Rivers agrees with Brian Caplan that the average voter couldn't pass Econ 101—reacting to problems by passing a law to ban them without thinking about consequences and blaming convenient targets—as illustrated by a YouGov poll where many people blamed 'speculators' for gas price increases despite probably not knowing what a speculator is, and a sample of Congress would likely respond similarly.

normativepending

Speaker

Doug Rivers

Evidence Quote

the average voter this really reacts to a problem by passing a law to ban it without thinking about what the consequences of that are and blames things on convenient targets

Source

Doug Rivers on polling 7/21/2008EconTalk
Created: 6/15/2026, 9:28:54 AM

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