
The Economist endorses Barack Obama - jyothi
http://www.economist.com/world/unitedstates/displayStory.cfm?story_id=12516666
======
doodyhead
Even if you don't agree with The Economist, you have to admire its talent for
making an argument. It's one of the few voices of reason in the global media
circus; its coverage is always insightful and nearly always balanced; and,
having read it, you come away with a much better understanding of the issues.

For anyone who appreciates good writing, their Style Guide is invaluable:
<http://www.economist.com/research/styleguide/>

~~~
kingkongrevenge
> its talent for making an argument

As usual the Economist says little with a lot of words. This particular piece
is a shallow recitation of campaign impressions with zero actual policy
analysis. You don't learn anything by reading it.

~~~
doodyhead
Quite the contrary: it has a reputation for conciseness and well-expressed,
informative views. What would you have us read instead?

To quote its Wikipedia article, 'The publication boasts a tight writing style
that seeks to include the maximum amount of information in a limited space.
Atlantic Monthly publisher David G. Bradley described the formula as "a
consistent world view expressed, consistently, in tight and engaging
prose."[12]' -- <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist>

~~~
kingkongrevenge
Find me one fact or analysis angle in that piece that the representative
reader didn't already know. It's like getting Joe Blow's take down at the bar
except with tighter prose.

~~~
doodyhead
It's purely an opinion piece, an endorsement. It summarizes the existing
arguments for and against and comes to a logical conclusion. I, for one,
didn't know that they conducted their own global presidential poll -
<http://www.economist.com/vote2008/> I also wasn't aware so many conservatives
had jumped ship, including 27 newspapers (last week's 'Lexington'):
[http://www.economist.com/research/articlesBySubject/displays...](http://www.economist.com/research/articlesBySubject/displaystory.cfm?subjectid=3856663&story_id=12470555)

I read The Economist because I don't always have time to read entire articles
about every little development on every issue. How many New York Times
articles would you have had to read to gain as much information as from this
one Economist piece?

Again, what would you have us read instead?

~~~
kingkongrevenge
A breezy, superficial understanding of complex issues is worse than none at
all. You'd be better off knowing that you know nothing rather than having an
article like that represent your knowledge.

> what would you have us read instead?

Off the top of my head Stratfor covers similar territory as the economist, but
much better. It also has its biases. For economic analysis John Maudlin's
newsletters aren't a bad place to start. Go read one and see how much more
information and analysis dense it is compared to the economist.

------
Prrometheus
"Our main doubts about Mr Obama have to do with the damage a muddle-headed
Democratic Congress might try to do to the economy. Despite the protectionist
rhetoric that still sometimes seeps into his speeches, Mr Obama would not
sponsor a China-bashing bill. But what happens if one appears out of Congress?
Worryingly, he has a poor record of defying his party’s baronies, especially
the unions. His advisers insist that Mr Obama is too clever to usher in a new
age of over-regulation, that he will stop such nonsense getting out of
Congress, that he is a political chameleon who would move to the centre in
Washington. But the risk remains that on economic matters the centre that Mr
Obama moves to would be that of his party, not that of the country as a
whole."

Here's hoping the Republicans keep 41 seats in the Senate, or else the economy
restrains the Democrats from doing too much damage in their likely unopposed 2
years in power.

~~~
davidw
Here's hoping the Republicans get the message, abandon the illiberal religious
BS, and we can have proper debates about what sort of role the government
should have in the economy. Yeah, right:-/

------
dhbradshaw
And from Nature,

"This journal does not have a vote, and does not claim any particular standing
from which to instruct those who do. But if it did, it would cast its vote for
Barack Obama."

Would any other respected British publications like to chime in?

------
markessien
Nice that the Economist is endorsing Obama, but the major problem I see with
him is that he wants to make alternative Energy the cornerstone of the
American economic revitalisation.

I think that's wrong. Energy independence is a fine issue, but I believe that
the new government should pay as much interest to the real advances in science
that are coming.

The internet has opened up a new frontier for science. Not the little toys
that allow you locate your friends on your mobile phones, but the more
fundamental changes - milions of people can work on the same thing at the same
time, knowledge can be available to everyone at no cost, communication can
happen globally without any problem, and hardware is cheap and fast.

What this means is that humanity is about to make a new intellectual leap
forward. It's not there yet because the tools are not yet available that
actually allow it work efficiently, but facebook and future generations of
such connectivity tools will make it possible.

When these methods are applied to biology or robotics, the combined
intellectual avility of human beings made lead to some type of exponential
effect that will finally allow us create things that we cannot dream of yet.

We are standing on the chasm of the unknown. We should be forging forward,
looking for new things, not focusing on that that we know.

