[Nick de Cusa]

I remember a time when the Economist was about defending free trade and free entreprise, and small government. Famously, they even wrote a proposed E.U. Consitution, no bigger than 4 pages, mostly about transparency and letting trade in goods and services flow freely. Today, that's just a distany fading memory. Their extreme warm-monger stance in the anthropogenic global warming debate, their systematic recommendation that emerging countries should set up a national health and national education system, their ever softer stance on the nastiness that the EU is turning into, their repeated endorsement of the more socialist candidate in US and UK elections, all these things are crual betrayals by the current generation at The Economist of the glorious heritage they took over and seem bent on damaging for ever.

So, what is one to do faced with such a sad state of affairs?

Simply cancel one's subscription?
Cancel subscription with a nasty email along the lines of "you're fired" for the irresponsible sharp bend to the left you've taken?
Start a campaign of likewise disappointed readers threatening to cancel all our subsrciptions?

Other ideas?

[Lexington]

Nick de Cusa, on 17 December 2009 - 09:29 PM, said:

I remember a time when the Economist was about defending free trade and free entreprise, and small government. Famously, they even wrote a proposed E.U. Consitution, no bigger than 4 pages, mostly about transparency and letting trade in goods and services flow freely. Today, that's just a distany fading memory. Their extreme warm-monger stance in the anthropogenic global warming debate, their systematic recommendation that emerging countries should set up a national health and national education system, their ever softer stance on the nastiness that the EU is turning into, their repeated endorsement of the more socialist candidate in US and UK elections, all these things are crual betrayals by the current generation at The Economist of the glorious heritage they took over and seem bent on damaging for ever.

So, what is one to do faced with such a sad state of affairs?

Simply cancel one's subscription?
Cancel subscription with a nasty email along the lines of "you're fired" for the irresponsible sharp bend to the left you've taken?
Start a campaign of likewise disappointed readers threatening to cancel all our subsrciptions?

Other ideas?

I must say that I share some of your thoughts on the Econonomist.

On the positive side, they stay faithful to their founding goal, i.e. defending free-trade. Yet, their general stance on economic policy is more and more keynesian and mainstream. One reason might be they developped a lot and feel they need to adapt their ideas to those of the public. Another one might be that they became so close to the world of finance and banking that they have the tentation to yield to the demands of the banks, about bailing outs for example.

Considering this evolution, the best thing to do is surely to write to them directly. I doubt loads of people write and ten letters saying the same things will sure be taken into account.

[Nick de Cusa]

To understand why thing go wrong, it often pays to follow the money.

A quick survey of this week's issues : 22 pages of advertising by governments, states, sate agencies (incl. international institutions). 7 more by banks whose conninving interdependence with states is at the heart of a lot of today's problems. Numerous more by Universities, which unfortunately have become a leftist stronghold and are also, especially in Europe, often at least partly state controlled.

So, that it the hand that feeds it that The Economist won't bite.

The down side is that it bites us, the other hand that feeds it.

[G7H+]

Yes, I would go for writing a letter.

Nick de Cusa, on 19 December 2009 - 05:50 PM, said:

To understand why thing go wrong, it often pays to follow the money.

A quick survey of this week's issues : 22 pages of advertising by governments, states, sate agencies (incl. international institutions). 7 more by banks whose conninving interdependence with states is at the heart of a lot of today's problems. Numerous more by Universities, which unfortunately have become a leftist stronghold and are also, especially in Europe, often at least partly state controlled.

Interesting.

[Lexington]

letters@economist.com

[Jonathan Catalán]

I canceled my subscription to The Economist about six months ago. They cater to the largest sector of their audience. With the ongoing recession, it therefore made sense to shift their articles against the financial sector. They are still very liberal when it comes to issues like unemployment (even suggesting abolishing the minimum wage), but it is difficult to support the financial sector and not instigate scrutiny amongst the less-erudite leadership.

[Nick de Cusa]

I've sent a brief email. I'll wait 2 weeks to make sure they don't give a damn, then I'll cancel (I'm between jobs right now, so the cash will be good to have in any case). It annoys me a bit because I like the weekly digest of the world's new, but there must be cheaper ways to get that anyway.

Quote

Dear Economist,

what is going on with the full alignment of The Economist with the warm mongers? Why this refusal to look into the quality of the weather stations record since 1880 (UHI, Whole continents almost not included, unexplained bumps added as "homgenisation", cherry picking of stations in Russia, what of the oceans which are 3/4 of the Earth's surface?, the list goes on) and of the proxies used prior to that period (birstlecone pine, Yamal, hockey stick, etc.)

You seem to have drawn a conclusion from the start irrespective of the science. This is the opposite of what I expect from The Economist.

I am writing this as a very long time reader standing on the verge of cancelling my subscription.

Best regards,