Breaking news from the 'We already knew that Department.'

Runner-up headline: Liberals/Democrats are economic illiterates. Second runner-up headline: News Flash: Academics prove liberals are stupid. But, like I said, we already knew that.

Zogby researcher Zeljka Buturovic and I considered the 4,835 respondents' (all American adults) answers to eight survey questions about basic economics. We also asked the respondents about their political leanings: progressive/very liberal; liberal; moderate; conservative; very conservative; and libertarian...

How did the six ideological groups do overall? Here they are, best to worst, with an average number of incorrect responses from 0 to 8: Very conservative, 1.30; Libertarian, 1.38; Conservative, 1.67; Moderate, 3.67; Liberal, 4.69; Progressive/very liberal, 5.26.

...on every question the left did much worse. On the monopoly question, the portion of progressive/very liberals answering incorrectly (31%) was more than twice that of conservatives (13%) and more than four times that of libertarians (7%). On the question about living standards, the portion of progressive/very liberals answering incorrectly (61%) was more than four times that of conservatives (13%) and almost three times that of libertarians (21%).

The survey also asked about party affiliation. Those responding Democratic averaged 4.59 incorrect answers. Republicans averaged 1.61 incorrect, and Libertarians 1.26 incorrect.

Just a Grunt says this is the worst economic news of all and offers a terse analysis: "[L]iberals, that's Democrats for those in doubt, know absolutely diddly squat about economics."

That's giving them the benefit of the doubt.

Worse: our beloved President Obama went 0-fer on the quiz, seeing as how he thinks economics is a zero-sum game and that masterminds like him should get to re-swizzle everyone's wealth.


Hat tips: Amalaur and Big Journalism. Linked by: Michelle Malkin. Thanks!