It's OK if you filter out the Neo-classical economics and free (unregulated) markets are good bias. I haven't read it much since 2008 though so it may have changed tack but I doubt it.
I've been reading Steve Keen's blog and he makes much more sense than other prominent economists. He was one of the few to predict the crash with a model which can actually generate crashes unlike many of the standard economic models. If anyone can point me to some well argued criticism of his theory I would be very interested. I'm not sure about all his proposed remedies to prevent bubbles though, jubilee shares at least feels wrong to me at some level.
This was my impression when I read it regularly years ago. My close friend now reads it cover to cover every issue and based on our conversations in which he references the Economist, either he is misinterpreting it, or they are very Keynesian now.
There has been a significant shift in the political slant of the Economist during the past 5 years. They continue to be the best coverage of meaningful global political and economic issues that I know of.
I've been reading The Economist for 10 years and I haven't noticed any shift. I read it because they bring me facts that no other news organization that I am aware of can bring me. They are certainly very smart and have a good network of sources. They're also biased towards unregulated markets. I'm a capitalist for sure but unregulated markets are a big problem. I will say I've never forgiven them for cheerleading the Iraq War and then publishing an oblique and weasel-worded come-down in about 2008.
I agree with some of this...with a key proviso. They are not 'die-hard unfettered market proselytizers'. For instance, they strongly favor "Obama Care" - maybe not in its entirety and in the EXACT way that it has turned out, but they generally favor the idea of a government created program that creates an exchange for all insurance companies to compete for everybody. They also acknowledge, as the law does, that in order for more people to get coverage and the cost of health care to be tamed, the number of uninsureds has to be decreased significantly - including using fines and subsidies.
That stance is quint-essential Economist, based on my experience of reading them cover to cover - weekly - for the last 5 years.
They do have a free-market, lightly-regulated bias...but they are pragmatic when they need to be, and for that I love them.
Without getting into too much politics, people tend to forget how nuanced the 'Iraq War' decision was at the time. Obama has done a good job of summarizing it into a nice 'sound byte'. The war in Iraq is a "dumb war". The notion there that the outcome was so obvious that it shouldn't have been chosen. What many forget is that post-9/11, the intelligence community was indeed split. The UN SEC actually voted in favor of stricter sanctions and harsher actions against Saddam - if he didn't publicly state that he had no WMDs.
It's easy to say Bush knew there were no WMDs in Iraq and he was going there just for oil, but that's a cynical (and non-nuanced view) of the context of the time.
As Peter Bergen pointed out in his latest book Man Hunt, the decision for Obama to go to Abbottabad for Bin Laden was based on more circumstantial evidence than the decision for Bush to go to Iraq. Granted, the operations were different in scale - but that alone speaks to the fact that the decision to go to Iraq was supported by faulty intelligence.
Assuming that Bush had mal-intent and "knew" there were no WMD in Iraq - but was going just to avenge his father or w/e other story (disregarding everything else) is ridiculous at best.
One simple question I always pose to people when they make such statements about Iraq is...if Bush knew there were no WMDs in Iraq, why would he use that as a pretext when he would obviously be either right or wrong? It's not as if they can "plant" WMDs. It's either they will find it, or not. There is no middle ground.
So either he will be a hero, or he will be zero. He staked his entire presidency on that decision. He knew that when the presidency is done, he would just have his legacy. His entire legacy would be defined by that decision. There is no way, any rational president/person would make such a decision lightly and frivolously.
He would have been better off using the fact that Saddam has slaughtered hundreds of thousands of Kurds, or something else that is more 'ambiguous' that he can't REALLY be held accountable for.
Finding WMDs is a key tangible accountability metric.
So the fact The Economist was also a proponent of the Iraq War is just further proof as to the ambiguity in the intelligence community at the time of the decision - and how difficult such a decision was.
Thank you for the thoughtful reply marcamillion. The Iraq War subject definitely riles people and I try to stick to the facts.
First, with regards to The Economist's position on markets, they are humanists and they care about social welfare. I approve. Yet they still call for further deregulation and resist "populist" regulation to address very serious systemic faults exposed by the financial crisis. If you are going to be a capitalist you need fair market rules, and I see them as wavering in their commitment to that in practice by relying too much on economic theory that does not correspond to the facts on the ground. In particular the "rational markets" hypothesis and the idea that bankers' self interest is sufficient to prevent crisis in the markets.
With regards to the Iraq War, I do not and did not see it as ambiguous. Look at the number of false statements made by the Bush administration[1], the way that intelligence was reported to senior decision makers[2], and the flagrant propaganda regarding links between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. Look at the inflated "45 minute" claim[3] and the use of intelligence from "Curveball"[4], a known fabricator. This is not an administration building a case for a necessary war. It's an administration that decided to go to war scraping together a justification. I definitely don't think it as simple as "we want oil". I do believe (but obviously cannot prove) that Dick Cheney cynically manipulated the intelligence to make a case for a war that he personally profited from through his business holdings in contractors such as Haliburton.
