[lbo-talk] sketching an "anti-economist"

[Jeffrey Fisher]

On 8/19/07, Michael Pollak <mpollak at panix.com> wrote:
>
>
> On Sun, 19 Aug 2007, Jeffrey Fisher wrote:
>
> > Right. Picking up from the other thread: what would an anti-Economist
> > even look like?
>
> I've always described Doug's Left Business Observer as "the left antidote
> to the Economist" and stylistically and intellectually I still think it
> is.  It has all the stylistic virtues people say they love the Economist
> for: very concise and well written; very wry and sarcastic; brilliant
> charts; sharply opinionated; and steeped in data.  Doug IMHO excels the
> Economist in all those virtues -- he's more concise, better written,
> funnier and has better charts.  And of course not least, his judgments are
> truer because his basic principles are better. Stylistically, the only
> boon the Economist has that LBO is missing is their photo captions.
>
> Now if you want a more left substitute for the Economist as universal news
> magazine, frankly I think your huckleberry is the Financial Times.  It's
> got
> more news than the Economist, it's more left, and it's better written.
> Read it
> every day for one week (just the first section) and you'll never go back.

Thanks for the wake-up call. I can't argue with a word you said. I have gone
through long phases where I cruised the FT web site during the week and then
picked up the weekend edition on Saturday to spend some time with. I
probably need another one of those phases. The main problem is the expense.
An old roommate and I were on the verge of splitting a subscription a few
years ago when he left town, and then I didn't really think I could justify
it.

Regarding LBO, which I agree is both enjoyable and a veritable arsenal for
economic-political arguments, I won't argue with you but to say that it's
neither weekly nor newsy. And LBO-Talk is great, but it lacks the charts.
;-)

Maybe that's really the best we can recommend. I still like the WSJ, too,
although I think in most respects I outlined (and as you note), FT is
better. I would like to recommend the Guardian Weekly/LMD combo, but I let
that sub lapse years ago, because it took so long to arrive that my "news"
was already almost two weeks old.

Of course, this is still not a weekly. But I'm thinking it's probably time
for me to start picking up that Saturday FT, again, and maybe Monday to kick
off the week.

j