Conservatives Beat Liberals on Basic Economic Questions

[Confederate Kahanist]

http://action.afa.net/Blogs/BlogPost.aspx?id=2147495262



Date:  6/8/2010 8:56:49 AM
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Elijah Friedeman, the Millennial Perspective

The Wall Street Journal's Daniel Klein parses the findings of a recent Zogby poll of almost 5,000 Americans. The poll asked eight basic questions dealing with economic issues. Want to take a guess which ideological group comes out on top and which group takes last place?

    Zogby researcher Zeljka Buturovic and I considered the 4,835 respondents' (all American adults) answers to eight survey questions about basic economics. We also asked the respondents about their political leanings: progressive/very liberal; liberal; moderate; conservative; very conservative; and libertarian.

    [...]

    How did the six ideological groups do overall? Here they are, best to worst, with an average number of incorrect responses from 0 to 8: Very conservative, 1.30; Libertarian, 1.38; Conservative, 1.67; Moderate, 3.67; Liberal, 4.69; Progressive/very liberal, 5.26.

    Americans in the first three categories do reasonably well. But the left has trouble squaring economic thinking with their political psychology, morals and aesthetics.

Want to test your knowledge of economic issues? Here are the questions asked in the poll. Warning to liberals: you may perform below your expectations.

1) Mandatory licensing of professional services increases the prices of those services (Right answer: agree).

2) Overall, the standard of living is higher today than it was 30 years ago (Right answer: agree).

3) Rent control leads to housing shortages (Right answer: agree).

4) A company with the largest market share is a monopoly (Right answer: disagree).

5) Third World workers working for American companies overseas are being exploited (Right answer: disagree).

6) Free trade leads to unemployment (Right answer: disagree).

7) Minimum wage laws raise unemployment (Right answer: agree).

Restrictions on housing development make housing less affordable. (Right answer: agree)