Are you smarter than a liberal?

[Nemesis 1]

You think if they had changed captains after the Titanic hit the iceberg it would have been the new guy's fault it sank?

Good point but it was good old and didn't have sex with that women Clinton that passed the laws that set this whole thing in motion . Its sad ya have to resort to pointing back at the other guy. But by doing so it allows others to point out that it was Clinton at the Helm and set the course .

 

[Jhhnn]

No. That is your ignorant interpretation of my statement.

How does government know what the poorest choices are if individuals do not? The only justification which I could make for this argument (though please feel free to offer your own) is that politicians are smarter/more experienced/better educated than the average individual and may therefore make a better decision. However, the history of the past decade is a litany of evidence to the contrary.

The results of government eliminating choices for the population as a whole is demonstrably negative except for a few, if that's what you're saying. It would be easier to know for certain that you are agreeing with me if you expressed yourself in complete thoughts rather than using vague palliatives and ellipsis...

Desperation ensues, and the deliberately obtuse grammar nazi emerges.

(It is) one of those "Find me a way!" deals, like rationalizations for the invasion of Iraq...

(It is) entirely unreasonable on your part to pretend to not comprehend something that's understood in the first place.

Which sums up your entire argument in this thread. Following the last great collapse of investment chicanery in 1929, a variety of mechanisms were instituted to prevent recurrence, mechanisms that created a more stable economic environment than previously possible. Those mechanisms limited choice in no small way, until the new era of financial flimflams, of the return of the core beliefs of free market capitalism in the form of Reaganomics.

It's remarkable that you'd reference the disaster created over the Bush years as an argument against govt involvement in the economy. That's precisely the same argument that the Bush economic team invoked to neuter what constraints remained, creating the situation we face today. Free Market! Self regulated banking! Cut Red tape! Ownership Society!

What the stock market was in 1929 became the real estate market of 2007, just with a few new tools of financial destruction in the bankers' armory...

 

[charrison]

The question doesn't ask that. The point is the "enlightened" answer is not same as the right answer all the time. The "enlightened" crew thought banks and oil companies should regulate themselves.

No, that has not been said. It is being said that regulations adds cost, sometimes those are costs are needed and sometimes they are not. Well intended regulations often have highly undesired side effects.

 

[WHAMPOM]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703561604575282190930932412.html



A surprisingly high percentage of self-identified liberals and democrats fail at basic economics questions. I'm starting to think that the mind of a liberal works like this: "I want it to be true, so it must be true. It feels good for it to be true, so it is."

Is that in opposition to your"What strokes my ego must be true?" Guess not!

 

[Gonad the Barbarian]

Good point but it was good old and didn't have sex with that women Clinton that passed the laws that set this whole thing in motion . Its sad ya have to resort to pointing back at the other guy. But by doing so it allows others to point out that it was Clinton at the Helm and set the course .

Clinton had a lot of help from the R congresses throughout 3/4's of his presidency. But don't stop there, you have to go back to the early 80's if you want to point fingers at the folks who really started the mess we're in now. And two guesses what side of the political spectrum those folks fall on.

 

[theeedude]

No, that has not been said. It is being said that regulations adds cost, sometimes those are costs are needed and sometimes they are not. Well intended regulations often have highly undesired side effects.

No, but they counted as incorrect answers that could be correct under some circumstances. The poll is an embarrassment to the Zogby organization, and of if it wasn't just another Murdoch rag, would be an embarrassment to WSJ.

 

[theeedude]

The other questions were:

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

Does requiring bus drivers to have a driver license increase costs more than insuring unlicensed bus drivers would?

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

Subjective, and arguably wrong.

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

For Zogby/WSJ to prove. If you are the guy who can only afford housing because of rent control, you are going to experience a housing shortage real quick if your rent is doubled.

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

About the only one that is objectively right.

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

Subjective and probably wrong. Some are surely being exploited, depending on definition.

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

Ask US manufacturing industry workers.

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

For Zogby/WSJ to prove.

 

[theeedude]

This sounds like another Push-poll where they peddle their own ideology as truth under guise of polling.
So the real question is are you smarter than a conservative who got suckered by this?

 

[khon]

You're going to use that poll to prove your side is smarter, seriously ?

That was pushpolling at it's worst.

 

[werepossum]

That would be a legitimate point and something that has been done many times for good affect. You can disagree on whether it should be done or not, but you can't disagree that it is a viable Option.

This is the utter fail of the liberal position. Government can never make housing housing more affordable, except in the few cases where it decides to remove some barriers that government itself established. All government can do is make housing seem more affordable for a privileged few by using its armed might to force others to subsidize housing for those few.

Sadly a lot of liberal ideas don't seem to take reality into account.

