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As a subscriber to the Economist myself, would you be able to give examples as to what you found wrong and in bad faith? I have found errors in the past, especi

As a subscriber to the Economist myself, would you be able to give examples as to what you found wrong and in bad faith? I have found errors in the past, especially in subjects that I am more of an expert on, but none (so far) in bad faith. If you know of some, I’d very much like to know so as to reassess who my trust lies with.

narrator 5y ago
For one, regularly since the early 1990s, they've been predicting a Japan style credit crisis in China. That credit crisis never comes. They have had article after article talking about huge debt levels in the banks, etc. Nothing ever happens.
- hef19898 5y ago
  Good, their economic prediction concerning China was wrong. So far. I don't see any substantial error or bad faith in that.
  - narrator 5y ago
    When you get stuff wrong regularly for 3 decades it's kind of a substantial error in my opinion. They also kept criticizing China's economic policies and banking regulations saying that they needed to change how they did things to avoid doom. Open up their financial system, etc. The Economist representing the perspective of western financial power, it just had the appearance of being self-serving, or at least arrogant. They couldn't get out of their orthodoxy and at least investigate what was going on to correct their analysis. Not like I am a big fan of the CCP, but give the devil its due from time to time, or at least figure out how the magic tricks work.
    - simtel20 5y ago
      I would say that the economist represents what remains of the British imperial perspective, not western financial power if it diverges from that, and that it is pretty clear about that perspective. It wants to imagine that it is advising British industry on how to strike out and dominate.
    - mavhc 5y ago
      Why are they printing these articles? I assume to change the future, warning of a financial crisis should lessen the effects as fewer people put money into the broken system. So maybe they averted the future by predicting it
  - throwawayzRUU6f 5y ago
    Well, it doesn't end with China. Around ~2010, once you scrub off the weasel word hedging, The Economist was predicting an imminent Eurozone breakup. It didn't predict the entirely predictable austerity recessions of 2012-2015. They were fairly bullish on Abenomics in Japan. They were very bullish on the future of BRICS around ~2008, out of which Brazil, Russia and South Africa are stagnating ever since. Then, there's a very important tool in forming editorial slant - omitting reporting on inconvenient facts. Italy and Spain, the putatively sluggish laggards strangled by overly strict labor protection laws, have somehow overtaken the allegedly dynamic UK in labor productivity. Ireland, the purported economic wonder, have a household disposable income (a fairly good metric of material standards of living), lower than Italy and much lower than France. We keep hearing about the importance of education, competitiveness, R&D and ease of doing business, yet somehow Finland, which tops the rankings, is in year 14 of it's economic stagnation. Have you heard any of this from The Economist?
    - barrkel 5y ago
      Median household disposable income, at PPP, after taxes and transfers is higher in Ireland than France, Italy, UK. It is behind all those on a per capita basis, but that's the mean, not the median. I infer that this means Ireland has less income inequality. (Ireland's economic wonder was growth from the 90s through to the early 2000s, largely via foreign direct investment, incentivized by low corporate tax rates. This structurally inflates GDP and makes the country look artificially good on international comparisons, but this is fairly well known, I believe. Irish economic commentary often uses GNI instead, and in fact the Irish central bank replaced GDP with GNI for its own measurements of the economy - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modified_gross_national_income https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modified_gross_national_income.)
- dataflow 5y ago
  What are the time scales for their predictions? I could easily imagine (say) today's US national debt taking 25-50 years to cause {insert some particular catastrophe here}.
- frereubu 5y ago
  Perhaps they've been wrong on this, and possibly for a while (although of course it may still happen), but where's the bad faith?
willhinsa 5y ago
I lost any respect I had for them when they were running Chinese propaganda. [0] https://shootingthemessenger.blog/2020/08/10/the-economist-disappears-advertisement-feature-paid-for-by-chinese-communist-party/ https://shootingthemessenger.blog/2020/08/10/the-economist-d... The author of that blog also got a byline in articles in Buzzfeed News [1] and The Guardian [2] about the same thing happening at the Daily Telegraph. [1] https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/deansterlingjones/coronavirus-british-newspaper-chinese-propaganda https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/deansterlingjones/coron... [2] https://www.theguardian.com/media/2020/apr/14/daily-telegraph-stops-publishing-section-paid-for-by-china https://www.theguardian.com/media/2020/apr/14/daily-telegrap...
