complete clowns like JD, and many others (see Krugman's assessment of Schäuble's speech and analysis, laughable at best - comparing a state's economy to a household) as "high ranking, noteworthy authorities".
Varoufakis is an example ofc. There are others (e.g. Beppe Grillo, Berlusconi, etc.).
The other thing the Economist has (not) going on is that you can tell beforehand what you're going to read... I mean from MILES away, you already know the magazine's stance of everything that matters. China, Russia, Iran (bad)... US (good), UK (okay-ish), EU (almost-good).
Consistently pro-war: Supported and pushed (Syria) for all kinds of invasions (Libya, Ukraine, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc.).
If you take away all that (and it's a lot), the rest is fine :-)
- nindalf 6y ago> Consistently pro-war Whenever the Economist speaks about the Iraq War, they add in parentheses “(which this newspaper supported)”. They don’t need to do that after so many years, but they do it anyway. That level of candour impressed me. This from 2018, 15 years after the war started - “Iraq, in other words, is doing well (see article). Some will argue that this justifies America’s invasion to overthrow Saddam Hussein (which we supported). It does not. Too much blood was shed along the way in Iraq and elsewhere.” (https://www.economist.com/leaders/2018/03/28/fifteen-years-after-americas-invasion-iraq-is-doing-well https://www.economist.com/leaders/2018/03/28/fifteen-years-a...) This level of self-reflection is rare.
- mardifoufs 6y agoI'm not sure they wouldn't just support the next one and then do a mea culpa after the fact again. Did they change the way they treat US intelligence info? Or address geopolitics differently? I'm not sure. I haven't read the Economist since 2018, but I genuinely don't see how they wouldn't end up cheering for the same exact type of intervention due to the exact same rhetoric.
- Barrin92 6y agoI don't think the Varoufakis example is fair because, as the quote literally says, it's a title that Varoufakis has given himself, and he is often flippant and unorthodox himself. It's not derogatory. The Economist as a paper overall is very open-minded when it comes to different ideological points of view. I remember the analysis of Harry's and Meghan's move to the US through a Marxist lens[1], or their surprisingly positive take on China's developmentalist state[2]. For a magazine with a self-declared pro free-trade and market-based bias they tend to reflect a lot. I'm way to the left politically of the target-audience of the paper but I really don't think they deserve the reputation they get as some sort of unabashedly capitalist magazine. [1]https://www.economist.com/britain/2020/01/16/harry-meghan-and-marx https://www.economist.com/britain/2020/01/16/harry-meghan-an... [2]https://www.economist.com/leaders/2020/08/13/xi-jinping-is-reinventing-state-capitalism-dont-underestimate-it https://www.economist.com/leaders/2020/08/13/xi-jinping-is-r...
- astrange 6y agoI think the fact that they cover Africa and Latin America at all counts for a lot. Aside from effective altruism, almost everyone in the first world is happy to ignore them entirely, except for some leftists who think Elon Musk personally did a coup in Bolivia.
- ncpa-cpl 6y ago"The OECD, a rich country club"
- Mordisquitos 6y agoMore often "...the OECD, a club of mostly rich countries...".
- klohto 6y agoWhat a strawman. Yanis calls that himself, eq. https://www.theguardian.com/news/2015/feb/18/yanis-varoufakis-how-i-became-an-erratic-marxist https://www.theguardian.com/news/2015/feb/18/yanis-varoufaki...
- atmosx 6y agoDoesn't matter what Yanis calls himself. The Economist used that quote out of context and is a cheap shot for a magazine that wants to keep "high standards". You either give accurate descriptions of both parties you're referring to or you don't. On a deeper level, there's no apolitical journal. Consciously or unconsciously authors, magazines, etc. are pushing specific agendas. If the magazine wants to play fair, needs to avoid cheap shots. Beppe Grillo did not govern but for a long time was a kind of opposition leader in Italy. The econ referred to him as a "comedian-turned-politician" at all times. I find this deeply unethical. I never read the "mediocre-actor-turn-politician" about Ronal Reagan. The "actor" or "comedian" capacity doesn't matter when you talk public policy. Since you seem to like dictionary definitions, here: context | ˈkɒntɛkst | noun the circumstances that form the setting for an event, statement, or idea, and in terms of which it can be fully understood.