The Economist

The Economist's Opinions

Macroeconomics Is free trade generally beneficial for a country? Agree [The Economist was] founded in 1843 to support the cause of free trade. Edit Pitches 01 Jan 1843    Source Is the world economy largely decoupled from the United States? Mostly Agree Perhaps the best support for decoupling comes from America itself. Fourth-quarter ['07] profits of big companies, such as Coca-Cola, IBM and DuPont, were better than expected as strong sales growth in emerging markets offset a sharp slowdown at home. In other words, bits of American business are rising above their own economy. With luck, the world economy can rise above America's. Edit Pitches 06 Mar 2008    Source Will there be a global recession before 2010? Mostly Agree As the financial crisis has broadened and intensified, the global economy has begun to suffocate. That is why the world’s central banks have been administering emergency measures, including a round of co-ordinated interest-rate cuts on October 8th. With luck they will prevent catastrophe. They are unlikely to avert a global recession. Edit Pitches 09 Oct 2008    Source Homosexuality Does homosexuality threaten the stability of society? Disagree Homosexuals need emotional and economic stability no less than heterosexuals—and society surely benefits when they have it. [Furthermore, today we know that] homosexuals do not choose their condition; indeed, they often try desperately hard, sometimes to the point of suicide, to avoid it. [Therefore] for society, the real choice is between homosexual marriage and homosexual alienation. No social interest is served by choosing the latter. Edit Pitches 04 Jan 1996    Source Should gay and straight couples have the same legal benefits? Agree The case for allowing gays to marry begins with equality, pure and simple. Why should one set of loving, consenting adults be denied a right that other such adults have and which, if exercised, will do no damage to anyone else? Not just because they have always lacked that right in the past, for sure: until the late 1960s, in some American states it was illegal for black adults to marry white ones, but precious few would defend that ban now on grounds that it was “traditional”. The History Repeats Pitch   Edit Pitches 26 Feb 2004    Source Iraq Should the United States invade Iraq? Agree If Mr Hussein refuses to disarm, it would be right to go to war. Edit Pitches 23 Feb 2003    Source Can the US military presence in Iraq help create democracy? Neutral The country no longer looks in imminent danger of flying apart or falling into everlasting anarchy. In September 2007 this newspaper supported the surge not because we had faith in Iraq but only in the desperate hope that the surge might stop what was already a bloodbath from becoming even worse (see article). The situation now is different: Iraq is still a mess, but something approaching a normal future for its people is beginning to look achievable. Edit Pitches 12 Jun 2008    Source Tax Is Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac a huge risk to the economy? Agree They have become such vast buyers that they have become a risk to liquidity. Suppose that, as some believe, America is going through a housing bubble. Given their exposure to mortgages, what happens if the bubble bursts? Edit Pitches 26 Jun 2003    Source Was the US government's $700 billion bailout ultimately good for the taxpayer? Mostly Disagree In our view, the pair [Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac] should have been nationalised back in July, and the new scheme should have had a clearer plan to