- seaorg 5y ago
  Holy crap
galtwho 5y ago
Well if you are asking in good faith, then deep dive and find out if the allegation made here are true or not The Govt of India has basically stated that Economist peddled baseless allegations and if look deeper you will see it is wrong and in deliberate bad faith. https://www.opindia.com/2021/06/goi-rebuts-economist-report-claiming-india-suffered-more-covid-deaths/ https://www.opindia.com/2021/06/goi-rebuts-economist-report-...
- square_usual 5y ago
  If you're trying to rebut the Economist with OpIndia you'll have to try harder, likewise with accusing the Economist of "deliberate bad faith" and linking to a page that is not afraid to wear its ideological biases on its sleeve.
  - galtwho 5y ago
    if they have reported anything incorrect, point it out. quit indulging in ad hominem arguments.
    - hairofadog 5y ago
      There's a lot of indicators of bad faith in the OpIndia article, but I don't see any in the Economist article. From the OpIndia article: - "A few weeks back, controversial left-wing US media outlet New York Times had come up with imaginary numbers..." (hyperbole, ad-hominem) - "The low death rate in the country has become a major concern for the western press, who are trying hard to depict India in a bad light." (Are they? Why? Is the "western press" working in concert on this project?) - "However, the entire analysis done in the article was based on ‘estimates’ based on randomly selected numbers" (So the allegation is that the researcher and/or the Economist selected numbers randomly to represent the Covid death toll in India?) - "[...] it seems like the Indian government has finally decided to take on the misinformation warfare being propagated by a certain section of western media" (Does this seem like an unbiased presentation of facts?) The implication, as far as I can tell, is that "western media" is seeking to embarrass the current leaders of Indian government out of pure spite. However, to my eyes, a more believable story is that the government of India is embarrassed by the high Covid death tolls and would like to adjust the numbers downward. From a story in NPR: > FRAYER: There is another reason why India's coronavirus numbers may be skewed - hubris. In early March, India's health minister declared the pandemic over, but cases were actually creeping up, and some politicians didn't want to ruin the narrative. Dr. A. Velumani runs a nationwide chain of medical labs. He told local media his labs have come under pressure from local politicians to manipulate coronavirus tests and report fewer positive results. [^1] We saw this very same narrative play out here in the United States under the Trump administration, and just like in the OpIndia story, when confronted with evidence they had mishandled the response to the pandemic, the government responded, "Fake news! They're out to get me!" The New York Times article mentioned in the OpIndia piece [^2] also seems to be in good faith, explaining how they arrived at their estimates in great detail. To summarize: when I put on my critical-thinking cap, what I see is the Economist, the New York Times, and NPR presenting good-faith, easy-to-believe arguments that the death toll in India is higher than reported by the Indian government, and OpIndia presenting the difficult-to-believe argument that it isn't, but that western media wants to depict the government of India in a bad light for unknown reasons. [^1]: https://www.npr.org/2021/04/29/992122467/indias-real-death-toll-may-be-many-times-higher-than-the-official-count https://www.npr.org/2021/04/29/992122467/indias-real-death-t... [^2]: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/05/25/world/asia/india-covid-death-estimates.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/05/25/world/asia/in...
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yardie 5y ago
I remember when them and other news media pilloried Iceland for not honouring foreign debts taken out by private Icelandic banks during the recession. It was going to be the end of country since no one would loan them money in the future. Iceland was one of the first countries to emerge the recession.
jaratec 5y ago
As a former subscriber I can point this out: One gigantic error: they have not seen the 2007/2008 crisis coming. Their policy recommendations are always the same: "cut red tape", privatize, remove tariffs..., and this mirrors their ideological beliefs, not any hard won expertise. They are also in denial about the unfolding ecological crisis. Look also at their job ads to understand with whom they are aligned. In sum, The Economist is a propaganda paper, that is well written, informative even if you can remove their rather obvious slant.
- gruez 5y ago
  >As a former subscriber I can point this out: One gigantic error: they have not seen the 2007/2008 crisis coming. Who did see it coming? Are there any media outlets that reliability predicted financial crises?
  - foobiekr 5y ago
    A ton of websites predicted that the avalanche of mortgage debt that could not be paid was going to destroy the financial system. Mike Sherlock for one. He’s gotten dumb but he was on point on this.

