A4 BAKER CITY HERALD • THURSDAY, APRIL 14, 2022
BAKER CITY
Opinion
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Baker City, Oregon
EDITORIAL
Oregon money
managers
choose Russia
I
t’s not our fault. We don’t have the expertise.
Our hands are tied. It’s about maximizing
profits and beating investment benchmarks.
Don’t worry, it’s not going to undermine Oregon’s
investment returns for the Public Employees Re-
tirement System.
We have rarely read an article so syrupy thick
with excuses. But those are some provided by the
state of Oregon and investment professionals about
Oregon’s investments in Russia in Ted Sickinger’s
excellent overview in The Oregonian.
Oregon has lost some $100 million — at least for
now — in its $95 billion investment portfolio be-
cause of the invasion of Ukraine by Russia and the
resulting collapse of the value of Russian assets.
Nobody would say $100 million is insignificant. It
is, though, relatively insignificant when compared
to the scope of Oregon’s overall investments.
State employees of Oregon and people on state
committees overseeing the state’s investments don’t
actually decide where most of the state’s money is
invested. They hand it over to others who man-
age funds. Those professional money managers
look for ways to invest it. They are always looking
to maximize profits, to exceed benchmarks. Rus-
sia could be a win. The state says that now that the
markets in Russia are essentially closed Oregon
can’t pull its money out if it wanted to.
The state says it doesn’t have the expertise to
make decisions about good and bad regimes. It
hires money managers who do the risk calculations
and look at the geopolitics.
So when Russia supported separatist movements
in 2008 in Georgia and more than 2,000 people
were killed, those money managers thought it was
OK to keep on investing in Russia.
So when Russia invaded Crimea in 2014 and ab-
sorbed it into Russia, money managers thought it
was OK to keep on investing in Russia.
And so now it is Oregon investments that are
helping pay for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Your
money at work.
OK, we can’t fault people for not knowing Putin’s
mind and not perfectly predicting the invasion of
Ukraine. What we don’t hear are Oregon politi-
cians asking questions. We don’t hear our elected
leaders, at least, debating what Oregon might do
better about its investment policy.
In February, there were reports China had en-
croached on Nepal. China has militarized islands
it built in the South China Sea and has always been
keenly interested in Taiwan. But after Ukraine, Or-
egon will just count on the money manager system
that has worked for us so well.
Unsigned editorials are the opinion of the Baker
City Herald. Columns, letters and cartoons on this
page express the opinions of the authors and not
necessarily that of the Baker City Herald.
YOUR VIEWS
Baker City’s generosity keeps couple gon. She has rejected advice to be “pack-
aged for public consumption,” and does
coming back to town
all of her own correspondence work!
Hello Baker City community. We would
like to thank a special couple, who sur-
prised us completely by paying our total
dinner bill on Feb. 24 at the Latitude 45
Grill! We don’t know who they are (our
waitress was sworn to secrecy), although
we suspect it was a sweet couple across
the restaurant from us. They witnessed us
asking the waitress to take a picture of us
for our 40th anniversary celebration.
This single act was tremendously gen-
erous, unexpected, and indicative of the
people in Baker City we’ve found. Two
separate years we have driven to Baker
City from the Tri Cities for an anniver-
sary mini ski vacation. Both the town and
Anthony Lakes Ski Area have filled our
hearts with warm and welcoming experi-
ences. Besides the beauty there, the shop
owners, hotel and restaurant staff, ski
area staff, and residents have all given us a
“home away from home” feeling, which is
rare! And certainly gives us good reason
to return again and again.
We thank you all, and especially the one
couple whose gift was beyond generous
(and already paid forward on numerous
occasions)! We hope their anniversary is
as joyful as ours turned out to be!
Warmest thanks,
Lindsay and John Dale
Richland, Washington
Why I’m excited to cast my vote
for Kerry McQuisten
I’d like to share my excitement about
gubernatorial candidate, Kerry McQuis-
ten, who offers the most forthright way
for us to reclaim our state.
Kerry has put herself on the line with
unprecedented transparency in her social
media accounts, prolific commentary/
posting on the issues, and tireless efforts
to repeatedly visit every county in Ore-
We feel that Kerry McQuisten fulfills
the requirements that our governor will
have to have in order to make Oregon a
She hasn’t promised the moon, dished great state again.
out emotional appeals, or become side-
What can we say about Kerry! She
tracked by campaign fever. She is simply, knows her Constitution, she knows the
and very seriously, ready to work for us.
laws of the state, she knows government
Kerry’s solid foundation is her unshake- protocol, and she knows that we need to
able faith in the God-given rights that are get government back into the hands of the
already ours. She has a deep desire to pro- people.
Kerry has been knowledgeable,
vide Oregonians the freedom to utilize
those rights in a lawful manner, allowing straightforward, honest and dignified in
us to take responsibility for our own lives. running her campaign.
We will be voting for Kerry McQuisten
She will use her background and knowl-
edge to clear the path as we move forward and ask that you vote for her too.
Joe and Wilma Johnson
to fight against the chaos that has crept
Baker City
into our communities and beautiful state.
If you take the time to ask Kerry about
McQuisten has common sense and
any current legislative happenings, she
will know them by name and particulars. conservative values
She is well-versed in the issues facing
We are supporting Kerry McQuisten
Oregonians, and regards none of them
for governor. We have known Kerry since
as insurmountable. She will approach a
she was in grade school at Burnt River/
necessary course-change one step at a
time, as she has done with her grassroots Unity. Kerry is a seventh-generation Or-
egonian. She grew up on a cattle ranch in
campaign.