It's an adventure like the adventure of first flight. Governments should
recognize this, and they should focus on non-commercial research that will
take us to where we could be.

~~~
prospero
Wikipedia et al. work because they can be divided into a bunch of little
orthogonal fiefdoms for a bunch of internet tinpot dictators. It's accretion,
not collaboration. You can't crowd-source a rocket to the moon.

~~~
markessien
You may not be able to crowd-source a rocket, but you sure as hell can crowd-
source a moon crawler robot. The size and skill level of the robot building
community is amazing, and these people can only find themselves now because of
the intenet. And only now is there so much information available for the new
ones.

One guy writes the motion detectors, another writes the pan-tilt, everyone
reviews everyone elses code and suggests improvements. If this were effective
today, we could have giant leaps forward. Soon it willl happen.

~~~
prospero
You're talking about making a conventional device in an unconventional way.
I'm talking about making something completely new.

Historically, groundbreaking scientific work has been done by one or a few
extraordinary individuals (Einstein, Watson and Crick), and groundbreaking
engineering work has been done by carefully selected groups led by an
extraordinary individual (Oppenheimer, von Braun). I don't see how the
Internet changes that.

------
mlinsey
_Conservative America also needs to recover its vim_

Until I read that I had no idea that "vim" was defined as such: vim -noun
lively or energetic spirit; enthusiasm; vitality

~~~
raganwald
The sentence is particularly acute if you adopt this interpretation of the
word "vim:"

<http://www.unilever.ca/ourbrands/homecare/vim.asp>

It's time for Conservative America to clean house. Where did it go wrong?
Entrepreneurs and startup enthusiasts should be falling over themselves to
vote Republican. Speaking from the outside, it looks to me like the
Republicans are on the verge of losing a generation of its strongest natural
supporters.

~~~
jimbokun
"on the verge of"

Probably already happened.

------
mixmax
I thought politics was a no-no here?

~~~
lallysingh
I suspect it's really more political debating on HN that's an issue. It's so
close to the election most of us are likely looking at political news in
another tab, anyways.

~~~
mixmax
You're probably right. It was more meant as a subtle hint instead of the all
too common "not hacker news" comments.

Besides, not all of us are from the US...

~~~
compay
Neither's The Economist. ;-)

~~~
Prrometheus
I love that magazine. It's hard to get such a global perspective from any
other periodical.

~~~
kingkongrevenge
It's very good for getting an easily digestible survey of world news, but the
business and economic analysis articles are horrible. It's all so "pop" and
way behind the curve if you read better newsletters. It's also annoyingly
leftist and pro-war; they pushed hard for the Iraq invasion, for example.

~~~
lawrence
"annoyingly leftist and pro war" - that's not a combination you hear every
day.

~~~
kingkongrevenge
It's not odd if you don't conflate the meaning of left and right with Democrat
and Republican. The Bush administration has been solidly left.

~~~
emmett
Bush is No True Scotsman, apparently.

~~~
kingkongrevenge
I'm not sure what you're getting at. Bush is a national socialist, and an
imperialist. He fooled some conservatives in 2000 when he talked quite a bit
of the talk, but that fell apart quickly.

In modern American history warmongering has overwhelmingly been the business
of the left. Guns and butter and all that. Go count up military actions and
pair them to presidents.

~~~
qwph
_Bush is a national socialist_

That's an interesting choice of words.

~~~
davidw
Maybe he's trying to qualify for Godwin's law.

------
Xichekolas
> _"If only the real John McCain had been running"_

That pretty much sums up why I ended up voting for Obama. McCain of 2008 !=
McCain of 2000, and the Presidential race was the lesser for it.

------
functionoid
It is easy to keep experts around and say things which people want to hear.
May be Obama is doing that. It takes guts to say what you believe in like
McCain has done on certain issues. That shows McCain will do what he is
speaking currently once he gets in power, if Obama is just speaking what his
experts tell him to there are lot of chances he might not do what he is
currently telling, the reason he gets elected.

------
kuniklo
Let's save the political stuff for reddit.

------
khangtoh
Wait a minute, that's like nothing compared to Joe the plumber endorsing
McCain. ;P

------
Mistone
I was actually under the impression the economist leaned towards the right.

~~~
davidw
> What, besides free trade and free markets, does The Economist believe in?
> "It is to the Radicals that The Economist still likes to think of itself as
> belonging. The extreme centre is the paper's historical position." That is
> as true today as when Crowther said it in 1955. The Economist considers
> itself the enemy of privilege, pomposity and predictability. It has backed
> conservatives such as Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. It has supported
> the Americans in Vietnam. But it has also endorsed Harold Wilson and Bill
> Clinton, and espoused a variety of liberal causes: opposing capital
> punishment from its earliest days, while favouring penal reform and
> decolonisation, as well as—more recently—gun control and gay marriage.

[http://www.economist.com/help/DisplayHelp.cfm?folder=663377#...](http://www.economist.com/help/DisplayHelp.cfm?folder=663377#About_The_Economist)

~~~
Mistone
just my impression from there steadfast support of US in Iraq. good to see
they go both ways, its a great news mag that I love to read.

