Krugman is wrong

Paul Krugman is a brilliant man, he has a Nobel Prize in economics. I am not and I don't.

But Krugman is wrong on a very important point regarding the financial crisis. He thinks government should regulate bankers' pay (read it here).

He says the current method of compensation created an "incentive" for the abuses that brought the world's financial system nearly to its knees. Perhaps. It was certainly a factor. But there were many interacting factors, and we have to be careful about which we choose to "fix," and potential unintended consequences.

Compensation, or paychecks, is a perfect place to encourage the power of the market place, and absolutely the wrong place for government intervention.

What needs to be done is to foster consequences in the system, where firms that fail, and by definition those who lead them, are punished by the market, without threatening the entire system.

Generally this will mean making sure that bad decisions by one firm, say an AIG, don't threaten everyone's welfare. This can include limits on market share, capitalization requirements, reducing barriers to entry into a market so that competitors can flourish, etc. And, more than anything else, transparency.

It does not mean meddling directly in compensation issues. That is a guarantee of inefficiency, mediocre leadership, a lack of creativity and it crosses a line of how we want our financial system to function. Capitalism versus something else.

We don't want our government to govern companies directly, except to create a system that preserves itself and its function to society while allowing those companies to bring efficiencies, offer new products, and to fail when their decisions are faulty.

A fine distinction, perhaps, but an important one.

Deceptive right wing

Now we have Republican Sen. Bruce Starr saying that we need to change Oregon law in the aftermath of the horrible and bizarre killing of a young pregnant mother, Heather Snively.

This is a clear and blatant attempt to redefine what is a person.

"I hope to never see another case like we've seen," Starr said. "But in the event that we do, where you have an unbelievably barbaric crime and clearly two victims, both victims will receive proper justice."

Victims of murder don't receive justice, Mr. Starr. They are dead. A corpse. There is no person to receive that justice. There is no justice for the dead, only for their families and for society.

Starr's lack of thinking on this issue is typical. It is also disgustingly calculating. But what is most disturbing about this cold manipulation of grief is that it is deceitful and opportunistic. Adding to the charges faced by the abomination who carried out this crime would not have prevented Heather's murder.

To think otherwise is absurd. The woman who killed this young mother and cut the fetus from her womb is a monster. Probably insane. And very unlikely to have been deterred by the risk of a second murder charge.

Defining the fetus as a victim is a way of saying the fetus is a person. Calling it murder is a backhanded way of conferring status as a person. We haven't done that yet in Oregon, and we have to do that first if we want to be rational in expanding the homicide stature in this way.

The last time the Religious Right tried to do this in Oregon was in the aftermath of the Laci Peterson murder. It was wrong then and it is wrong now.

Starr is callously taking advantage of this tragedy to promote a political agenda. That is wrong. He is slimy for doing so.