I think cynicism is understandable. It is indeed an "ad-hominem" argument, but it's universal — for example, few in the West took what Pravda had to say at face value, when the Soviet Union existed. When institutions have a record of bias, their claims come under more scrutiny. It's just plain institutional analysis, which everyone uses to some extent.

(The World Bank is hardly a neutral figure. Otherwise, how could the Bush administration move the neoconservative Wolfowitz from the Pentagon to head the World Bank? Did the world's population directly vote him in? It most certainly is a "special interest group", in the sense that it acts in the interests of a tiny minority.)

That said, in-depth dissections of the claims themselves are certainly good, like this critique: (http://www.stwr.org/globalization/world-bank-poverty-figures...)

There is skepticism, and then there is refusing to look into one's opponent's arguments' content. I'm all for skepticism, and I advocate double checking the data and figures of even one's closest allies, but that's not what the GP was doing - it was an outright dismissal of anything the article concluded, solely because if its author.

That was not an ad hominem. I really hate that phrase thrown about.

Seems full of questions rather than accusations, and I didn't see obscure mentioned anywhere.

Oh please, for all intents and purposes, the gist of the GP is 'oh it's the Economist, they're a bunch of shills, so they're wrong'. I'm not going to argue nonsensical things like what exactly is an ad hominem, it's crystal clear that the GP intended to dismiss the message of the article by saying that because it's from the Economist, it's automatically wrong; i.e., that it's wrong because of who said it and their ideological background, rather than the substance of what was said. If that's not an ad hominem, I don't know what is.

No, he's not saying that at all. That's explicit if you just read his last sentence.

Just because the ad hominem attack is cloaked some very lazy relativism does not give it substance.

"Isn't this just a capitalist supporting publication trying to justify that which it supports?"

This is pretty close to ad hominem. No substance, just casting aspersions on the Economist's character.

Calling The Economist "capitalist" isn't much of an aspersion, even if it was meant that way. And an aspersion isn't an ad hominem.

"And an aspersion isn't an ad hominem."

And a tortilla isn't a burrito. But if you put your Mexican fillings of choice in it and wrap it up it is.

An aspersion is in the eye of the beholder, of course. The poster says, don't trust them - they're capitalist. He then qualifies that by saying, well everyone has biases or agendas anyway. To me that doesn't really change the first part.