The first question is the best example. Do things like laws make housing more expensive? If you're not completely brain dead, you know that laws absolutely make things more expensive. The building must have fire exits, it must have fire alarms, it must have a fire annunciator, there must be fire-resistant insulation between floors and between rooms, all power cables in the building must have a dedicated ground wire, bathrooms need GFCI receptacles, power cables need to be a certain size, etc. All of this stuff costs money.

It's fine if you want all of this stuff. I support all of those things because I think safety is important, but let's not get stupid and say it's all free. When we don't think about the cost of what we are doing, we're more likely to make really bad mistakes (Iraq war = trillions of dollars and counting).

QFT. What government does and requires may add value as well as cost. It is the pretending that government doesn't add cost that causes problems.

 

[Jhhnn]

This is the utter fail of the liberal position. Government can never make housing housing more affordable, except in the few cases where it decides to remove some barriers that government itself established. All government can do is make housing seem more affordable for a privileged few by using its armed might to force others to subsidize housing for those few.


QFT. What government does and requires may add value as well as cost. It is the pretending that government doesn't add cost that causes problems.

Ideological claptrap. Prior to the Bushistas enabling the lootocracy, The FHA, VA, Fannie and Freddie helped millions of people obtain housing, and investors to profit from buying their paper.

One of the creations of New Deal banking was self amortizing mortgages such as we have today. The CRA insures that qualified buyers can obtain mortgages in their own neighborhoods, regardless of the previous racist redlining practices of lending institutions.

The govt also enhances affordability with mortgage interest deductions, subsidizes the timber industry with low cost timber, and pays unemployment benefits to seasonal construction workers so they'll be there to work next year...

Not to mention flood control measures and flood insurance programs.

That's just off the top of my head- the list goes on from there, I'm sure...

 

[ShawnD1]

The other questions were:

Does requiring bus drivers to have a driver license increase costs more than insuring unlicensed bus drivers would?

It probably does. Very few people have a class 1 license and are allowed to drive things with air brakes.

I know what you're thinking - having a license makes them safer. Intuitively that makes sense. Being well trained makes you safe, right? I'm not entirely convinced. Look at how much you need to know to get a regular car license and look how many people remember anything they've learned. Do you remember how to parallel park? Does your wife remember? Do you remember to use your signals when changing lanes? A lot of people don't.
The only way to get better at driving something like your car or a bus is to have experience. Having a license doesn't mean every 16 year old kid is a pro driver.

For Zogby/WSJ to prove. If you are the guy who can only afford housing because of rent control, you are going to experience a housing shortage real quick if your rent is doubled.

The problem is that rent control doesn't work. A few years ago when things were at their peak, housing was incredibly expensive. My city put up a new rule that renters could only raise the rent once per year, which is somewhat nice because it makes the budget more stable and predictable. The result was that renters would raise the prices based on what they expected the price to be in a year, so the yearly hike was huge.
In a town a few hundred miles away from me, there is a critical housing shortage and prices are out of control. Right now profit is the reason things are being built as fast as possible. If you try to put a limit on that profit, there's less motivation to build more apartment buildings, and the housing situation gets even worse.

Subjective and probably wrong. Some are surely being exploited, depending on definition.

I think it means exploited based on average. Sweatshops are very similar to shit jobs like construction or oilfield stuff in North America. The work is unbelievably shitty but it often pays a lot higher than the average wage. Would I say construction workers are being exploited because they work in the sun for 12 and sometimes 14 hours per day doing hard labor? Not really. They are voluntarily staying with that job because it pays 2-3x as much as a cushy job like McDonalds (nice air conditioned building, only 8 hours, free food, no hard labor).

All government can do is make housing seem more affordable for a privileged few by using its armed might to force others to subsidize housing for those few.

This. We've seen that price controls don't work, but subsidies sometimes work depending on what they are for. My education is very heavily subsidized by the government, and I think I got a really good education. We got to work with very expensive equipment and we tested a quarter million dollar transformer. There was definitely no cost cutting, but it was subsidized to make it affordable.

 

[CycloWizard]

Desperation ensues, and the deliberately obtuse grammar nazi emerges.

(It is) one of those "Find me a way!" deals, like rationalizations for the invasion of Iraq...

(It is) entirely unreasonable on your part to pretend to not comprehend something that's understood in the first place.

If you would take three extra seconds to write something in proper English, I might be able to figure out what you're saying. Until then, you can call me a "grammar nazi [sic]" until you're blue in the face - the problem is that you are unable to convey your ideas using the written language. If you want me to speculate as to what you're trying to say, then you'll simply be arguing against strawmen, so take a breath and figure out how to say what you mean instead of something completely ambiguous.

Which sums up your entire argument in this thread. Following the last great collapse of investment chicanery in 1929, a variety of mechanisms were instituted to prevent recurrence, mechanisms that created a more stable economic environment than previously possible. Those mechanisms limited choice in no small way, until the new era of financial flimflams, of the return of the core beliefs of free market capitalism in the form of Reaganomics.

