The Homa Files

In my courses, I try to emphasize the difference between price and value.

The Sestak affair provides a memorable (I hope) example.

Background: Fed law prohibits offering something of value to someone to impact the outcome of an election. There seems to be common agreement on that.

Obama’s lawyers’ written explanation tried to parse around the law: Yes, there was an offer, but the position offered was to be uncompensated. So, no violation.

Big mistake.

Even accepting their explanation, Sestak was offered something of value: prestige, access to the President, etc. 

Just because something is free  (i.e. uncompensated) doesn’t mean that it doesn’t have value.

Think about it: the Administration’s argument boils down to having a former President offer Sestak nothing to drop out of the Senate race … ‘nothing’ usually isn’t a strong incentive for changed behavior.

* * * * *

Another example: I’m doing this blog post on WordPress.  I pay nothing to use WordPress’ software and storage … but they provide me with enormous value.

This entry was posted on June 1, 2010 at 7:23 am and is filed under Obama Administration. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.