alt Hacker NewsIs The Economist Always Wrong?
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They're wrong and right in equal measure, but what they do is publish their opinions with conviction and back it up with sound arguments and facts. I remember reading articles they published in the late 80s about their belief that Japans economic boom was about to end, but they were also one of the biggest backers of Bush's invasion of Iraq which they were disastrously wrong about. I haven't read it for a while so I don't know what they're like now but for forward economic intelligence they were always one of the best.
I'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.
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.
It is shocking that idle bets, nothing but after dinner games, are confused with assessments. It is not too different from confusing opinions and arguments in debates.
If you predict an event E the juice is in the reasons that make it possible, and in the hurdles and dynamics that might make that not happen. (That is especially bewildering as it disregards the influence of the paper, as if separated from the world it comments about.)
Repost of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48791799 (with 63 comments)
An outgoing foreign affairs editor suggested in 1988 that the newspaper ‘never saw a war it didn’t like’. 𐞸
𐞸 https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/lsereviewofbooks/2020/05/27/book-rev...
𐞸 Maybe outdated regarding the later conflicts (tbh i don't know, i didn't follow their positions on the Ukraine and the Middle-East wars).
I have a hard time passing on the economist. Best reading out there that is condensed and to the point. The FT is great but I’m a paper guy and the font got too small to enjoy it.
Prior discussion 70+ comments (2 days ago): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48791799
They're wrong more often than random chance, yes.
Think of subscribing, anyone experience reading the economist on a kindle?
They 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"?
[dupe] Discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48791799
I think the question was wrong. The problem is that the important things are wrong and the trivial things are right, which causes confusion.
> Betteridge's law of headlines is an adage that states: "Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no." It is based on the assumption that if the publishers were confident that the answer was yes, they would have presented it as an assertion; by presenting it as a question, they are not accountable for whether it is correct or not.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headline...
By making this headline, the Economist put us into a paradox. Quite clever
there should be some law where publications have to track their brier scores
Betteridge's law of headlines :)
We will never know as the article is behind a paywall:)
Wow. “We asked the wrong question and used the wrong tool to get a questionable answer, and then decided to publish it.” I guess the answer is yes?
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Bernie's mittens of Fire can roundturn to Biden as dab-brushes, the economist can arrange for a formal hearing for Iowa caucuses as letters to Lagrange as first claim.
Yes, because they lie all the time.
Here is a mirror of the article without a paywall.
The Economist is partly owned by the Rothschild dynasty and was chaired by Evelyn de Rothschild for 17 years, so I've always just assumed it is going to tell you whatever would favor the global elite banking class.
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.
The 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.
After 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 balance tables on the inside back page were always interesting, sometimes jaw-dropping.