With all due respect Doug, you answered exactly why The E is popular.  IF I read the WSJ, the NYT and the FT on a daily, I would be unemployed, but I could read The E on the bus on the way to work and get a very good summary of the meaningful news as perceived by Capital.....  Doug Henwood <dhenwood@panix.com> wrote: <BLOCKQUOTE style="PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #1010ff 2px solid">Jeet Heer wrote: >Interesting. Why do you think the Economist sucks? It has a reputation, >like the Wall Street Journal's news section, for being a great publication >that reports honestly on how capitalism really works. Is this over-inflated? >I've personally never found it to be that great, and am curious why it >enjoys its high repute. I find that if I read the papers during the week - the NYT, WSJ, and FT, to name names - there's little new in the Economist. Sure they do something useful and interesting now and then, but mostly it strikes me as just a lot of attitude. A letter writer once described the mag (which calls itself a newspaper, for some reason) as offering tomorrow's conventional wisdom today, but I think even that's too generous. James Fallows had a very nice piece on the Washington Post a few years ago on the American cult of The Economist - it appealed to insecure Americans who just loved that dose of English snobbery and know-it-all-ism. Yawn. Doug</BLOCKQUOTE> <hr size=1>Do you Yahoo!? <a href="http://rd.yahoo.com/launch/mailsig/*http://launch.yahoo.com/u2">U2 on LAUNCH</a> - Exclusive medley & videos from Greatest Hits CD