Perhaps an explanation why the economy isn't improving under the Messiah

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  1. barfo

    barfo triggered obsessive commie pinko boomer maniac Staff Member Global Moderator

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    Re: Perhaps and explanation why the economy isn't improving under the Messiah

    Exciting.

    It's a survey rather than a poll? Ok. Important distinction!

    And if you don't see how it could be considered inaccurate, well... c'mon now. You don't actually expect me to believe you don't know anything about polling, do you? Given the number of polls you post it doesn't seem plausible.

    Or are you just having a semantic laugh here, saying that the answers that people put in were recorded accurately? I imagine that's true. It's any and all conclusions that were drawn from the answers that are inaccurate.

    If there were, there wouldn't be any point in talking about the poll, would there?

    barfo
     
    barfo, Jun 8, 2010
    #21
  2. GriLtCheeZ

    GriLtCheeZ "Well, I'm not lookin' for trouble."

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    Re: Perhaps and explanation why the economy isn't improving under the Messiah

    [video=youtube;fxdt_f0hwUg]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxdt_f0hwUg[/video]
     
    GriLtCheeZ, Jun 8, 2010
    #22
  3. Eastoff

    Eastoff But it was a beginning.

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    Re: Perhaps and explanation why the economy isn't improving under the Messiah

    can you imagine what it'd be like for George W. to actually see that? Old people encouraging children to speak gibberish about a cardboard cut out of you.
     
    Eastoff, Jun 8, 2010
    #23
  4. barfo

    barfo triggered obsessive commie pinko boomer maniac Staff Member Global Moderator

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    Re: Perhaps and explanation why the economy isn't improving under the Messiah

    Looks like I didn't really need to kick this survey, Nate did it for me:

    barfo
     
    barfo, Jun 8, 2010
    #24
  5. maxiep

    maxiep RIP Dr. Jack

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    Re: Perhaps and explanation why the economy isn't improving under the Messiah

    Gee, he has an AB in Econ from the U of C? Gosh, I don't know how I can possibly compete with that, but I'll try. Nate can try to spin, spin, spin, but it won't work. These questions were about basic positions on economic attitudes. What the Liberals did in this survey was imprint their values and ignored economic reality. And I use the word reality purposely. The economic data is overwhelming on the ideas presented here and are taught in every intro econ class, be it from a freshwater or saltwater perspective.

    As for his other red herrings, Nate can talk about the distribution of voters all he wants, but the numbers of McCain and Obama voters are largely irrelevant. The Law of Large Numbers applies here and the respondents self-identified. Nate can call it "junk science", but only the most extreme answer was considered incorrect. It wasn't an issue of shading; it was black and white.

    Let's review the questions, shall we?

    1) "Restrictions on housing development make housing less affordable." Supply and demand. It's a law. It's wonderful to put restrictions on property development, but let's not pretend it's costless.

    2) "Mandatory licensing of professional services increases the prices of those services." If it's more difficult and more expensive to become a professional, it costs more. I know people like to think that making people jump through more hoops shouldn't increase the price of the service, but it does in almost every profession. Physicians and lawyers paid a lot of money to get those degrees, they're going to charge more than Medieval barbers and guys who just like to argue.

    3) "Overall, the standard of living is higher today than it was 30 years ago." Is empirically true. It may not feel that way to those who want to give ever more to our government, but our standard of living is significantly better, not just a little.

    4) "Rent control leads to housing shortages." The liberal may say, "rent control makes things more fair", but limit income/profit and of course you're going to get less product.

    5) "A company with the largest market share is a monopoly." A monopoly is a company that owns 100% of the market share. Not 90%, not 75%, but 100%. Even a company that holds a 1% market share can dramatically affect the pricing and the market response. Liberals may feel the biggest company is evil because it exerts control on the market, but that doesn't make it a monopoly.

    6) "Third World workers working for American companies overseas are being exploited." Again, this question tugs at the heart of Liberals, without engaging the brain. It demonstrates a default attitude rather than an actual condition.

    7) "Free trade leads to unemployment." Again, empirically true, even with absolute advantage. Free trade lowers prices, which increases the wealth of a country. More wealth generally leads to more investment, and hence, more jobs. The idea that free trade necessarily leads to unemployment is preposterous.

    8) "Minimum wage laws raise unemployment." Again, it's supply and demand. If you have a finite pool of money, you can only hire so many employees. If you have to pay a higher amount than the market demands, then you have to hire fewer employees.

    This is a case of political philosophy blinding its adherents to economic reality.
     
    maxiep, Jun 9, 2010
    #25
  6. barfo

    barfo triggered obsessive commie pinko boomer maniac Staff Member Global Moderator

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    Re: Perhaps and explanation why the economy isn't improving under the Messiah

    wow, you are actually defending an internet poll?

    Let's get serious. There's no evidence that even one liberal filled out that survey.

    People jerk internet surveys around all the time. That's part of why Zogby internet polls are trash. The other part is that people self-select to answer the polls, and self-selection is not a good way to get accurate sampling.