shrink or break up Fannie and Freddie, so that they never again hold the taxpayer hostage (though not right now, because of the ailing housing market). Edit Pitches 11 Sep 2008    Source Happiness Does relative wealth make us happier than absolute wealth? Agree ...people tend to compare their lot with that of others. In one striking example, students at Harvard University were asked whether they would prefer (a) $50,000 a year while others got half that or (b) $100,000 a year while others got twice as much. A majority chose (a). They were happy with less, as long as they were better off than others. Edit Pitches 07 Aug 2003    Source Does money make you happy? (specifically: absolute spending power) Mostly Disagree ...according to many surveys taken in rich countries [...] once a country has lifted itself out of poverty, further rises in income seem not to create a meaningful rise in the proportion of people who count themselves as happy. Since the 1950s, for example, the proportion of Americans who tell pollsters that they are “very happy” has stayed constant at around 30%, while the proportion who say that they are “not very happy” has barely fallen. Edit Pitches 13 Jan 2005    Source Economics Is there a housing bubble in the United States? Mostly Agree The housing boom was fun while it lasted, but the biggest increase in wealth in history was largely an illusion. Edit Pitches 16 Jun 2005    Source Abortion Can abortion significantly reduce crime? Neutral A paper published by Christopher Foote and Christopher Goetz, two economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, finds an embarrassing hole in the evidence [that the answer is yes]. Edit Pitches 01 Dec 2005    Source Oil Is peak oil imminent? Disagree [In] the words of Exxon Mobil, the oil production peak is unlikely “for decades to come”. Governments may decide to shift away from petroleum because of its nasty geopolitics or its contribution to global warming. But it is wrong to imagine the world's addiction to oil will end soon, as a result of genuine scarcity. As Western oil companies seek to cope with being locked out of the Middle East, the new era of manufactured fuel will further delay the onset of peak production. Edit Pitches 20 Apr 2006    Source Will oil prices surge over the next year? Mostly Disagree The price of oil, which will average $65 a barrel—slightly less than in 2006—will weigh on profits and lighten wallets. Tensions in the Middle East will keep prices at a premium. Edit Pitches 31 Dec 2006    Source Climatology Is substantially reducing CO2 emissions worthwhile? Mostly Agree [Our] survey will argue that although the science remains uncertain, the chances of serious consequences are high enough to make it worth spending the (not exorbitant) sums needed to try to mitigate climate change. Edit Pitches 07 Sep 2006    Source Is the IPCC objective? Mostly Agree It would be surprising if a body studying such a vast and complex area did not get some things wrong. And, by and large, the IPCC does what it was supposed to do: it provides a robust scientific basis for politicians to get on with policymaking. Edit Pitches 12 Oct 2007    Source Mostly Disagree When open criticism began last year, it was airily dismissed by Rajendra Pachauri, who chairs the IPCC... If he had not heard the claims were wrong by that stage, he should have done. This mixture of sloppiness, lack of communication and high-handedness gives the IPCC’s critics a lot to work with. ... There is an urgent need to study these things, and to synthesise the results in a way that can be relied on. Edit Pitches 21 Jan 2010    Source

