There has been a lot written and talked about concerning a "great reset" of the world economy in the last decade. This concept has received more attention since the onset of the pandemic. The premise is that the financial markets are rigged to benefit the "billionaires" while everyone else, upper, middle, and working class lose out and get shafted. The argument continues that capitalism is bad and we need a system that will focus less on ownership of assets, goods and services, and will level the playing field for all.
While the ideal is noble, the people who are stressing it happen to be the richest and most powerful in the world-the ones responsible for "rigging" the markets. The "great reset" is discussed among the world elite at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. It's almost like a PR stunt by the rich and powerful to deflect attention from the wealth gap widening and inflation destroying the wealth and savings of the 99%.
Ideas connected to the "great reset" that have been tossed around are eliminating carbon emissions, banning gas powered vehicles, reducing the amount of meat we consume and travel we partake in. Again, on paper these ideas sound rational and things we could live without, and the reduction wouldn't impact most peoples' lives.
Truth be told, a lot of these ideas would cause harm to jobs, incomes, asset ownership, and how we heat and cool our homes, but the biggest issue with the "great reset" is the same crowd who pitches these lofty causes and actions won't live by those same ideals. It's difficult to take people seriously who fly around the world on private jets, sail the oceans on "superyachts" and always get bailed out when they need money from the government, while we can't consume a hamburger
When we asked voters if they would prefer a "great reset," "free market economy," or "neither, keep things the way they are" for the economy, less than half (45%) chose "free market economy," which the argument goes would allow for less government intervention, that some say creates distortion in wealth, while putting emphasis on competition to level the playing field. More than a third (36%) said "neither, keep things the way they are" and one in five said they preferred a "great reset" when it came to the financial markets and the world economy.
In examining the demographics, the concept of a "great reset" was most appealing to the typical Democratic voter: young-age 18-24 (28%) and 18-29 (32%), lived in a large city (35%), minority-African American (28%) and Hispanic (28%), and liberal (30%) in their political beliefs.
Voters who preferred a "free market" were the oldest surveyed: aged 65+ (55%) and 70+ (64%); college educated (50%), households that earned $100-150K annually (50%), Independent (50%), suburban male (51%) and rural male (50%).
Of those surveyed voters who preferred the financial system the way it is and did not want it tinkered with, they were aged 50-64 (47%), women (41%), Republican (42%), Baby Boomers (50%), households that earned less than $25K (45%) and lived in rural areas (48%) but leaned rural female (55%).
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Zogby Analytics Poll Methodology
US Likely Voters
12/21/21 - 12/22/21
Zogby Analytics conducted an online survey of 1311 likely voters in the US.
Using internal and trusted interactive partner resources, thousands of adults were randomly invited to participate in this interactive survey. Each invitation is password coded and secure so that one respondent can only access the survey one time.
Using information based on census data, voter registration figures, CIA fact books and exit polls, we use complex weighting techniques to best represent the demographics of the population being surveyed. Weighted variables may include age, race, gender, region, party, education, and religion. The party breakdown for this survey is as follows: 38% Democrat, 38% Republican and 24% Independent/unaffiliated.
Based on a confidence interval of 95%, the margin of error for 1311 is +/- 2.7 percentage points. This means that all other things being equal, the identical survey repeated will have results within the margin of error 95 times out of 100.
Subsets of the data have a larger margin of error than the whole data set. As a rule we do not rely on the validity of very small subsets of the data especially sets smaller than 50-75 respondents. At that subset we can make estimations based on the data, but in these cases the data is more qualitative than quantitative.
Additional factors can create error, such as question wording and question order.
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About Zogby Analytics:
Zogby Analytics is respected nationally and internationally for its opinion research capabilities. Since 1984, Zogby has empowered clients with powerful information and knowledge critical for making informed strategic decisions.
The firm conducts multi-phased opinion research engagements for banking and financial services institutions, insurance companies, hospitals and medical centers, retailers and developers, religious institutions, cultural organizations, colleges and universities, IT companies and Federal agencies. Zogby's dedication and commitment to excellence and accuracy are reflected in its state-of-the-art opinion research capabilities and objective analysis and consultation.