Oliverbot Strikes Again!
Has anyone actually seen Oliver Willis in person lately? I’m getting a strange feeling that he has been replaced by some automated blogging code.
Poll: 52% of Americans favor proposals to give younger workers the choice of privately investing a portion of their Social Security taxes through personal accounts
Oliverbot: The poll is rigged!
Oliverbot: The wording of the question is laughable!
Oliverbot: Privatization bad!
Oliverbot:fatal exception 0E has occurred at 0028:C2A1d628 in VXD oliverbot(01) + 00001E68. Abort/Retry/Fail?
Because that poll came out… and Oliver accused it of being rigged and called the wording of the question laughable.
For starters, does anyone expect a poll released by the pro-privatization Cato Institute to come to any other conclusion?
Secondly, the wording of the question is laughable. I imagine people would agree to a social security plan that cured cancer and enhanced sexual pleasure too!
OliverWillis: Puppies: Yes or No
Yikes… the wording of this thing must really be slanted! It must be something along the lines of “Do you want to keep more of your money and become a super-rich investor?” or “Money: Good to keep?”
Well, no. Here is the wording of the question, verbatim (Oliver neglected to include the wording, or a link to it.)
Do you favor or oppose proposals to give younger workers the choice of privately investing a portion of their Social Security taxes through personal accounts?
Favor: 52.4%
Oppose: 40.1%Zogby Poll: 05/23/2005-05/25/2005
Now, there have definitely been polls that asked poor questions, skewing the answers one way or another. But honestly, it doesn’t get any fairer than that question right there. Oliver’s problem seems to be that the question doesn’t cast privatization in a bad light!
The polls have shown, time and time again, when people understand that under the Bush plan social security benefits will be cut and that it will do nothing to address the long-term solvency of the program (which is not remotely in “crisis” any time soon), they overwhelmingly oppose the Bush plan.
OliverWillis: Puppies: Yes or No
So basically, for a poll to be valid in Oliver’s mind, it has to call specific attention to the fact that if you take a portion of your Social Security taxes and invest them, you can’t expect the government to guarantee you that money. Also, the pollster has to remark both that “there is no crisis” and that even if there were, private accounts would “do nothing to address” it. Maybe the pollster should add “really, I think you’d be happier opposing this plan, and MTV/Rock the Vote/AARP will think you are cool if you do.”
