For those of you who are undecided or thinking about it, for a period of 1 week starting from today, I am willing to send you articles from the subscriber only section to give you a better idea about what is in the magazine (Note mods: This is perfectly OK with the economist, they provide an “email this article” link specifically for this purpose). Go to The Economist Website and start reading, if there are any subscriber only articles you would like to access, paste the title, URL and your email address here and I’ll email the articles to you.
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The Economist is perhaps the only good “neutral” news magazine left in the whole United States. Most other news magazines have a definite liberal slant, except for a few very-conservative ones like National Review (where a conservative can scarcely do any wrong) and Reason (libertarian and usually an entertaining read, but not a lot of market share).
…Time and Newsweek used to be fairly good, but apparently the same media conglomerate bought both of them at some point and just decided it would be cheaper to print one magazine and only put one of two different covers on it… :rolleyes:
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The Economist is perhaps the only good “neutral” news magazine left in the whole United States. Most other news magazines have a definite liberal slant, except for a few very-conservative ones like National Review (where a conservative can scarcely do any wrong) and Reason (libertarian and usually an entertaining read, but not a lot of market share).
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The only thing I dislike about The Economist is that a few years back they switched apparently from oil-based ink to a soy-based ink, which is the greasiest smudgiest stuff out there. The small font sizes they seem to use only aggravates the situation. You have to be very careful not to rub your fingers on the article printing until after you have read that article.
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Another vote for The Economist, from a greenie who is the spawn of generations of NDPers. 
The magazine is well-written, dense with information, and often has great cover art. As other posters have said, it follows the editorial stance of Big Capital. For us North Americans it is a welcome change from US-centric business publications.
It is interesting to compare its stories with other magazines, both left/right and green/grey. I have to admit that some of the British political stuff goes right by me, though.
The job ads are interesting, providing a glimpse of the world corporate elite that folks like me rarely see. A UN agency wants an econometrician? The Botswana Privatisation Board wants a director? A university in England is looking for a dean? Just apply. Interspersed with the job ads are ads for private offshore banking services and immigration services.
It’s one of the magazines that I would definitely subscribe to, if I had the money. [sub]Of course, given the money, I would also subscribe to Scientific American, New Scientist, Permaculture Activist, Monato, Analog Science Fiction, L’Actualité, Whole Earth Review, Maclean’s, Wired, and Fluide Glaciale, and then spen most of each week reading them, so that may not mean that much.[/sub]
Just don’t make it your only magazine. There is way too much stuff going on that it never touches.
It is a great magazine.
Some folks have noted the cost of the magazine. If you want to get it, miles are definitely the way to do it. I jjust got a similar offer for 3300 miles for a one-year subscription. At that price, the miles to value ratio is far better than using them for a flight.
A domestic ticket (value $500) will run you 25K miles.
At 3300 miles you could get 7.5 years of the Economist. At the current subscription rate of say $100/year, you are getting a little better than $700.
And you have no hassles over blackout dates, lack of availability and taxes.
Ha! Yes, I love them. Whenever I read them, I always get a mental image of an out-of-work CEO in a slightly shabby designer suit rushing home from the newsagent with a brand spanking new copy of The Economist and then sitting down and carefully marking out the ads with a thick red marker.
Eh? I’ve had a subscription for over a while now and I’ve never had any problem with the print smudging at all. In fact, just to make sure, I’m rubbing my fingers very roughly over the ink in the magazine right now with no smudging, even after I lick my fingers.
I worked for them for a while. One is supposed to refer to it as a “newspaper”, not a magazine.
And yes it’s great. Mostly news, with some business/finance/science/culture. It doesn’t have the US-centric slant of American publications - so its correspondents in remote parts of the world don’t feel a need to constantly drop in references to the local Coke, 7-Eleven, Starbucks etc, which the Time/CNN crowd seem to do. It also has quite a dry sense of humor. Not many pictures - it’s for those of us who still do plain words.
If you’re being offered it for free, grab it.
It’s a great weekly newspaper, which covers all manner of topics, and has a good editorial policy, i.e. while they are pretty unabashedly free-trade pro-capitialism etc. the articles tend to both give a reasonably neutral coverage of the facts and include ‘but we would think that, whereas others say…’ alternative viewpoints.
How common is that these days?
Makes Time, Newsweek etc. look like supermarket tabloids. And they’re even witty sometimes!
I bought a 3-year subscription and renew regularly.
I subscribe to magazines through Overstock, which saves me a considerable chunk of change. When I looked it up they had The Economist for $97/year: http://www.overstock.com/cgi-bin/d2.cgi?page=proframe&prod_id=1660062
Though it does indicate limited supplies at that price.
I have excess airline miles that I may not get to use (given the state of major carriers these days) and would love to subscribe to the Economist. Their cover story about the Korean summit featuring Kim Jong-Il in full regalia (with the priceless caption “Greetings, earthlings”) was what hooked me.
If any of you have received the offer via e-mail or can send me a link, I would appreciate it!
Another ‘Hell, yeah’ for the Economist. I’ve been a subscriber for years.
I like it, too, but it is pretty conservative in its outlook on (duh) economics - adamantly pro-free market and skeptical of most government intervention or regulation. As noted above, it has a generally British take on the news, which makes for an interesting perspective.
I should add: the magazine’s circulation dept. ripped me off last year. I got an ad card saying I’d get their “World Review” fact booklet if I tried a few issues. I tried a few issues, liked it but didn’t have time for a full subscription, so said “no thanks” to more. Asked for my “World Review,” and got a form letter saying it was only for those who subscribed. Uh, no, sorry - that’s not what the ad card said, no matter how hard I looked.
Two more letters, a Better Business Bureau report and letters to the consumer-protection sections of both the Ohio and Colorado attorneys general (Ohio because that’s where I live; Colorado because that’s where the magazine’s circulation dept. is located) later, still no “World Review.”
Pissed me off.
Another yes vote here. It’s a great magazine. Or newspaper, if you insist on calling it that.
I discovered it last summer and have read pretty much every issue since.
I’ve got my latest copy of The Economist right here. There are several of those annoying cards offering a mug and a copy of The World in 2006. On every single one of them it says the gifts come with a paid subscription.
Dammit! After reading this thread, I decided to use my useless Northwest Miles to subscribe to The Economist, and now I find on their website that the offer’s only available in the US! Crap.
Clearly they changed the wording because of William V. 
I wish I could claim credit, but I can’t believe I’m the only one who complained.