    I'm pretty sure Nate would laugh at your invocation of the Law of Large Numbers. I certainly do.

    All this poll shows is that the people who filled it out answered a particular way. It's no more scientific, and no more meaningful, than the polls here on S2. And you know it.

    barfo
     
    barfo, Jun 9, 2010
    #26
  7. BLAZER PROPHET

    BLAZER PROPHET Well-Known Member

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    Re: Perhaps and explanation why the economy isn't improving under the Messiah

    Nope, you're all wrong. It's as Maris said- it's all Bush's fault. Every single thing the Obama/Pelosi administration does is all Bush's fault.

    Gee, one would think the left would take some accountability for their actions.
     
    Last edited: Jun 9, 2010
    BLAZER PROPHET, Jun 9, 2010
    #27
  8. Denny Crane

    Denny Crane It's not even loaded! Staff Member Administrator

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    Re: Perhaps and explanation why the economy isn't improving under the Messiah

    I'm quite sure a survey is not a poll. They asked questions of ~5000 people and that's all they were supposed to do. There's no +/- margin of error because it's not a poll. They questioned 5000 people because it's not a poll. Polls are usually 1500 or less and the result weighted and extrapolated to fit the entire population within a certain confidence (the +/-)

    Of the 5000 people, the answers were tallied and the results are what the results are. They were asked their party affiliation, this information was not somehow deduced by the polling firm.

    "Is the country headed in the right direction?" is a survey question. The result is how the people answer the question, period. They might break down the answers by party affiliation and all that, but there's no +/- margin of error.

    "If the election were held today, who would you vote for?" is a poll question. It matters if you ask all republicans, all democrats, or some mix, and you do have to weight the results - if 60% of the mix are republicans, you need to adjust the result if you want to predict actual election results. There is a +/- margin of error, and things matter like whether you are polling likely voters or not.

    Nate's suggestion that this survey should be weighted is absurd.

    People do jerk around internet surveys all the time. If they ask a question on Fox News telling people to go to their WWW site, the results on their WWW site are clearly skewed. However, if they asked people their party affiliation and provided results including that information, the internet poll would be more interesting. Instead of 90% oppose health care bill, it might be 90% of democrats, all 10 of them who voted, favor it, and about 10% of republicans favor it (or whatever).

    So there's the thing about this survey, barfo. They get 5000 people to answer. The answers are what the answers are. They do provide a breakdown of party affiliation, and in great detail - even including libertarians.

    The answers are what the answers are.

    I already posted this:

    To rig the results, conservatives or others who know the answers would have to lie about their party affiliation and then deliberately answer the questions wrong to make left wingers look more wrong on the answers. Is this what you are claiming? Where's your proof?

    In spite of Silver's protestations, the OP article states:

    I'll conclude this post with the following bits of information. Nowhere in the PDF file linked to from the WSJ article does the word "margin" appear, let alone "margin of error." The guys who wrote that article (PDF) are professionals; one a researcher at Zogby, the other a professor of economics at George Mason University. Nate Silver seems to have a pretty big ego, eh?
     
    Denny Crane, Jun 9, 2010
    #28
  9. barfo

    barfo triggered obsessive commie pinko boomer maniac Staff Member Global Moderator

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    Re: Perhaps and explanation why the economy isn't improving under the Messiah

    Yes, the answers are what the answers are. That we can agree on. It's when implications are made that the results actually say anything about any of the 300 million people who didn't fill out the survey that we get into trouble.
    As for Nate, yes, he has a big ego.

    barfo
     
    barfo, Jun 9, 2010
    #29
  10. chris_in_pdx

    chris_in_pdx OLD MAN

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    Re: Perhaps and explanation why the economy isn't improving under the Messiah

    That's it, Sheeple. Keep arguing about who in D.C. is really looking out for your best interests, when the obvious answer is NO ONE.
     
    chris_in_pdx, Jun 9, 2010
    #30
  11. blazerboy30

    blazerboy30 Well-Known Member

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    Re: Perhaps and explanation why the economy isn't improving under the Messiah

    That's what I would have said if my political leanings also caused me to fail a set of basic economic questions.
     
    blazerboy30, Jun 9, 2010
    #31
  12. BrianFromWA

    BrianFromWA Editor in Chief Staff Member Editor in Chief

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    Re: Perhaps and explanation why the economy isn't improving under the Messiah

    I don't think Barfo would've failed those questions, but I don't know why it's being dismissed that other people did...and that most of those people identify themselves as liberals and/or democrats.
     
