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Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?

hypocritexposer

Well-known member
Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?

Self-identified liberals and Democrats do badly on questions of basic economics.


Consider one of the economic propositions in the December 2008 poll: "Restrictions on housing development make housing less affordable." People were asked if they: 1) strongly agree; 2) somewhat agree; 3) somewhat disagree; 4) strongly disagree; 5) are not sure.

Basic economics acknowledges that whatever redeeming features a restriction may have, it increases the cost of production and exchange, making goods and services less affordable. There may be exceptions to the general case, but they would be atypical.

Therefore, we counted as incorrect responses of "somewhat disagree" and "strongly disagree." This treatment gives leeway for those who think the question is ambiguous or half right and half wrong. They would likely answer "not sure," which we do not count as incorrect.

In this case, percentage of conservatives answering incorrectly was 22.3%, very conservatives 17.6% and libertarians 15.7%. But the percentage of progressive/very liberals answering incorrectly was 67.6% and liberals 60.1%. The pattern was not an anomaly.

The other questions were:


1) Mandatory licensing of professional services increases the prices of those services (unenlightened answer: disagree).

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

3) Rent control leads to housing shortages (unenlightened answer: disagree).

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

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

6) Free trade leads to unemployment (unenlightened answer: agree).

7) Minimum wage laws raise unemployment (unenlightened answer: disagree).


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.


http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703561604575282190930932412.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop

Mr. Klein is a professor of economics at George Mason University. This op-ed is based on an article published in the May 2010 issue of the journal he edits, Econ Journal Watch, a project sponsored by the American Institute for Economic Research.
 
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