Gallup: Americans Blame Gov't More Than Wall Street for Economy

[ProSense]

Americans Blame Gov't More Than Wall Street for Economy



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Looks like Gallup is engaging in some creative polling to take the heat off Wall Street.


The first question could easily be interpreted to mean the gridlock in Congress. The second is framed a little better, but it's still ambiguous.

With every major poll showing overwhelming support for Occupy Wall Street, it's clear Americans believe financial institutions had a significant hand in creating the crisis.

[valerief]

1. Wall Street is the US government, so their questions are bogus. nt

[closeupready]

2. I disagree with your claim that Gallup is polling creatively.

Or rather, I think these results make sense.

Most Americans understand that people on Wall Street and in business are in it for the money, and don't care about anyone but themselves.

On the other hand, the federal government is supposed to protect national interests - the economy being a big one - and the failure to adequately regulate greedy behavior is a big part of why the economy has tanked.

[ProSense]

4. The

"I disagree with your claim that Gallup is polling creatively"

...statement was intended to as criticism of the ambiguity of the question. Wall Street vs. the Federal Government is not indicative of anything. Like I said, the first question could easily be interpreted to mean the gridlock in Congress (as opposed to the cause of the financial crisis).

Most Americans understand that people on Wall Street and in business are in it for the money, and don't care about anyone but themselves.

On the other hand, the federal government is supposed to protect national interests - the economy being a big one - and the failure to adequately regulate greedy behavior is a big part of why the economy has tanked.

That implies that people are interpreting the question as one of morality, which then has nothing to do with the overall sentiment of the current climate. It assumes that the question was interpreted as generic.

Again, every major poll shows overwhelming support for Occupy Wall Street.

As for creative polling, Gallup is not above it.

Half Say President, Congress Doing Worse Than Predecessors

How does one justify lumping the President and Congress together, especially when the President's approval is nearly 30 points higher than Congress' and nearly 20 points higher than most Congressional leaders?

Does "predecessors" include the 111th Congress, one of the most productive in history?

[closeupready]

5. It's debatable, I think. Consider Glass-Stegall, for example.

nt

[ProSense]

7. Yes,

"It's debatable, I think. Consider Glass-Stegall, for example."

...but again, the implication is that people interpreted the question as generic. Also, repealing Glass-Steagall was a catalyst, the immoral and illegal activities were Wall Street's doing. The Bush administration's policies simply fueled this activity either directly or by looking the other way until it was too late.

[BeyondGeography]

3. Gov't did clear the way for Wall St.

But that's probably not what they're saying. They're just mad at government. Wah.

[Owlet]

6. Yes it did.

This article has an odd title "Ending Loser Liberalism and Restructuring the Market Economy", but makes some good points. I don't quite get why government intervention should be labeled "Loser Liberalism" unless all government support for anything is seen in that light. Doesn't make a lot of sense to me, but maybe someone smarter can figure it out.


"The growing nationwide response to the Occupy Wall Street movement displays a widespread discontent with the direction the country is taking. The economy is experiencing the worst downturn since the Great Depression, after a decade of bubble driven growth. The banks who were the main culprits in driving the bubble are largely back on their feet, with top executives again enjoying the same sort of pay and bonuses as they had before the crash. Meanwhile the bulk of the working population continues to suffer the fallout from the crash in the form of unemployment, underemployment, and underwater mortgages. It’s not surprising that people are unhappy with this situation.

What is most important to understand is that this outcome is not just an accident of the market. The banks - who took great risk in extending the credit that fueled the bubble - are back on their feet because of extensive support from the government. This includes not only the $700 billion that Congress appropriated through the TARP, but the trillions more that were lent by the Fed through its special facilities at the peak of the crisis. In addition, an even larger amount of guarantees provided by both the Fed and the FDIC ensured that the banks could survive the crisis that they had helped to bring on.
The extensive government intervention that has allowed the financial industry to survive largely intact is not an exception. In other areas of the economy the interventions may be less transparent, but it is easy to identify ways in which the government has structured the market to redistribute income upward.

For example, prescription drugs are expensive because of government provided patent monopolies. We currently spend close to $300 billion a year on drugs that would cost around $30 billion a year if drugs were sold in a free market like other goods. The difference, $270 billion a year, dwarfs the sums that are typically debated by Congress in tax and spending bills. Patents serve a purpose in providing an incentive for research, but there are other mechanisms for supporting medical research that are likely to be less costly and lead to less inequality. (We already spend $30 billion a year on research on biomedical research through the National Institutes of Health.)"

Full Article Here