The Economist

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- musivore
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The Economist
OP - September 03, 2012, 08:24 PM

I read The Economist pretty religiously, mainly because it helps to put some semblance of academic spin on the current gloom that surrounds us all. And also because, in it's pages, I am always looking for hope that things will pick up; so that I can finally get some equity in my house, and thus move out into a more pretentious area, full of twats, whom I will happily hate living amongst, for the rest of my life.

Anyways, having personally always been left-leaning, I am finally getting sick of a magazine that is so obviously written by toffs, who unreservedly represent and promote economic policies that are traditionally favoured by the right. Their recent decision to ignore the new recession that we find ourselves in, and to continue to endorse the obviously suicidal decision by Osborne to favour austerity over growth, has particularly pissed me off.

Now, its got to the stage where I would prefer not to read The Economist. But I can't find a credible alternative... Does anyone know if there is one? Btw, I'm not after something way to the left...my militant, idealistic days are over, and that dream has long faded in me.

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- Nilly
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Re: The Economist
Reply #1 - September 03, 2012, 08:52 PM

I'm glad that you've given up on the neoclassical nonsense that has for to long been the conventional wisdom in many economics departments around the world, a good start for alternative economics would be to read an academic critique of neoclassical economics by steve keen, google him and check out his book and lectures.

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- mchawking
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Re: The Economist
Reply #2 - September 03, 2012, 08:59 PM

Jonathan Haidt praised social capital and I don't know why I feel it's something worth researching.

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Sky-bound was the mind, earth-bound the body rests."
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- musivore
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Re: The Economist
Reply #3 - September 03, 2012, 09:13 PM

Cheers guys...I'll look into both those. But I was looking for a weekly/monthly magazine that is a mirror-alternative to the Economist?

Hope both you guys are well, I remember you from a year ago when I was around more.

P.S. MC: go post some more cool music? I love your taste.

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- GodIsNotGreat
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Re: The Economist
Reply #4 - September 03, 2012, 09:16 PM

Yeah I went through the same experience as you, I really enjoyed reading some of their in-depth special reports, and it was such a really convenient way of keeping up on what was going on in the world. But yeah, their mantra of of less regulation and austerity really did make me dislike them. The final straw for me was them constantly failing to call out the insanity of the American right simply because there is a a lot of crossover in their neoliberalism and American conservatism. It's a shame though, it's one on the world most famous and highly regarded publications and some of their articles can be nauseatingly bad. I'm not opposed to reading material that goes against my worldview but there's only so much you can take.

I still haven't found a like for like replacement yet.

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- musivore
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Re: The Economist
Reply #5 - September 03, 2012, 09:29 PM

I hear you bro.

Did you notice recently that they have failed to even mention, let alone analyse, that we had gone into recession? That's a scandalous thing for an economic magazine to do. It is behaving more and more like an economic pamphlet for Etonian Conservatives. Shame that, because there is much good in what they say also...but it's getting to a point where it is becoming upsetting for me to read and stomach.

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- Nilly
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Re: The Economist
Reply #6 - September 03, 2012, 09:47 PM

You could check out Steve Keen's blog for current economic commentary :debt deflation.com i think lol, you could also check out Paul Krugman's blog and his editorials in the NY times if you're looking for something left-wing and more palatable, Krugman, Friedman et al both work from similar principles, just that one is more dangerous than the other

I make it rain - apparently?

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- musivore
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Re: The Economist
Reply #7 - September 04, 2012, 05:28 PM

Thanks Nilly. You an economics student?

I've had a look at Steve Keen's blog. I think strangestdude had pointed him out to me in the past. Although it seems a but narrower in it's scope compared to The Economist, it may well act as the methadone to the heroin that is The Economist.

When you talk of Friedman, obviously you dont mean the late Milton Friedman?

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- Nilly
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Re: The Economist
Reply #8 - September 04, 2012, 08:27 PM

Quote from: musivore on September 04, 2012, 05:28 PM
Thanks Nilly. You an economics student?

I've had a look at Steve Keen's blog. I think strangestdude had pointed him out to me in the past. Although it seems a but narrower in it's scope compared to The Economist, it may well act as the methadone to the heroin that is The Economist.

When you talk of Friedman, obviously you dont mean the late Milton Friedman?

Yeah, unfortunately I was lol. Only neoclassical economics is able to take something as intellectually stimulating as economics and present it to students as something so boring, inane, contradictory and undynamic.

Steve keen's analysis and commentary is primarily based upon the interplay of private debt and GDP, and according to him, it is the exponential rise in private debt to GDP that has been the main reason for the economic depression that we are experiencing, he puts forward an alternative monetary economic model that would fully factor in economic slumps and also provide a way in which the private financial sector would have the necessary restrictions placed upon it.

He tends to stress that his ideas are not particularly right or left-wing, but he has commented upon the austerity measures and has pointed out (as have many others of course) the very simple point that when you are already experiencing a lack of growth in the economy, compounding that problem by removing public funding makes matters worse; the state of public finances is merely symptomatic and the current obsession with balancing budgets totally fails to recognise the more fundamental problems that western capitalism is facing at the moment.

Yes, I am referring to the late Milton Friedman.

I make it rain - apparently?