------
mellow
Hmmm... The Economist is a UK magazine, isn't it? There is a suggestion that
another UK publication - The Guardian - helped win the election for GW four
years ago when it asked its readers to write to American voters in swing
states pleading with them not to re-elect Bush. If I recall correctly, many
recipients were angry at this perceived interference in US affairs (from the
former Colonial Masters, of all people!) and this may have persuaded them to
vote Bush although initially they were wavering.

------
functionoid
One thing for sure we are not enough informed. Look at this comment where Tim
O'reilly endorse Obama. How many of who support Obama know this?

[http://radar.oreilly.com/2008/10/why-i-support-barack-
obama....](http://radar.oreilly.com/2008/10/why-i-support-barack-
obama.html#comment-2044972)

~~~
unalone
Look, if you're going to diss Obama, do it with facts. Don't link to bullshit
claims that have all been disproven. It's people like you who fuck things up
for the rest of us. You're a shitty piece of scum. And yes, I think my saying
that on HN is appropriate: you're pushing known lies on the rest of us.
(Comparing Obama to Hitler? Honestly? That is, if you did indeed link to the
correct comment, which I'll repost and debunk below.)

 _American turning it self into a third world country,_ I'd suggest you look
up what exactly a third-world country is.

 _By Electing a man "Barack Obama" who straight out supporting KNowN
Terrorist, this is just a Fact now_ No he hasn't.

 _Los Angeles Times has a video of Barack obama supporting a torrorist and
toasting him, on Video_ Not quite, no.

 _To many facts there, THe left wing like Pelosi and many other Or trying to
stop this tape from getting out,_ No, they haven't. If you mean Bill Ayers,
Obama has addressed this matter specifically. He's hiding nothing.

 _If it was Hillary or JOhn McCain, you can rest assure this tape would
already be out, But more facts MSM is suppressing this video,_ The video that
has been on every news network? MSNBC had a story specifically about this.

 _Like so many third world Dictators in other country, Who control the Media,
CNN, MSnbc , los angeles times, New york times, So many other Medias_ Yet...
when people write good things about McCain, that's considered free speech?
What?

 _WHo trying to elect a Man who supports Terrorist, Barack Obama,_ Still no.

 _No one calling Barack a terrorist, but he sure does support them,_ No he
doesn't.

 _His Track record is sure proving this, ,, Rev Wright, Ayers, Rezko Barack
Obama sure love surrounding his self with Crminals,_ Despite the Ayers claims
being thoroughly debunked? Or the Rezko incident being entirely minimal? Or do
you mean Wright, who Obama not only denounced but whom - in my opinion -
actually made a good set of points in his speech?

 _Hitler started out this way, Going after the simple Young crowd, to elect
them,,then after he is elected its to late, the country in turmoil, and lost,
History has proven this,_ Every politician uses the same tactics. Lincoln did
this. Washington did this. Sometimes people elected in times of crisis do good
things.

 _Why do you think Barack Obama created his own Seal,_ You mean the seal of
Ohio, which looks like an O?

 _Why do you think he is trying to make this country a Socialist country,_ By
supporting the same progressive taxes McCain is on the record as supporting?

 _ALL the signs are there, Bias Media, criminal as friend,_ Huh. Sounds a lot
like McCain and Fox.

 _the man has no real agenda_ The man with a 200-page documented agenda? Or
McCain, whose entire site is becoming an Anti-Obama site with nothing Pro-
McCain on record?

 _and for the simple fact, Barack Obama has his Own News Station, to get the
lies out there,, THat News Station is Msnbc, Followed by CNN, the 2 most bias
News media stations,_ Hmm. I remember an article saying Fox was the "most bias
News."

 _by next year after Obama is elected, American will be in a Depression there
will be food line, TO SHARE THE WEALTH, SURE SOUND LIKE RUSSIA TO ME, DONT
THIS SOUND VERY FAMILIAR!!!!!_

Sounds kind of like FDR, the man who helped push America back in shape. I
mean, Bush caused this depression.

But enough argument. You're not looking for argument. You're looking for Fear,
Uncertainty, and Doubt. You are scum. You are below awful. You're the man that
makes the world worse. Flagged, and I'll be ashamed if you're still allowed to
comment on this site after pulling shit like this.

