A polling rarity: 0 percent of Americans think the economy is improving
September 22nd, 2008 at 11:54am Pat Cunningham
 
In a country where millions of people are stupid enough to believe that Barack Obama is a Muslim, and 12 percent of adults are stupid enough to believe that Joan of Arc was Noah’s wife (no kidding, check HERE), it’s almost impossible to get a reading of zero percent on any polling question.
But on the question of whether the U.S. economy is improving, a NEW POLL conducted by American Research Group got no affirmative reponses. None. Zip. Zilch. Nada.
Oh, all right. The poll had a margin of error of 2.6 percentage points. Maybe one person responded affirmatively — the guy in the above photo, for instance.  But the percentage was negligible — and that almost never happens.
UPDATE: Wait a minute! Maybe this was the guy who responded affirmatively:
[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/mbjwqH4-oLg" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]
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7 Comments Add your own
1. Bob Trojan | September 22nd, 2008 at 12:56 pm
So what about our local manufacturing economy? This kind of over generalization is not what we need…..read the story by Alex Gary on Saturday.
2. Pat Cunningham | September 22nd, 2008 at 1:31 pm
Bob: I’m only passing along what the poll said. Certainly, there are isolated segments of the economy, regionally and perhaps even nationally, that are holding their own or even improving a bit. But ordinary folks on a nationwide basis apparently aren’t too enthusiastic about the current situation overall.
3. Bob Trojan | September 22nd, 2008 at 1:56 pm
It would have been good to have passed along Alex’s story, which I thought was pretty positive and indicative of what our local economy is seeing. I’m sure RRS readers are more interested in local issues than national. Of course, I don’t have a poll to cite, just other manufacturers that I talk with.
4. Pat Cunningham | September 22nd, 2008 at 2:15 pm
Bob: I hear what you’re saying. But as is noted at the top of this blog, I deal here with national politics. I sometimes touch on local stuff in passing, but not often. As for whether “RRS readers are more interested in local issues than national,” as you put it, that doesn’t necessarily extend to RRS blogs. Applesauce has the greatest readership among the blogs on this Web site. I read Alex’s story and was encouraged by it. I’m glad to see you posted it on your blog, which readers can find at this link: http://blogs.e-rockford.com/manufacturing/
5. Orlando Clay | September 22nd, 2008 at 5:55 pm
Zero percent, huh? Obviously, the poll excluded automobile repo guys, eviction notice servers, and the Church of Bush worshippers at Fox News, as well as their families and friends. More liberal media bias, right, Cons?
6. Leatherneck | September 22nd, 2008 at 7:37 pm
I was at the Premium Shopping Outlet yesterday near Aurora. It was so busy I had to drive around a long time before I found a parking spot. And I couldn’t help but wonder, if the economy is so bad, what are all these people doing here? Why aren’t they all at home saving their money? Why didn’t this high end shopping outlet a ghost town? It was Polo, Coach, and other brand names that shoppers were buying. This is “disposable income” and items anybody could have lived without. It is not the same thing as somebody buying a bag of groceries. And yet these people seemed un-phased by the bad economic news.
7. Pat Cunningham | September 22nd, 2008 at 8:09 pm
Ah, yes, it’s Leatherneck with another one of his anecdotal stories in which he presents the sight of people shopping in fancy stores or eating in upscale restaurants as evidence that the economy is doing just fine, thank you. To Leatherneck, the only good evidence of an economic downturn would be the sight of people starving in the streets or previously rich folks living in shanties and eating their young. One suspects that Leatherneck earned his degree in economics at one of those clown colleges founded by Jerry Falwell or Pat Robertson, where they also teach that the universe is just 6,000 years old.
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