Strawman.

It's remarkable that you'd reference the disaster created over the Bush years as an argument against govt involvement in the economy. That's precisely the same argument that the Bush economic team invoked to neuter what constraints remained, creating the situation we face today. Free Market! Self regulated banking! Cut Red tape! Ownership Society!

I agree that Bush's economic policies were terrible, largely because he imposed new constraints on private enterprise: you must lend to people even if you don't think the risk is worth the reward. That is not free market or self regulation - it's government forcing private entities to make decisions which they know are bad.

What the stock market was in 1929 became the real estate market of 2007, just with a few new tools of financial destruction in the bankers' armory...

You are either completely ignorant, a liar, or so blindly partisan that you really believe what you're saying. Either way, I'd recommend taking a course in reality at your local community college.

 

[werepossum]

Ideological claptrap. Prior to the Bushistas enabling the lootocracy, The FHA, VA, Fannie and Freddie helped millions of people obtain housing, and investors to profit from buying their paper.

One of the creations of New Deal banking was self amortizing mortgages such as we have today. The CRA insures that qualified buyers can obtain mortgages in their own neighborhoods, regardless of the previous racist redlining practices of lending institutions.

The govt also enhances affordability with mortgage interest deductions, subsidizes the timber industry with low cost timber, and pays unemployment benefits to seasonal construction workers so they'll be there to work next year...

Not to mention flood control measures and flood insurance programs.

That's just off the top of my head- the list goes on from there, I'm sure...

Thanks for providing examples of my point. If I thought you were smart enough to realize that you were doing so, I'd be impressed. Perhaps one day you'll be capable of realizing how "subsidizes the timber industry with low cost timber" relates to "force others to subsidize housing". Rest assured that I will not be holding my breath waiting for that day to come.

 

[charrison]

No, but they counted as incorrect answers that could be correct under some circumstances. The poll is an embarrassment to the Zogby organization, and of if it wasn't just another Murdoch rag, would be an embarrassment to WSJ.

Because the answers are in fact incorrect answers. Regulations do have a nasty habit of adding costs. Most economist do not debate that. Therefore the incorrect answers are still incorrect answers, even if you wish regulations have good intentions.

 

[Nemesis 1]

Clinton had a lot of help from the R congresses throughout 3/4's of his presidency. But don't stop there, you have to go back to the early 80's if you want to point fingers at the folks who really started the mess we're in now. And two guesses what side of the political spectrum those folks fall on.

If your going that far back the buck stops at The second worse pres. in history Jimmy Carter. As for the senate and house . You guys all use that . But 2nd term of Bush dems pretty much had control. You guys just don't get it . Both sides are backing freaken losers with the morals equal to that of Preying mantis. Its their nature . The cream does not rise to the top in politics the scum does.

 

[Jhhnn]

Thanks for providing examples of my point. If I thought you were smart enough to realize that you were doing so, I'd be impressed. Perhaps one day you'll be capable of realizing how "subsidizes the timber industry with low cost timber" relates to "force others to subsidize housing". Rest assured that I will not be holding my breath waiting for that day to come.

That's it? That's all you can actually pick at in a truly lame fashion?

It's the govt's timber in the first place, and the govt's lawful right to sell it. Hell, Righties exert enormous pressure on the govt to sell every last sapling to the industry, cheaply, to, uhh, stimulate the local economy, remember?

It's not a minority that's benefited from govt actions wrt housing, anyway, but rather the majority. If you want to try to make a case that the middle class is robbing the pitiful and abused financial elite of their god-given right to hog it all for themselves, go ahead, but it's not like you'll be able to make much sense doing so...

 

[Rainsford]

Because the answers are in fact incorrect answers. Regulations do have a nasty habit of adding costs. Most economist do not debate that. Therefore the incorrect answers are still incorrect answers, even if you wish regulations have good intentions.

While I think there's a flaw in the idea that we can determine absolutely correct answers by looking at what "most economists" think, that wasn't what the question asked. "Less affordable" and "adding costs" does not meant the same thing, as anyone with a basic understanding of the phrase "total cost of ownership" should be able to tell you. The other questions all have similar problems, the "right" answer is only the right answer if you consider the question from a particular point of view. It's not surprising that conservatives agree with each other and liberals agree with each other on the answers, but I'm not sure it's possible to declare one side right or wrong...because that depends on how you think about the question.

And that's the problem with economics, and why it's a stupid measure of intelligence. Like all non-hard sciences, correctness is often a matter of perspective, and on many issues, two intelligent economists can come to two very different conclusions...and both be right. Of course a conservative publication and its conservative readership is going to interpret this poll in the way most beneficial to them, but that's just intellectual masturbation.

