The Left Flunks Econ 101

Klein claims that he used a "Zogby International survey" with more than 4800 respondents. That's a damn big number for a poll, which would normally be very expensive. But this wasn't a real poll, it turns out. It was a Zogby Interactive poll. "Interactive" in this case means "crap." Basically, Zogby has a pool of self-selected individuals who desire to participate in polls. [...] It is no different than the "polls" on the local news asking viewers to call in with a response.

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Here's what Klein and Buturovic did. They took a survey using one of Zogby's internet panels, which is by far the worst polling instrument that they could have selected. The panel was not weighted and was not in balance. For example, McCain led Obama 49-43 among respondents to the survey, even though roughly the opposite outcome was observed in the actual election -- and only about 4 percent of the respondents were Hispanic and only 39 percent were female. Then they asked 16 "questions of basic economics", as the Journal's sub-head describes them, and arbitrarily included eight of them in their analysis but threw the other eight out.

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So basically, what you're left with a number of questions in which people respond out of their ideological reference points because the questions are ambiguous, substanceless, or confusing. Klein is blaming the victims, as it were.

There would have been much better ways to construct a study like this one. For instance, questions could have been developed from standardized tests of high school students, like the AP Economics exam, or from surveys of academic economists. Such studies might well support Klein's thesis. But between the poorly-considered questions and the poor choice of survey partner, this amounts to junk science.

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It's really annoying when ideological disagreements become the basis for accusations of stupidity. Now, I like to call people stupid as much as the next person (probably more). But I never use that word simply because of an ideological disagreement where there is plenty of room for rational debate.

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thewakingself said:

Here's another individual bound to confuddle the stereotypes. I have a MBA in finance and strategy, and I work in a related field. Since I'm a P&CE lurker (you all scare me a bit, and I do mean that in the nicest possible way ), no one likely knows my political affiliation. So I'll out myself: I'm about as left-wing as one can get.

Granted, I didn't do too much digging around, but I found a few more opinions on this opinion piece. Daily Kos: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/6/11/875159/-A-Biased-Study-on-Dumb-Liberals



Nate Silver’s take here (also linked in above article): http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2010/06/are-you-smarter-than-george-mason.html



Silver's previous opinion of Zogby (and why he claims they're "the worst": http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2010/06/pollster-ratings-v40-results.html

So... they used a probably not-so-great pollster and probably not-so-great questions. Meh. I rolled my eyes and moved on. But I tend to agree with this from the Daily Kos piece:



Some conservatives are always going to try to prove liberals are dumb, just like some parts of the left-wing will always insist conservatives are dumb. Kinda defeatist, imho.

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Synonym said:

Yes, this poll is screwed nine ways from Wednesday, as far as rational thought goes. Maybe we should all hark back to this thing the next time we hear of polling data. Unless you dig up the poll, questions and methodology--it could be just as flawed. Thanks for all of your input. It's been very interesting.

I'll leave you with this article from the New York Times which cites a new study from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. There is a link if you wish to read the study.

(quote)
But a new study from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York has concluded that how much economics people study can influence their political activity and how they spend their spare time.
(end quote)

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Synonym said:

Yes, this poll is screwed nine ways from Wednesday, as far as rational thought goes. Maybe we should all hark back to this thing the next time we hear of polling data. Unless you dig up the poll, questions and methodology--it could be just as flawed. Thanks for all of your input. It's been very interesting.

I'll leave you with this article from the New York Times which cites a new study from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. There is a link if you wish to read the study.

(quote)
But a new study from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York has concluded that how much economics people study can influence their political activity and how they spend their spare time.
(end quote)

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