

America’s economy is once again reinventing itself - shill
http://www.economist.com/node/21558576?fsrc=scn/tw/te/ar/comebackkid

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jasonwatkinspdx
This is disappointing.

I enjoy some of the articles in the Economist, but this is advocacy writing at
its worst. It strings together a few examples as claims, each presented
uncritically, then generalizes from this bullet list to make sweeping claims
with emotional characterizations.

It never shows you if each of these examples is actually net positive for our
society and economy. It never shows you the scale or impact they're having.

It's like saying "Kevin Durant's shooting percentage was up this year, so the
Thunder are going to win the next 10 NBA Championships!"

It's cheerleading.

No surprise there's no author's name on it.

~~~
tokenadult
_I enjoy some of the articles in the Economist, but this is advocacy writing
at its worst._

Your clue that this submitted article here comes from the "leader" section of
editorials by the Economist editors comes from the "(see article)" link in the
submission here. You're reading an editorial, and it is written like an
editorial, with a point of view. The actual underlying article

<http://www.economist.com/node/21558591>

to be found by following that link is longer, more detailed, more in the style
of objective journalistic reporting, and full of food for thought.

~~~
jasonwatkinspdx
Thanks. I didn't know that "Leader" meant "Editorial."

The linked article is much more what I would expect.

~~~
AgentConundrum
It appears to be a British term[1], which makes sense for The Economist as
it's based in London.

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leading_article>

~~~
alexqgb
Also, The Economist doesn't provide credit for individual writers since, in
their estimation, there aren't any.

Individuals prepare the pieces, of course, but the publication's editorial
approach marks up the results quite heavily in a process specifically designed
to reflect both a house style and a set of long-held positions that maintain a
single and fairly coherent perspective.

For instance, they've provided long-standing opposition to the War on Drugs,
and rarely miss the opportunity to reiterate this position whenever the
subject comes up. Likewise, they had a massive problem with Silvio Berlusconi.
As a human being, they held him in the deepest possible contempt. They were
entirely open about this, and dedicated much effort to detailing the causes of
their overtly intense dislike.

Some disregard what they have to say as "mere opinion" to which they'd say
"No, this is informed opinion." In any case, if you're writing for The
Economist, you're producing raw material that will get edited and rewritten
until it reflects the very distinct views and voice that the publication has
painstakingly developed for itself over the course of 17 decades.

------
johnohara
Nothing says "buff and reinvented" like red, white and blue nipple tassels.

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chrismealy
Thanks for reminding me why I stopped subscribing to The Economist. In
addition to the usual simpleminded analysis that serves only to flatter its
readers, we get an endorsement of fracking! Good lord!

~~~
InclinedPlane
A facile prejudice against fracking has proven an excellent litmus test to
identify dilletante pseudo-environmentalists. It's an indication they have no
clue what they are talking about and also don't consider carbon emissions a
serious problem.

Many studies have been done on fracking, and there is every indication that
with sound regulation and proper practices it is a perfectly safe technique
for extracting natural gas. More so, using natural gas for energy instead of
oil or especially coal is an enormous carbon emissions win. Far greater than
any hybrid or even all electric vehicle technology can achieve. To write it
off as an evil because you heard some anecdotal evidence somewhere just proves
you don't take the fundamental problems of energy production and the
environment seriously.

~~~
dimitar
There are many ways in which you can argue against fracking on an
environmental basis.

But one is really abouve all: natural gas is a fossil fuel and burning of
fossil fuels leads to climate change. The costly investment on this harmful
energy source is much more needed in renewables.

Unfortunately climate change science has been distorted in the media.

~~~
ars
> natural gas is a fossil fuel and burning of fossil fuels leads to climate
> change.

We are going to burn _something_. Better it be natural gas than oil or coal.

I guess at some point in the future we'll have lots of nuclear power and won't
need to burn anything, but right now we do.

Natural gas is the cleanest energy source we have, in some ways even cleaner
than nuclear.

------
known
How can <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_middle_class> cope with
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renminbi#Value> economic/export/currency
tricks, if every country follows them.

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keithpeter
"Because the companies leading the process are so productive, they pay high
wages but do not employ many people. They may thus do little to reduce
unemployment, while aggravating inequality."

That can't really carry on long term can it? Not much chance of infrastructure
improvements without a tax base?

~~~
stcredzero
_> That can't really carry on long term can it? Not much chance of
infrastructure improvements without a tax base?_

This is a problem for large political units going back to at least the Roman
Empire.

The government should be doing everything it can to empower small businesses.
It isn't because of two-party adversarial politics, however.

~~~
lcargill99
"Empower" how? Subsidies? If you enact subsidies, then you create an
environment in which somebody has the incentive to aggregate the subsidy - in
a large business. That's agricultural policy in the US for the last hundred
years in a nutshell.

~~~
stcredzero
Please, let's not have one of those debates.

I agree directly subsidizing businesses is foolish, in part for the reason you
cite. I think there are lots of infrastructure-like things that could be
provided, including healthcare. There is clearly something broken in US
healthcare. It doesn't function as useful market for individuals and small
businesses. There's clearly something screwy with the economics of it.

You can have the last word. I have to go sell my car.

~~~
ams6110
When did healthcare become "broken" in the US? It hasn't always been so, back
to 1776, right? I think the answer is pretty obvious.

~~~
jandrewrogers
It became broken as a side effect of wage control regulations during WW2 that
encouraged healthcare to be tied to employers. The second world war is long
over but this particular unintended consequence is still with us.

------
nodename
The first paragraph shows we're not talking real world here: Obama a "left-
wing president"?

~~~
ams6110
He's not?

~~~
potatolicious
He really isn't. Some aspects of his administration are centrist-liberal (see:
healthcare reform), and maybe to the largely-very-right-wing mainstream
political sphere of the USA he's a leftist, but on the global stage Obama is
pretty firmly in the center.

~~~
philwelch
Obama's healthcare reform is almost exactly the same plan the Republicans
advanced as the conservative alternative to Hillarycare in the 1990's.

On the other hand, he _did_ nationalize two car companies....

~~~
potatolicious
He's campaigned for more extensive reforms than what actually took place - I'd
place his position further left than the current state of health care.

That said, mainstream politics in the US has shifted dramatically to the right
since the 90s. The conservatism of the 90s is the "liberalism" of today.

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rrggrr
Household debt 114% of income is nothing to brag about. Apalling.

~~~
pjscott
It's a substantial improvement, and if you graph it over time, it's heading
down after decades of going up:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:U.S._Household_Debt_Relati...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:U.S._Household_Debt_Relative_to_Disposable_Income_and_GDP.png)

That downward trend is the opposite of appalling.

~~~
pessimizer
1\. Could that be because disposable income is going down?

and

2\. Mass paying down of debt may not be the best thing to generate demand
during a demand crisis.

~~~
pjscott
_1\. Could that be because disposable income is going down?_

If disposable income goes down, then (all other things being equal) the ratio
of household debt to disposable income would go _up._

~~~
pessimizer
You're right. Brainfart.

------
jpike
I painfully disagree with this article.

