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.

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.

>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?

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.

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.

Good, their economic prediction concerning China was wrong. So far. I don't see any substantial error or bad faith in that.

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?

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.)

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.

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.

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

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}.

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?

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-...

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.

if they have reported anything incorrect, point it out.

quit indulging in ad hominem arguments.

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-t...

[^2]: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/05/25/world/asia/in...

> There's a lot of indicators of bad faith in the OpIndia article, but I don't see any in the Economist article.

claim was it is true and nothing fake there, so you did a strawman there. Since that is true, it shows economist as acting in bad faith in best case scenario.

Opindia is reporting on Govt of India rebutting the Economists argument. These are not opindia arguments, they are paraphrasing GoI's. So the below part you quoted is a paraphrase of GoI

> "However, the entire analysis done in the article was based on ‘estimates’ based on randomly selected numbers"

See actual press release here

https://www.pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=1726521 and the twitter post here https://twitter.com/drharshvardhan/status/140367805453529088...

I am reproducing part that shows Economist acted at the least in bad faith and you have continued on same basis by claiming that you checked out their research and back it over the actual data given out by experts in field of health and agency that collates the actual data

***

The unsound analysis of the said article is based on extrapolation of data without any epidemiological evidence.

Studies which are used by the magazine as an estimate of excess mortality are not validated tools for determining mortality rate of any country or region.

The so called “evidence” cited by the magazine is a study supposedly done by Christopher Laffler of Virginia Commonwealth University. An internet search of research studies in scientific database such Pubmed, Research Gate, etc., did not locate this study and the detailed methodology of this study has not been provided by the magazine.

Another evidence given is the study done in Telengana based on insurance claims. Again, there is no peer reviewed scientific data available on suchstudy.

Two other studies relied upon are those done by Psephology groups namely “Prashnam” and “C-Voter” who are well versed in conducting, predicting and analysing poll results. They were never ever associated with public health research. Even in their own area of work of psephology, their methodologies for predicting poll results have been wide off the mark many times.

By their own submission, the magazine states that ‘such estimates have been extrapolated from patchy and often unreliable local government data, from company records and from analyses of such things as obituaries’.

Union Government has been transparent in its approach to COVID data management. As early as May 2020, to avoid inconsistency in number of deaths being reported, Indian Council of Medical Research has issued ‘Guidance for appropriate recording of COVID-19 related deaths in India’ for correct recording of all deaths as per ICD-10 codes recommended by WHO for mortality coding. States and UTs have been urged through formal communications, multiple video conferences and through deployment of Central teams for correct recording of deaths in accordance with laid down guidelines.

***

> In early March, India's health minister declared the pandemic over,

NPR has not given any source for this claim and if you look at the Minister's twitter timeline for the period , it shows the opposite.

https://twitter.com/drharshvardhan

Or check out the timeline of the ministry he heads

https://twitter.com/MoHFW_INDIA

All proof there shows that he & ministry was calling for people to be careful, warning about increasing cases, updating on vaccines & health protocols. Not the actions of someone who declared it is over.

So that is a explicit lie/untruth from NPR and your comments also show that you find it easier to believe that India is hiding deaths at unimaginable rates than India has done exceedingly well given its challenges.

Other publications which carried out the same news

https://www.indiatoday.in/coronavirus-outbreak/story/extrapo...

https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/news/national/reports-o...

https://www.outlookindia.com/website/story/india-news-unsoun...

From the actual press release:

> An internet search of research studies in scientific database such Pubmed, Research Gate, etc., did not locate this study and the detailed methodology of this study has not been provided by the magazine.

It's here https://www.researchgate.net/publication/352170008_Prelimina...

>> There's a lot of indicators of bad faith in the OpIndia article, but I don't see any in the Economist article.

> claim was it is true and nothing fake there, so you did a strawman there

...sorry, the claim is that what is true? I'm not following you on that one. For me to have "done a strawman" means I would have asserted you were making an argument that you weren't making. As I understand it, you said the Economist was making claims in "deliberate bad faith", and presented an article to rebut the Economist's claims. It appeared to me that was exactly backward. I don't see how that qualifies as anything close to a strawman.

>> In early March, India's health minister declared the pandemic over,

> NPR has not given any source for this claim and if you look at the Minister's twitter timeline for the period, it shows the opposite.

I think they're talking about this: https://www.outlookindia.com/website/story/india-news-india-...

...which I admit isn't the same as "declaring it over" but which could arguably be considered wrong. Which is fine; I'm wrong all the time, as is every other human. Acknowledging when you're wrong is one of the requirements of arguing in good faith. Wrongness doesn't imply incompetence, but failure to admit and correct mistakes does.

Anyway, I have zero interest in "making India look bad", and I wish the people of India well, as I'm sure you do. Here is all I am saying:

* I don't see "deliberate bad faith" in the Economist article, and I see an above-and-beyond effort by the New York Times to explain their methodology

* I have seen with my own eyes members of the government of the United States play down the impact of pandemic out of short-sighted self interest, and so it is easy for me to believe another government would do that

* The arguments made in the official press release linked above strike me as overly defensive and don't offer anything more than "no, that's not true" with no additional evidence provided

* And once again, I wish the people of India well, and I hope the government of India acts in the best interest of its citizens with competence, pragmatism, honesty, and efficiency.

In any case, best of luck to you! I hope we can both think critically about the information we consume.

here is another indicator of bad faith from Economist since you are all in on thinking critically. Since it it paywalled , I have outlined it https://outline.com/mumxhq

** True, the official death toll has fallen steadily for the past month, to half its peak of over 4,000 a day in mid-May. But evidence continues to accumulate that the government’s numbers represent a disturbingly small fraction of the real figure. This discrepancy does not just mean that the true level of India’s suffering has been glossed over. It has made the crisis worse, for instance by causing authorities to underestimate demand for oxygen and drugs.

News organisations including The Economist, as well as independent epidemiologists, have speculated that India has suffered perhaps five-to-seven times more “excess deaths” than the official number of covid-19 fatalities, currently just over 355,000. ***

The GoI press release has said that the methodology used by Christopher Leffler is not used anywhere else to estimate deaths.

You disagree and back it. Can you point out where this is accepted practice.

Using occam's razor. If cases & Deaths as 5-7 times, then this would be easily detectable, especially as the second wave dies down as per official figures.

So at peak the cases were 350,000 per day officially, as per economist it is over 2 million. This week the cases are 65k, so then it must be 380k cases as per economist. Same for deaths, officially 500 deaths and should be 3000 deaths as per economist.

Where are all these invisible cases & deaths?

If as per economist there were all these 5-7 times extra cases/deaths, the need for O2 would be far greater. There has been no crisi on that side for weeks now. Only for a 2 week period did capital Delhi have shortage due to the mismanagement of the state govt there that was pulled up by the courts.

So you are willing to consider opinion polling and patchy insurance claims( in a country that has minimal insurance coverage) that compared India with US figures over official figures that are collated by heath authorities.

It is far more believable that US media that has persistently painted India in negative light wants to continue the practice even when there are reasons to state facts as is and risk India being shown in a positive light.

I have already give you one data point where NPR pushed a untruth that you conceded. That was not even bad faith, direct fakery.

Is this how one thinks critically?

I have no problem if you want to believe fake news but lets drop the charade that you have no option other than trusting Economist or that they have a good track record. Information is easy to get in this day and age.

It is your laziness that lets such media spread fake news by appealing to your biases.

I lost any respect I had for them when they were running Chinese propaganda. [0]

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/coron...

[2] https://www.theguardian.com/media/2020/apr/14/daily-telegrap...

Holy crap