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- scamper_22
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Re: The Economist
Reply #9 - September 04, 2012, 09:31 PM

economic growth is largely dead... a by product of the industrial revolution.

You average post-industrialized societies will not really experience any real economic growth.

Left or right... neither side wants to acknowledge that our dependency on economic growth is not desirable as a platform upon which to base society. If growth happens, wonderful... reap the rewards. If it does not, your society should handle it easily.

History is alot longer than the past 50 years... certainly much longer than the past 200-300 years of increasing industrialization.
- musivore
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Re: The Economist
Reply #10 - September 04, 2012, 09:37 PM

Nilly: Steve Keen seems to talk a lot of sense. And the nature of his scepticism before the downturn, certainly lends him the credibility that is lacking from other sceptics of the same period. But I have a feeling he will flog the same argument time and time again, thus missing out on the richness and variety that a magazine like the Economist can offer. But I'll keep an eye on his blog.

Milton Friedman: I associate him too much with my economics degree, and with Raegan and Thatcher. All of which I'm not a fan of... In general, I want to keep at arms length things like The Philips Curve and the Consumption Function, because they will remind me why I eventually turned away from Economics, and towards Computing. So I'm gonna avoid getting caught up in reading about any particular schools of thought.

Did you graduate, or did you choose to do something else?

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- David
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Re: The Economist
Reply #11 - September 04, 2012, 09:53 PM

I disagree with the Economist on many things (I am rather anti-American, definitely not a capitalist, and think that economic growth plus population growth = DOOM), but there's so much good stuff in there that I'm never tempted to stop reading it.

Rwandan politics? There it is - coolly analysed, elegantly expressed.

And they're honest about where they're coming from in a way that many papers are not.
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Re: The Economist
Reply #12 - September 04, 2012, 09:54 PM

Didn't they support the whole Euro project?

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Re: The Economist
Reply #13 - September 04, 2012, 10:04 PM

Can't remember, but I know I did.

I was wrong. If they were wrong, they have since repented their folly.
- musivore
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Re: The Economist
Reply #14 - September 04, 2012, 10:09 PM

Quote from: scamper_22 on September 04, 2012, 09:31 PM
economic growth is largely dead... a by product of the industrial revolution.

You average post-industrialized societies will not really experience any real economic growth.

Left or right... neither side wants to acknowledge that our dependency on economic growth is not desirable as a platform upon which to base society. If growth happens, wonderful... reap the rewards. If it does not, your society shoulQd handle it easily.

History is alot longer than the past 50 years... certainly much longer than the past 200-300 years of increasing industrialization.

Economic growth may be largely dead, but it is not entirely dead. There is still a long-term average of 1-5% that most industrialised nations can still realistically aim for. It is how to achieve this that most economists differ over, not whether it is necessary to aim for the growth or not. That is a separate argument entirely, and not one that I particularly subscribe to.

Despite all the problems that a mature, growing economy brings with it, a few facts cannot be denied. Each person has more access to goods and services than he could ever have had in centuries gone by. There are countless more mouths being fed, mostly comfortably, than ever before. Most developed economies are in a better position to look after the helpless, the poor, the elderly, the unemployed, the sick and the disabled, than they were in ages gone by. There is hope for most people to lead confortable lives, knowing exactly where the next meal will come from, and knowing that there is likely to be a roof over their heads: again, this is something that could not have always been guaranteed before. And if economic growth can lead to more of this, than I'm all for finding the right economic models to sustain that.

Granted, growth does not equate to happiness, or equality, or protection for our environment. But these are things we can work on also, within the system where there is drive for growth, and not necessarily in a mutually exclusive way. God didnt make a perfect world. Economics is just one tool that can help us muddle through as best as we can, and should therefore not be dismissed too lightly.

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- musivore
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Re: The Economist
Reply #15 - September 04, 2012, 10:13 PM

Hey David, hope you're well.

You're right. I suspect I'll never stop reading it also. If only there was an alternative magazine, just as good...

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- scamper_22
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Re: The Economist
Reply #16 - September 04, 2012, 11:39 PM

Quote from: musivore on September 04, 2012, 10:09 PM
Economics is just one tool that can help us muddle through as best as we can, and should therefore not be dismissed too lightly.

Who is dismissing economics?
If your only definition of economics requires infinite economic growth, that's a pretty shallow scope.
To also associate all our prosperity strictly within the economic system is also pretty constrained. Technology had a pretty major impact (intertwined with the free-market's ability to transform technology into products people want/need).
- musivore
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Re: The Economist
Reply #17 - September 05, 2012, 05:55 AM

Yeah I could have worded that better. But most economic models do have economic growth as their basic tenet (along with key indicators such as employment, Balance of Payments and Inflation). And economic growth is something that has got us where we are today, and it has mainly been achieved by organising our economies along either keynesian, or monetarist, or along hybrid lines. If we hadn't conformed to, or applied these methods, there would have been even more chaos (and less growth) than we have today, even given technological advance.

The systems we can resort to are not perfect. Otherwise we wouldn't be in the mess we are in today. But I don't see anything wrong with the fundamental aims of these models in striving for growth. The alternatives that I've read about, though sounding idealistic and utopian on paper, setem a step backward to me... What theories would you recommend reading up on?

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