narrator 5y ago

For one, regularly since the early 1990s, they've been predicting a Japan style credit crisis in China. That credit crisis never comes. They have had article after article talking about huge debt levels in the banks, etc. Nothing ever happens.

hef19898 5y ago
Good, their economic prediction concerning China was wrong. So far. I don't see any substantial error or bad faith in that.
- narrator 5y ago
  When you get stuff wrong regularly for 3 decades it's kind of a substantial error in my opinion. They also kept criticizing China's economic policies and banking regulations saying that they needed to change how they did things to avoid doom. Open up their financial system, etc. The Economist representing the perspective of western financial power, it just had the appearance of being self-serving, or at least arrogant. They couldn't get out of their orthodoxy and at least investigate what was going on to correct their analysis. Not like I am a big fan of the CCP, but give the devil its due from time to time, or at least figure out how the magic tricks work.
  - simtel20 5y ago
    I would say that the economist represents what remains of the British imperial perspective, not western financial power if it diverges from that, and that it is pretty clear about that perspective. It wants to imagine that it is advising British industry on how to strike out and dominate.
  - mavhc 5y ago
    Why are they printing these articles? I assume to change the future, warning of a financial crisis should lessen the effects as fewer people put money into the broken system. So maybe they averted the future by predicting it
- throwawayzRUU6f 5y ago
  Well, it doesn't end with China. Around ~2010, once you scrub off the weasel word hedging, The Economist was predicting an imminent Eurozone breakup. It didn't predict the entirely predictable austerity recessions of 2012-2015. They were fairly bullish on Abenomics in Japan. They were very bullish on the future of BRICS around ~2008, out of which Brazil, Russia and South Africa are stagnating ever since. Then, there's a very important tool in forming editorial slant - omitting reporting on inconvenient facts. Italy and Spain, the putatively sluggish laggards strangled by overly strict labor protection laws, have somehow overtaken the allegedly dynamic UK in labor productivity. Ireland, the purported economic wonder, have a household disposable income (a fairly good metric of material standards of living), lower than Italy and much lower than France. We keep hearing about the importance of education, competitiveness, R&D and ease of doing business, yet somehow Finland, which tops the rankings, is in year 14 of it's economic stagnation. Have you heard any of this from The Economist?
  - barrkel 5y ago
    Median household disposable income, at PPP, after taxes and transfers is higher in Ireland than France, Italy, UK. It is behind all those on a per capita basis, but that's the mean, not the median. I infer that this means Ireland has less income inequality. (Ireland's economic wonder was growth from the 90s through to the early 2000s, largely via foreign direct investment, incentivized by low corporate tax rates. This structurally inflates GDP and makes the country look artificially good on international comparisons, but this is fairly well known, I believe. Irish economic commentary often uses GNI instead, and in fact the Irish central bank replaced GDP with GNI for its own measurements of the economy - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modified_gross_national_income https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modified_gross_national_income.)
dataflow 5y ago
What are the time scales for their predictions? I could easily imagine (say) today's US national debt taking 25-50 years to cause {insert some particular catastrophe here}.
frereubu 5y ago
Perhaps they've been wrong on this, and possibly for a while (although of course it may still happen), but where's the bad faith?

willhinsa 5y ago

I lost any respect I had for them when they were running Chinese propaganda. [0] https://shootingthemessenger.blog/2020/08/10/the-economist-disappears-advertisement-feature-paid-for-by-chinese-communist-party/ https://shootingthemessenger.blog/2020/08/10/the-economist-d... The author of that blog also got a byline in articles in Buzzfeed News [1] and The Guardian [2] about the same thing happening at the Daily Telegraph. [1] https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/deansterlingjones/coronavirus-british-newspaper-chinese-propaganda https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/deansterlingjones/coron... [2] https://www.theguardian.com/media/2020/apr/14/daily-telegraph-stops-publishing-section-paid-for-by-china https://www.theguardian.com/media/2020/apr/14/daily-telegrap...

