OldInfo aims to be a primary-quality reference for financial, economic, and business topics. That phrase — primary-quality — has a specific meaning and we want to be precise about.
It does not mean we are a primary source in the sense that central banks, government agencies, or companies are primary sources. We do not conduct original economic research, hold proprietary databases, or break news.
It means we work from primary sources, not from secondary commentary. When we describe how the Federal Reserve's open market operations work, we are drawing on Federal Reserve publications, Federal Reserve Act text, FOMC statements, and academic monetary economics — not on a news summary of a news summary. When we describe the BIS Basel Committee's capital requirements, we are working from the Basel Committee's own published criteria and methodology documents.
The commitment to working from primary sources is the foundational standard. Most financial content on the internet is a chain of summaries, where each link removes the original source further. We try to stay as close to the source as the topic allows.
We rank sources by reliability and proximity to primary information.
Tier 1 — Primary institutional sources: Central bank publications (Federal Reserve, ECB, Bank of England, BIS), government statistical agencies (Bureau of Labor Statistics, BEA, Eurostat, ONS), regulatory filings (SEC EDGAR, Companies House), international organization documents (IMF Article IV reports, WTO dispute panel rulings, OECD data), academic peer-reviewed research, and official transcripts of testimony.
Tier 2 — Authoritative secondary sources: Publications by recognized research institutions with documented methodologies (Economic Policy Institute, Brookings Institution, Peterson Institute for International Economics, Bank for International Settlements working papers), financial journalism with primary source citation (Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, Reuters, Bloomberg — specifically for factual reporting, not opinion), and books by recognized economists and practitioners with citations.
Tier 3 — Context and illustration: High-quality general-purpose reporting and commentary that we treat as context, not as authoritative source for specific factual claims.
We do not use: Anonymous sources, press releases cited as fact without verification, social media assertions, opinion pieces treated as factual sources, or figures without traceable origin.
For any statistic we cite, we aim to:
We do not cite figures that we cannot trace to a methodology. A claim that "X% of global trade is invoiced in dollars" requires knowing it came from the BIS, the Fed, or specific academic research with a defined methodology — not from a general statement in a financial article.
We are also careful about denominators and comparisons. GDP comparisons should note whether they use nominal or PPP-adjusted values. Inflation comparisons should note which price index is used. Wage comparisons should note whether they are pre- or post-tax, whether they include benefits, and what time period is covered. These distinctions matter.
Financial economics has genuine empirical disagreements where credible evidence supports different conclusions. We distinguish three types of claims:
Factual consensus: Claims that are not seriously contested by credible experts — the Federal Reserve's dual mandate is price stability and maximum employment; the Basel III Common Equity Tier 1 minimum is 4.5% before the capital conservation buffer; Germany's old-age dependency ratio was approximately 37% in 2023. We state these as facts without false balance.
Empirically contested claims: Areas where credible academic research reaches different conclusions — the employment effects of minimum wage increases at specific levels, the effectiveness of sanctions in achieving policy objectives, the long-run relationship between capital account openness and economic growth. We present these as contested, describe the range of credible evidence, and do not assert a conclusion that the evidence does not support.
Politically contested claims: Policy questions that involve value trade-offs rather than purely empirical disputes — whether a country should prioritize low inflation or low unemployment, how to weight distributional concerns against aggregate efficiency, how to balance environmental protection against economic growth. We describe the policy positions and the arguments behind them rather than asserting one is correct.
The goal is to not present contested claims as settled facts, and to not present settled facts as if they were merely "one perspective."
We do not use sensationalist framing to generate engagement. The economic topics we cover are genuinely important and genuinely interesting — they do not need to be inflated to seem important.
We do not produce predictions dressed as analysis. Forecasts are uncertain, and presenting forecasts with false confidence misleads readers. Where we discuss what may happen, we try to be clear about the basis for the expectation and the degree of uncertainty.
We do not write from an undisclosed political or financial interest. We have no paid relationships with any company, investment fund, government body, or other party that would create a financial interest in how we describe them.
We do not produce content designed to reach a predetermined conclusion. Our approach is to research the topic, understand the primary sources, and describe what the evidence actually shows — including when that contradicts a popular narrative.
We do not oversimplify in ways that change the actual meaning. Some simplification is inevitable when covering complex topics for a non-specialist audience. But there is a difference between simplification that preserves the essential structure of something (useful) and simplification that produces a flatly wrong impression (misleading). When a topic cannot be honestly simplified to a short statement, we try to do the longer explanation rather than the short misleading version.
We make mistakes. Figures get outdated as new data is published. Descriptions of ongoing legal or regulatory situations become inaccurate as circumstances change. Occasionally, despite our efforts, a claim is simply wrong.
When we identify an error:
Readers who identify errors or outdated information can contact us through the site's contact page. We take these reports seriously and check them against primary sources.
OldInfo is not investment advice. Nothing on this site should be read as a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold any security or asset. We describe how financial instruments and markets work; we do not tell you what to do with your money.
OldInfo is not legal or tax advice. Descriptions of legal frameworks, regulatory structures, and tax systems are explanatory, not advisory. Specific legal or tax questions require a qualified professional who knows your specific circumstances.
OldInfo is not a news service. We do not aim to be the first to report developments. We aim to provide durable, accurate explanations of how things work that remain useful as context long after breaking news has passed.
Some articles on this site are developed with the assistance of AI language models, used as drafting and research support tools. We verify claims against primary sources before publication regardless of how the initial draft was produced. The standards described in this document apply to all content, regardless of the tools used to develop it.
We note this because transparency about methodology extends to the tools used in production. The test of quality is whether the content meets the standards described here — primary sources, verified figures, honest handling of contested claims — not the tool used to draft it.
The internet has a surplus of financial and economic content that is vague, incentivized toward engagement over accuracy, and disconnected from primary sources. It has a deficit of content that is specific, traceable, honest about uncertainty, and built to be useful for the long term rather than the current news cycle.
We are trying to contribute to the latter. The standards described here are the mechanism for doing that. We will fall short of them sometimes. We try not to fall short of them systematically.