Business Will Blu-ray prevail over HDDVD as the high definition video format? Mostly Disagree HD-DVD looks to be the winner in the battle between the incompatible HD-DVD and Blu-ray technologies, given its cheaper production costs. Edit Pitches 31 Dec 2006    Source Will ebooks hurt publishers? Agree Publishing has only two indispensable participants: authors and readers. As with music, any technology that brings these two groups closer makes the whole industry more efficient—but hurts those who benefit from the distance between them. Edit Pitches 05 Jun 2008    Source Should the US Government bail out car companies? Disagree Politicians, business and the unions all want a bail-out of Ford and General Motors [but doing so] would be a bad use of public money. It would be bad in principle, because it would be an open invitation to companies everywhere to apply for aid to survive the recession [banks are an exception because the entire economy depends upon their services]. [Unfortunately Congress will do so because they are] itching to “save jobs” and to counter the public-relations disaster of bailing out Wall Street. Edit Pitches 13 Nov 2008    Source US Politics Will Barack Obama win the Democratic nomination? Mostly Disagree The nomination is not yet Mrs Clinton's, but it increasingly looks as though it is hers to lose. Edit Pitches 26 Jul 2007    Source Mostly Agree For Hillary Clinton [the debate on the March 26th 2008] represented a final chance to unsettle Barack Obama ahead of the next round of primaries, and she failed. Edit Pitches 27 Feb 2008    Source Global Warming Does Cap and Trade beat carbon tax for reducing emissions? Disagree With a cap-and-trade regime, where annual emissions are strictly capped, variation in these costs implies significant price volatility. It also forces the market to cut emissions at times when emission reduction costs are high. A carbon tax, on the other hand, would allow firms to cut emissions most when doing so is cheapest. This is a strong argument in favour of the overall efficiency advantages of a carbon tax. But there's more to the story than that. ... Edit Pitches 15 Feb 2008    Source Middle East Politics Should the US president talk face to face with Iran's president? Agree Mr Obama had it right. Speaking to the enemy is an ordinary part of diplomacy and does not on its own amount to appeasement. In Munich in 1938, Neville Chamberlain's sin was not that he talked to Adolf Hitler, but that instead of standing up to him he sold Czechoslovakia down the river. Had the British prime minister then been Winston Churchill, the outcome of the meeting, and the history of the world, might have been different. Edit Pitches 22 May 2008    Source Was Israel primarily responsible for creating the Palestinian refugee problem? Mostly Disagree But a conflict that has lasted 100 years is not susceptible to easy solutions or glib judgments. Those who choose to reduce it to the “terrorism” of one side or the “colonialism” of the other are just stroking their own prejudices. At heart, this is a struggle of two peoples for the same patch of land. Edit Pitches 08 Jan 2009    Source Religion Should heads of state shun meeting the Dalai Lama to appease China? Disagree This week Gordon Brown refused to invite the Dalai Lama, Tibet's spiritual leader, to Downing Street but met him at the home of the leader of the Anglican church. That was a fudge to appease China, and is a genuine disgrace. The Moral Pitch   Edit Pitches 22 May 2008    Source Energy Will solar be the biggest energy source of the future? Agree Wind is only an interim stop on the way to a world where electricity no longer relies on fossil fuels. The ultimate goal is to harvest the sun’s energy directly by intercepting sunlight, rather than by waiting for that sunlight to stir up the atmosphere and sticking turbines in the resulting airstreams. Edit Pitches 19 Jun 2008    Source Sex Is circumcision worthwhile? Disagree Circumcision and other forms of male-genital mutilation are commonplace in many societies around the world. The origin of these practices, however, puzzles anthropologists and evolutionary biologists. They wonder what benefit they could bring, especially given the obvious risks of infection and reduced fertility. Edit Pitches 19 Jul 2008    Source War Is Russia's invasion of Georgia justified? Disagree Russia has made perfunctory attempts to justify the invasion. ... The latest fighting in South Ossetia may have been triggered by the Georgians, but it was largely engineered by the Russians, who have, over the years, fanned the flames of the conflict. Edit Pitches 14 Aug 2008    Source Democracy Can the military presence in Afghanistan help create democracy? Neutral Relying on tribal structures may work best in the south-east of the country, where the tribes are comparatively stable and cohesive. In the south, however, tribal structures are weaker, warlords tend to dominate and insurgents exploit tribal rivalries. In Iraq, the Sunni tribes were vital to success; in Afghanistan, tribal rivalries may undo the best-laid plans. Edit Pitches 18 Dec 2008    Source Politics Was George Bush a good president? Mostly Disagree It is not all his fault. But for the most part, good policy repeatedly took a back seat to Mr Bush’s overweening political ambition. Both the country and, ultimately, the Republican Party are left the worse for it. Edit Pitches 15 Jan 2009    Source Law Do Muslims have the right to build a mosque near ground zero? Agree ...the complaint seems to boil down to a vague sense that doing Muslim stuff near ground zero is an unhappy reminder of terrorism, because the terrorists claimed to be acting in the name of Islam. ... [In any case, it's] impossible to be sensitive both to those who see the mosque as an affront and those who see opposition to it as proof of prejudice, which is why America has a constitution to adjudicate such disputes. And in this [case it] comes down squarely on the side of the mosque-builders. Edit Pitches 17 Aug 2010    Source

Comparisons with Other Experts and Influencers

The similarity between The Economist and each expert and influencer is calculated by looking at how the same questions were answered. These figures are used to calculate conforming, nonconforming, and projected opinions. The accuracy of the analysis depends on The Economist's coverage, which grows with the number of their opinions entered into TakeOnIt.

Conforming Opinions

The Economist's conforming opinions are opinions that align with the group of experts and influencers The Economist typically agrees with.

Nonconforming Opinions

The Economist's nonconforming opinions are opinions that contradict the group of experts and influencers The Economist typically agrees with.

Projected Opinions

The Economist's projected opinions are opinions The Economist is expected to have if their opinions align with the experts and influencers that they typically agree with.