seaorg 5y ago
Holy crap

galtwho 5y ago

Well if you are asking in good faith, then deep dive and find out if the allegation made here are true or not The Govt of India has basically stated that Economist peddled baseless allegations and if look deeper you will see it is wrong and in deliberate bad faith. https://www.opindia.com/2021/06/goi-rebuts-economist-report-claiming-india-suffered-more-covid-deaths/ https://www.opindia.com/2021/06/goi-rebuts-economist-report-...

square_usual 5y ago
If you're trying to rebut the Economist with OpIndia you'll have to try harder, likewise with accusing the Economist of "deliberate bad faith" and linking to a page that is not afraid to wear its ideological biases on its sleeve.
- galtwho 5y ago
  if they have reported anything incorrect, point it out. quit indulging in ad hominem arguments.
  - hairofadog 5y ago
    There's a lot of indicators of bad faith in the OpIndia article, but I don't see any in the Economist article. From the OpIndia article: - "A few weeks back, controversial left-wing US media outlet New York Times had come up with imaginary numbers..." (hyperbole, ad-hominem) - "The low death rate in the country has become a major concern for the western press, who are trying hard to depict India in a bad light." (Are they? Why? Is the "western press" working in concert on this project?) - "However, the entire analysis done in the article was based on ‘estimates’ based on randomly selected numbers" (So the allegation is that the researcher and/or the Economist selected numbers randomly to represent the Covid death toll in India?) - "[...] it seems like the Indian government has finally decided to take on the misinformation warfare being propagated by a certain section of western media" (Does this seem like an unbiased presentation of facts?) The implication, as far as I can tell, is that "western media" is seeking to embarrass the current leaders of Indian government out of pure spite. However, to my eyes, a more believable story is that the government of India is embarrassed by the high Covid death tolls and would like to adjust the numbers downward. From a story in NPR: > FRAYER: There is another reason why India's coronavirus numbers may be skewed - hubris. In early March, India's health minister declared the pandemic over, but cases were actually creeping up, and some politicians didn't want to ruin the narrative. Dr. A. Velumani runs a nationwide chain of medical labs. He told local media his labs have come under pressure from local politicians to manipulate coronavirus tests and report fewer positive results. [^1] We saw this very same narrative play out here in the United States under the Trump administration, and just like in the OpIndia story, when confronted with evidence they had mishandled the response to the pandemic, the government responded, "Fake news! They're out to get me!" The New York Times article mentioned in the OpIndia piece [^2] also seems to be in good faith, explaining how they arrived at their estimates in great detail. To summarize: when I put on my critical-thinking cap, what I see is the Economist, the New York Times, and NPR presenting good-faith, easy-to-believe arguments that the death toll in India is higher than reported by the Indian government, and OpIndia presenting the difficult-to-believe argument that it isn't, but that western media wants to depict the government of India in a bad light for unknown reasons. [^1]: https://www.npr.org/2021/04/29/992122467/indias-real-death-toll-may-be-many-times-higher-than-the-official-count https://www.npr.org/2021/04/29/992122467/indias-real-death-t... [^2]: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/05/25/world/asia/india-covid-death-estimates.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/05/25/world/asia/in...

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yardie 5y ago

I remember when them and other news media pilloried Iceland for not honouring foreign debts taken out by private Icelandic banks during the recession. It was going to be the end of country since no one would loan them money in the future. Iceland was one of the first countries to emerge the recession.

jaratec 5y ago

As a former subscriber I can point this out: One gigantic error: they have not seen the 2007/2008 crisis coming. Their policy recommendations are always the same: "cut red tape", privatize, remove tariffs..., and this mirrors their ideological beliefs, not any hard won expertise. They are also in denial about the unfolding ecological crisis. Look also at their job ads to understand with whom they are aligned. In sum, The Economist is a propaganda paper, that is well written, informative even if you can remove their rather obvious slant.

gruez 5y ago
>As a former subscriber I can point this out: One gigantic error: they have not seen the 2007/2008 crisis coming. Who did see it coming? Are there any media outlets that reliability predicted financial crises?
- foobiekr 5y ago
  A ton of websites predicted that the avalanche of mortgage debt that could not be paid was going to destroy the financial system. Mike Sherlock for one. He’s gotten dumb but he was on point on this.