A puzzling poll question

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

Today’s Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll on economic issues contains a couple of headlines: Most Americans (65%) believe a recession is likely in the next year, and a lot of Americans (45%) have no opinion on the way Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke is doing his job (we suspect a large portion of those don’t know who he is, or what he does).

As for the housing crisis, we consider the poll a missed opportunity, and thus a disappointment. Asked, ‘What should be done to help alleviate the sub-prime mortgage problem?’ respondents were given these options:
--Nothing, the government should stay out of it (28%)
--Government should help homeowners or tighten mortgage rules (40%)
--Prosecute firms that knowingly promoted unaffordable mortgages (15%)
--More than one of these things or all of them should be done (9%)
--Don’t know (8%)

Our disappointment is this: One of the biggest sources of controversy surrounding this issue is whether the government should help people pay their mortgages. The pollsters, at some level, seem to understand this, and yet they have elicited no meaningful information on it -- lumping ‘help homeowners’ in with ‘tighten mortgage rules’ muddies the issue rather than clarifying it.

Your thoughts? Comments? Insights? E-mail story tips to lalandblog@yahoo.com.