Finally, the Iraq War was very clearly a disaster as early as 2004. The Economist continued publishing leaders that said, essentially, "X and Y are horrible outcomes from the war, but if we just pursue strategy Z we can turn this around." They kept saying that for years and they were very much in the wrong. They have never come out and published a leader saying "we were wrong" or "we should have stopped supporting the war in 200X". Yet they published numerous leaders in the run up to the war. This asymmetry and inability to admit a mistake in hindsight is what I can't forgive.
There are also other reasons for going to war that go beyond personal gain, that have to do with the context of the time:
* A desire to focus people's ire and attention at a specific target
* The unity of purpose that creating such a target can bring
* It also aligns with the Republican party's political strategy of causing division to support their agenda: "Are you saying you don't support the troops?"
I find it telling that many people criticizing the war felt compelled to pre-face their statements with "I support the troops, but...". Having a Us vs Them dichotomy strongly favors certain groups, and the Republicans have always had strong ties with the military establishment.
It need not stretch into a specific Cheney wants to profit from Haliburton scenario. It's just as simple to say that their ideology supports and favors military intervention, their preferred method of action involves military retaliation and their "social network" (supporters, voters, etc...) would benefit or support such an intervention.
Thank you for your reply also....let's take a step back and go back to the context of what we are talking about.
9/11 is the first time that a terrorist attack, of that scale, has hit American shores since Pearl Harbor. For better or worse, it happened on Bush's watch. The fact is, that single action would forever define his presidency. Which president wants to have the "honor" of being in charge when the largest terrorist attack in decades strikes the country? What is the #1 role of a president? Commander-in-chief. So before even passing any social legislation, their job is to lead the armed forces and protect the homeland.
Now, put yourself in his shoes. Sept 18th, 2001 - after everything has sunk in that 3000+ Americans were killed in NY and the economy is on the precipice. You know, beyond the shadow of a doubt that there are existing threats out there. Dictators and other leaders that have explicitly said they would like to do harm to America.
Also consider, that post-9/11, who was being blamed? Bush was. After all, in August 2001, he got a NIE briefing saying that Bin Laden was interested in hijacking commercial airliners and attacking US targets (along with MANY other threat vectors). It so happened that one was accurate. People are blaming him for not doing anything before 9/11, but anyone that understands security will know that it is unreasonable to expect that you can/should follow-up every lead, and address every single rumor/threat. It is literally impossible. Not enough resources.
So the question is, now that you know that a) you were warned, b) clearly people are capable of striking, and c) there are people that you know that would love to capitalize on this...do you just sit by and do nothing?
Yes, I know the argument can be made that he should have escalated the war in Afghanistan - I agree with that assessment....but the fact of the matter is that for decades, Saddam had WMD (or WMD producing capabilities and the intent to produce weapons). He also has used biological and chemical weapons on his own people no less - and he went to great lengths to mislead UN inspectors about his program. Why did he do that? Because he was afraid of Iran....his REAL enemy.
He had to let Iran believe that he had WMD (or those capabilities) to prevent an unprovoked attack.
So knowing all of that, having enough evidence that (granted, was not as much as you would want for a declaration of war on the scale of the Iraq war) seems to lead you to believe that Saddam is actually doing what he says he is doing (and not misleading you)...and in the paranoid climate of being fearful that America will be attacked again, it's not hard to see Bush officials 'stretching the truth' - because they would rather be safe than sorry.
Also, keep in mind that many other politicians had access to the same evidence and the resolution to go to war had to be passed by both houses of congress. They were [1] by large majorities - 297 Yay, 143 Nay in the House, 77 yay 23 Nay in the Senate. They all had access to the same intelligence briefings that Bush had access to.
It's easy for the UN or the Security Council to not vote for such a large action because a) they weren't attacked, and b) it would be costly and politically difficult for them to do. Plus for countries like Saudi Arabia, and Russia, it's bad for business and their exports (oil and gas).
So my point is, given the climate...the intelligence community was divided. Some journalists were for, others were against. Policymakers were responsible for "appearing" to keep America safe. Knowing full well that Saddam wants to attack America and has WMD...the only thing worse than a 9/11 is a biological/chemical/nuclear attack on American soil.
If that ever happened, Bush would never live it down.
P.S. I just thought I should point out two things...a) I am an Obama supporter, but I was also a Bush supporter...so be that what it's worth, b) It is hilarious how much Obama bashed Bush for the Iraq war and Gitmo and renditions and all this stuff, and Obama has intensified many of these programmes and increased them. I read somewhere, can't remember where, that in the first few months of Obama's administration he did more drone strikes than the entire 8 years of Bush's presidency. So, as much as he sounded like a "peacetime" President - what is clear is that even the most ardent "anti-war" candidates, when they get the mantle and realize that THEY (and they alone) will be held responsible for the security of the country...they tend to act differently than their pre-mantle rhetoric would suggest that they act.