But if you think I'm wrong, how do you think a poll with climate change as the topic would go?

 

[theeedude]

Because the answers are in fact incorrect answers. Regulations do have a nasty habit of adding costs. Most economist do not debate that. Therefore the incorrect answers are still incorrect answers, even if you wish regulations have good intentions.

Regulations don't necessarily add costs overall if they help prevent much costlier mishaps. But it is interesting to see how many of you cons fell for this push poll

 

[charrison]

Regulations don't necessarily add costs overall if they help prevent much costlier mishaps. But it is interesting to see how many of you cons fell for this push poll

From an economic standpoint, they were fair questions.

 

[charrison]

While I think there's a flaw in the idea that we can determine absolutely correct answers by looking at what "most economists" think, that wasn't what the question asked. "Less affordable" and "adding costs" does not meant the same thing, as anyone with a basic understanding of the phrase "total cost of ownership" should be able to tell you. The other questions all have similar problems, the "right" answer is only the right answer if you consider the question from a particular point of view. It's not surprising that conservatives agree with each other and liberals agree with each other on the answers, but I'm not sure it's possible to declare one side right or wrong...because that depends on how you think about the question.

And that's the problem with economics, and why it's a stupid measure of intelligence. Like all non-hard sciences, correctness is often a matter of perspective, and on many issues, two intelligent economists can come to two very different conclusions...and both be right. Of course a conservative publication and its conservative readership is going to interpret this poll in the way most beneficial to them, but that's just intellectual masturbation.

But if you think I'm wrong, how do you think a poll with climate change as the topic would go?

On that we will have to disagree. They were fair and straightforward questions. They were not designed to trick or mislead. THey do not measure intelligence, just knowledge.

 

[Nemesis 1]

From the beginning of organized governments read this and comprehend its meaning and nature.

The Sumerians, very early, developed a religio-politico state which was extremely binding on all who lived in it (except for the rulers, who were a law unto themselves). This system was to influence the Ancient Near East for over 3000 years. Other cultures which followed the Sumerian system were Accad, Babylon, Assyria, and Persia, which became the basis of Greece and Rome's system of rule. Founded by Cush, the Sumerians were very important historically and Biblically.

The part in par. is whats intersting . Until this changes and we hang these people nothing changes.

 

[Rainsford]

On that we will have to disagree. They were fair and straightforward questions. They were not designed to trick or mislead. THey do not measure intelligence, just knowledge.

They were simple, it's true...but they were too simple. Economics doesn't have very many questions that fall into the category of "2+2 = ?", and these were not that kind of question. They were too general to conclusively pick a right and wrong answer, IMHO. But we can agree to disagree.

On the other hand, I will say that the CHOICE of questions was entirely biased. Knowledge of economics wasn't necessary for conservatives to get the "right" answers, since ALL of those questions were based on common conservative ideology. I doubt many people polled could have drawn upon any economic knowledge to explain WHY their answers were "correct", their answers just nicely lined up with conservative talking points. Free trade = good. Regulation = bad. With little else, you could have answered those questions exactly as the pollster wanted you to. That seems like a poor test of knowledge to me.

 

[Rainsford]

By the way, am I the only person who noticed that "moderates" did very poorly on this poll as well? Going from conservative to moderate resulted in a much higher increase in "incorrect" answers than going from moderate to liberal did. For a poll that purports to show how much more intelligent the right is than the left, it did a pretty good job of making it look like ONLY conservatives are intelligent. Forget moonbat lefties, even moderate folks are apparently idiots.

Either that, or the poll isn't as fair as I'm sure the WSJ editorial writer (and the conservatives reading his article) would like.

 

[Nemesis 1]

While I think there's a flaw in the idea that we can determine absolutely correct answers by looking at what "most economists" think, that wasn't what the question asked. "Less affordable" and "adding costs" does not meant the same thing, as anyone with a basic understanding of the phrase "total cost of ownership" should be able to tell you. The other questions all have similar problems, the "right" answer is only the right answer if you consider the question from a particular point of view. It's not surprising that conservatives agree with each other and liberals agree with each other on the answers, but I'm not sure it's possible to declare one side right or wrong...because that depends on how you think about the question.

And that's the problem with economics, and why it's a stupid measure of intelligence. Like all non-hard sciences, correctness is often a matter of perspective, and on many issues, two intelligent economists can come to two very different conclusions...and both be right. Of course a conservative publication and its conservative readership is going to interpret this poll in the way most beneficial to them, but that's just intellectual masturbation.

But if you think I'm wrong, how do you think a poll with climate change as the topic would go?

A good example is the toyota car thing . Lawmakers are going to pass laws that install blackboxes in all cars . Added cost $2000. Pure BS lawmaking.