Favor and Payback

"Now, Joe, I think you'd better go back into the Senate and keep those Senators lined up."
--James Taylor (Mr Smith Goes to Washington)

Murray Rothbard used to say that retrospective analysis of political behavior that considered only behavior during time in political office was too narrow. Such analysis, Rothbard observed, was like pretending that the politician was dipped in and out of office with no consideration about what went on before and after office.

He was thinking, of course, of the influence of payback on political favor. A politician could act in-office in a manner that either a) pays back entities in exchange for previous pre-office favors, or b) favors entities in exchange for subsequent post-office payback.

Stated differently, the market for political favor is often subject to delays before both sides of a transaction are fully complete.

Nice example here in the context of our vaccination discussion. Former director of the Center of Disease Control (CDC) was recently named an executive VP at Merck (MRK). CDC is government agency charged with overseeing national vaccination programs. Merck is one of the largest producers MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccine.

Retrospective analysis of this individual's behavior while at CDC can now be cast in more complete light.