What I like about the Economist is that they are not afraid of changing tack mid-way through if it turns out that the facts or circumstances have changed, making their position untenable.
In Europe, particularly the UK where the Economist is from, they are considered Liberals (classical Liberalism) and much of their social and fiscal agenda is nowhere near as "right" as the "right-wing" in America; in fact, they're probably more left than even the Democrats in many ways. Humanist, indeed.
Almost everyone seems to be a Keynesian now, hence quantitative easing but I'm not sure they all take that description.
There are a number of different branches that do claim Keynes' legacy including New Keynesians, and Post Keynesians. The Post Keynesians seem to be least accepted by the mainstream but perhaps best aligned with reality.
It also has an agenda (basically, globalist, pro-EU etc) which is easy to miss if you are overly-impressed by the intellectual veneer. That said, my favourite Economist contribution to the world of letters is the Big Mac index, which is rather clever.
I've never thought their agenda was subtle, or that they make any attempt to conceal it - The Economist is full of statements like "this magazine has long argued for" or "this would be a mistake" when referring to a policy or idea.
You might not agree with their viewpoint but they don't hide it.
It's the british journalistic tradition: every magazine or newspaper openly establishes the fact that it has certain assumptions, and then argues from there. There is no "unbiased" source when it comes to politics/economics. You'll notice that the pure empiricists do not have opinions on macroeconomics.
It's only in America that certain news organizations pretend to be unbiased arbiters.
> It's only in America that certain news organizations pretend to be unbiased arbiters.
I don't think that's only an American phenomenon. For example, Germany's Der Spiegel is somewhat famous for projecting a neutral/serious/nonpartisan image (though it also gets criticized for that).
Der Spiegel is also a magazine which is famous for a rather strong shift in their agenda. ( And a somewhat good example for the dangers of not declaring a policy viewpoint of a news source. )
While it may be true that it's impossible for a newspaper to be completely unbiased, that doesn't mean this is not the ideal they should strive to. Just like it's not possible to have completely bug-free code, but you shouldn't give up fixing bugs because of that. If engineers assumed from the get go that their code will be buggy, that would simply mean lowering their standards, giving themselves an excuse to be lazy. I imagine it's similar with news organizations, if they set out to provide biased reporting, then they will be happy to gloss over or justify much more glaring abuses of reason than if objective information was their goal.
Anecdotally, I see this opinion (that unbiased reporting is impossible, so why not have journals be openly partisan) mostly coming from people who themselves hold pretty extreme political views. It's almost as if the level of liberal/conservative bias they feel most comfortable with was so high that they couldn't pretend, even to themselves, that their sources are objective, and they deal with the cognitive dissonance by saying that it's OK since no source is completely objective.
But American media takes it to the absurd. Every article becomes unchewable piece of "he said, she said" you have to fish out fact from with the microscope. They can't say "day was sunny", they would say, "Joe Farmer said that the day was sunny after observing it for few hours".
It's entirely possible to have completely bug-free code, that's how we have complex systems that work, including planes that don't fall out of the sky (some of this is based on formal proofs and verification, expensive but it can me done). Further, the assumption that your code will be buggy (at some point) is not a lowering of standards but crucial to ensuring that you're vigilant in both analysis and testing.
Having said all that I think the code is a poor analogy, as where a function or module usually has an agreed correct behaviour or outcome the same is not often true in the real world, and the things that get reported on are often those that are most disagreed-upon.
Yes, but the situation is reversed in television/radio news: the BBC is a pillar of objectivity, and the US market is dominated by cable news talking heads yelling at each other.
I don't know about that, the biased stuff is pretty obvious.
For example, they ran a cover article a few months back about the poor helpless souls in the City of London and how the big bad bankers from other places were challenging them. I found myself laughing at one point.
They are the best source of international news. My biggest issue with it is that reading it is time-consuming, and the weekly cadence is relentless.
I'm not really talking about the 'biased' stuff - they take anonymous contributions from all kinds of people so there are bound to be articles that one considers biased, simply because of this. What I'm referring to is a subtle pro-globalist agenda which contributors from all political backgrounds can unite around. The archetypical UK example is the pro-EU Conservative/mainstream Lib Dem/New Labour group that considers national politics to be a parochial irrelevance to be replaced by supranational institutions. The embodiment of this group is probably (now Lord) Peter Mandleson.
They don't take anonymous outside contributions, as least, not without putting their name in the byline (rendering the anonymous bit incorrect); they do publish their articles under pseudonyms -- like Babbage, Bagehot, etc. -- or initials only, as they feel the article and author represent the entire magazine and not just the views of the journalist who wrote the piece.
