That completely doesn't describe the Economist, you must have been reading it with eyes or your mind tightly shut. And I certainly can't imagine they would bother to endorse this particular report. This story is after all stupid, and the CEBR report is just written to get headlines.

FYI, The Economist cautions against under-regulation that fails to prevent mishaps, over-regulation that strangles initiative, and poor regulation that creates perverse incentives. These are all things that you too would criticise I think. Perhaps you would draw a different line to them between what is excessive and what is perverse, but we are all reasonable people who are not afraid of examining evidence, so what's the harm?

It does draw attention to issues caused by state ownership of industry - those are real problems and it would be foolish to assume that they go away if you try really hard not to believe in them. But they are highly critical of bad privatisation (the kind of thing that doesn't cure such problems, or replaces them with new inefficiencies) and the corrupt sell offs that are common in India and Eastern Europe. Nobody could possibly read their paper and come to the conclusion that they are supply side Reaganites.

If you've never read an article promoting state intervention then you clearly haven't bothered reading much at all; their criticism of Obamacare being an obvious example - they recommend proper "socialised" healthcare as its done in Europe.
They also have been against carbon trading since day one and argued vehemently that a tax would be more efficient. There's lots more if you take the time to read it.

But that's neither here nor there. The internet is full of people who have arrived at judgments they can't justify and have no interest in the arguments or data that lead others to disagree with them. The good thing about the Economist is that they expect to see a serious case presented or they won't publish. So it doesn't matter if you agree with their conclusions or not, the important thing is that they show their working.

Their letters pages are packed with people who violently disagree with their judgment, and to be honest sometimes they go a bit over the top with their retractions (every copy for years had at least one apology for their original backing of the Iraq invasion somewhere in it). Dogma is for other (lesser) publications and people.

While we're at it. This is how many hits you get with a search for Justin Timberlake on economist.com
http://www.economist.com/search/apaches ... timberlake
And this is how many you get for Joseph Kony
http://www.economist.com/search/apachesolr_search/kony
So in context I would recommend it for the fact that it considers world news about vicious murderers far more important than celebrity sex scandals even if for no other reason.