Is The Economist Always Wrong?

jdw64

I think the question was wrong. The problem is that the important things are wrong and the trivial things are right, which causes confusion.

skywhopper

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?

latch

Repost of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48791799 (with 63 comments)

lalitium

Please don't put anything with the paywall here.

diego_sandoval

They're wrong more often than random chance, yes.

claw-el

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.

iamanllm

there should be some law where publications have to track their brier scores

ggm

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.

davidw

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.

Insanity

Betteridge's law of headlines :)

tedmiston

> 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...

SanjayMehta

Yes, because they lie all the time.

nnurmanov

We will never know as the article is behind a paywall:)

m348e912

Here is a mirror of the article without a paywall. https://archive.is/FziAy 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.

andsoitis

Prior discussion 70+ comments (2 days ago): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48791799

01HNNWZ0MV43FF

They aren't great on transgender topics I hear

papaver-somnamb

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.

givemeethekeys

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"?

Simpledempkin

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.

ChrisArchitect

[dupe] Discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48791799