    BrianFromWA, Jun 9, 2010
    #32
  13. barfo

    barfo triggered obsessive commie pinko boomer maniac Staff Member Global Moderator

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    Re: Perhaps and explanation why the economy isn't improving under the Messiah

    Yes, you probably would. I, on the other hand, gave reasons why the data should be rejected.

    barfo
     
    barfo, Jun 9, 2010
    #33
  14. barfo

    barfo triggered obsessive commie pinko boomer maniac Staff Member Global Moderator

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    Re: Perhaps and explanation why the economy isn't improving under the Messiah

    Some people who self-identified as liberals did fail those questions. Not rejecting that at all. As Denny says, the answers are the answers.
    However, it doesn't say anything about liberals in general, because you can't extrapolate (or rather, you shouldn't) from that sort of survey to the population at large.
    So, is it really all that interesting that some anonymous set of fools don't know economics?

    barfo
     
    barfo, Jun 9, 2010
    #34
  15. BrianFromWA

    BrianFromWA Editor in Chief Staff Member Editor in Chief

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    Re: Perhaps and explanation why the economy isn't improving under the Messiah

    I get your point, but it was interesting to me that either there is some sort of extrapolatable (is that even a word) bias on the part of liberals against fundamental economic principles, OR that only smart conservatives and foolish liberals were part of this 5000 that took the test. The first seems a bit more likely, since we're seeing it in the actions and bills created by our political leaders who profess to being liberals, and are opposed by those who say they're conservatives.
     
    Last edited: Jun 9, 2010
    BrianFromWA, Jun 9, 2010
    #35
  16. mobes23

    mobes23 Well-Known Member

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    Re: Perhaps and explanation why the economy isn't improving under the Messiah

    It'd be nice to see solutions rather than finger pointing (which makes us all no better than the politicians who played a big role in creating the mess.) Yep, I'd sure like to see Obama focus on the economy and come up with a solid approach, but at the same time it cracks me up when the hardcore righties scream about it being the Obama's fault. It's like starting a fire and then screaming that other people aren't putting out the fire fast enough. Not only is it ridiculous, it does nothing to move us to a solution.
     
    mobes23, Jun 9, 2010
    #36
  17. Minstrel

    Minstrel Top Of The Pops Global Moderator

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    Re: Perhaps and explanation why the economy isn't improving under the Messiah

    Or the survey/poll was gamed, and people who weren't actually liberal claimed to be. That's a big reason why Internet polls are garbage...because anyone can claim to be anything and skew the results. FreeRepublic, an extreme nutjob right-wing site, often does this....they call it "freeping the poll."

    I earlier posted an article about the GOP putting up a site soliciting Republican citizens to offer up policy suggestions. The vast majority of them were ridiculous and made "conservatives" look stupid ("why are schools teaching that dolphins are mammals? They're obviously fish since they live in the water. We need to go back traditional values in education"). The obvious point (made both in the article and by some S2 posters) was that many of the ideas were surely liberals pretending to be conservatives and posting ridiculous stuff.

    So, sure...we can accept that all Internet solicitations are answered in good faith and decide that liberals are morons when it comes to economics and conservatives are morons when it comes to science. I think it's a lot sillier to see the world so simplistically. I think there are just as many economically-illiterate conservatives as liberals, just as there are likely as many liberals who don't know basic science as conservatives. Politically charged conservatives view liberals as lacking understanding in economics because many liberals often place a higher priority on utility other than pure financial utility. Politically charged liberals view conservatives as lacking understanding in science because many conservatives often place a higher priority on religious-based teachings.
     
    Minstrel, Jun 9, 2010
    #37
  18. maxiep

    maxiep RIP Dr. Jack

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    Re: Perhaps and explanation why the economy isn't improving under the Messiah

    I get that people want to make the excuse that this poll was gamed by people on the right to make those on the left look silly, but Occam's Razor applies here. It's much more likely that the thinking of those on the left is driven more by "economic justice" than actual economics.
     
    maxiep, Jun 9, 2010
    #38
  19. Denny Crane

    Denny Crane It's not even loaded! Staff Member Administrator

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    Re: Perhaps and explanation why the economy isn't improving under the Messiah

    Due to the methodology of this survey, we know:
    1) thousands of people answered
    2) there's no evidence whatsoever that the survey was rigged
    3) those who identified themselves as progressives failed miserably
    4) that those who took the test are literate, computer literate, understand e-mail and how to use a browser
    5) from #4 above, they have access to Nate Silver's site as well as others with economics information on them
    6) a whole lot of liberals/progressives answered the questions and failed to demonstrate even basic understanding economic principles

    Does it extrapolate to the entire population of liberals/progressives? No. Is the sample size substantial, yes.

    The answers are what the answers are, the number of people who participated is the number who participated.
     
    Denny Crane, Jun 9, 2010
    #39
  20. Stevenson

    Stevenson Old School

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    Re: Perhaps and explanation why the economy isn't improving under the Messiah

    Maxie - For a smart dude, your insistence that the school people graduate from should be the main criterion as to whether they are smart or not is, I suggest, badly misplaced, and hurts your own credibility.

    * Ronald Reagan went to Eureka College, and I hate to admit that he was actually one smart SOB

    * Bill Gates dropped out of Harvard

    * Jimmy Carter was a nuclear engineer, President, and Nobel prize winner. He went to Georgia Southwestern College,and the Georgia Institute of Technology

    * Steve Jobs dropped out of Reed

    * Oprah went to Tennessee State

    * Lee Bolinger, President of Columbia Univ, went to U of O.
     
    Stevenson, Jun 9, 2010
    #40
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