From today's WSJ: "Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader? Liberals and Democrats do badly on questions of basic economics."
The questions were: 
1) Restrictions on housing development make housing less affordable (unenlightened answer: disagree).
2) Mandatory licensing of professional services increases the prices of those services (unenlightened answer: disagree). 
3) Overall, the standard of living is higher today than it was 30 years ago (unenlightened answer: disagree). 
4) Rent control leads to housing shortages (unenlightened answer: disagree). 
5) A company with the largest market share is a monopoly (unenlightened answer: agree). 
6) Third World workers working for American companies overseas are being exploited (unenlightened answer: agree). 
7) Free trade leads to unemployment (unenlightened answer: agree). 
8) Minimum wage laws raise unemployment (unenlightened answer: disagree).
How did the six ideological groups do overall? From best to worst, average number of incorrect responses (out of 8): 
Very conservative: 1.30 out of 8
Libertarian: 1.38
Conservative: 1.67 
Moderate: 3.67 
Liberal: 4.69 
Progressive/very liberal: 5.26
HT: Matt B, The Plaid Pundit
 
No comments:
Post a Comment