Eastern Oregon, so she understands the
Kerry cares about everything we do;
rural part of Oregon. She had the oppor-
small business, excellence in education,
tunity to live and work overseas before
agricultural/environmental balance,
healthy employment, and honor for per- returning stateside to complete her edu-
cation at Willamette University. She has
sonal freedoms. Combined with her ex-
had a chance to experience both city and
perience in larger communities, and her
practical understanding of governmental rural living.
Kerry is now back in Baker City where
law, it’s a win.
If you’re tired of empty promises, tired she owns her own publishing company, is
mayor of Baker City, and raising her two
of politics, and ready to “be the change,”
join me in voting for Kerry McQuisten for daughters.
Kerry has campaigned in ALL 36 coun-
Oregon’s next governor.
Whitney Black ties in Oregon to listen to the concerns of
Baker City ALL Oregonians. She cares!
If you want someone who has good
Kerry McQuisten is ready to lead
common sense with conservative val-
ues, and someone who will stand up
as Oregon’s governor
and fight to get our Oregon back, then
Kerry McQuisten is just the candidate
We have watched the race for gover-
nor with great interest, knowing that who for you!
is elected will be key to the future of the
Patty Trost
state of Oregon.
Unity
COLUMN
Is society deferring too much to the experts?
BY CORY FRANKLIN
In one of the most dramatic mo-
ments of the Senate confirmation
hearing for Supreme Court nominee
Ketanji Brown Jackson, Sen. Mar-
sha Blackburn asked the judge, “Can
you provide a definition for the word
‘woman’?”
After a brief hesitation, Jackson re-
sponded, “I’m not a biologist.”
Now on its face, that is a silly re-
mark because you don’t need a bi-
ologist to define what a woman is.
(The percentage of babies born with
indeterminate sex, in which a medi-
cal evaluation is necessary, is less than
1%). But upon consideration, it was
actually a clever response because it
was basically the only answer avail-
able to Jackson that would avoid en-
raging either the Republican senators
or her progressive allies. It was a pru-
dent nonanswer.
Yet, putting aside for a minute her
predicament before the Senate, Jack-
son’s answer provides a window into
the current role conferred on experts
and how reliance on experts may be
encroaching into territory that was
once within the purview of com-
mon sense.
For those on Twitter who are wait-
ing to pounce with a charge that I’m
minimizing the importance of ex-
perts, let me state the obvious: A func-
tioning society depends on experts.
They are indispensable to every pro-
fession for tasks ranging from devel-
oping essential software to building
bridges to performing cardiac surgery.
But in an ever more complex so-
ciety, have we run the risk of be-
coming overly dependent on experts
— delegating decisions and respon-
sibilities to them that are outside
their domain?
The danger is quite simply this: Ex-
perts are human. Some are modest
and self-effacing; others crave atten-
tion, money and power. When the
latter group enters the public forum
because “we rely on them,” there is
trouble ahead. Politicians court their
favor and flatter them with public
moneys and posts that are often little
more than sinecures. In return, those
politicians use their expert opinions
to advance political aims.
There is an aphorism that if you put
a cup of soup in a bowl of garbage, it’s
garbage. And if you put a cup of gar-
bage in a bowl of soup, it’s garbage.
Along those lines, if you inject politics
into science, it’s politics. And if you in-
ject science into politics, it’s politics.
When politics become a consid-
eration, the temptation for experts
to abandon objective interpretations
of scientific data is undeniable. Wit-
ness how during the first months
of the COVID-19 pandemic, public
health authorities deemed some po-
litical rallies safer than others based
on nothing other than the cause the
rally supported. No matter that in
any case, tens of thousands of peo-
ple who practiced limited distanc-
ing came from all over the country
to shout and chant, thereby possibly
spreading the virus. Experts deter-
mined that in terms of safety, what
mattered was the cause. There was
nothing scientific about that.
The situation becomes even more
parlous when experts are permitted to
make public policy, and governments
hide behind those they appointed.
Margaret Thatcher once said, “Ad-
visers advise, ministers decide.” But
during the COVID-19 pandemic,
not only the United Kingdom but
also the U.S. and most of the world
seemed to eschew that dictum. In
retrospect, the plan of public health
authorities to lock down society “to
flatten the curve” seems to have been
a monumental act of hubris, consid-
ering the effects on the economy and
especially on young people. The pub-
lic health community failed to recog-
nize that others like economists and
business leaders had to be consulted
to assess the complex trade-offs.
The best illustration of what can
happen when expertise morphs into
a political tool is when Soviet leader
Josef Stalin made one scientist, Tro-
fim Lysenko, the arbiter of all Soviet
agricultural science in the 1930s.
Any scientist who criticized him was
criticizing the Communist Party and
the state itself. That political faith in
Lysenko’s junk science caused mass
starvation and the destruction of
the careers of many dissenting but
honest Soviet scientists. It slowed
the progress of Soviet science for de-
cades.
We have crossed the Rubicon re-
garding our dependence on experts
when a smart, Harvard-educated Su-
preme Court justice cites the need
for a biologist to define womanhood.
Think how far afield this is from
1965, when Bob Dylan penned a
seminal lyric for the Vietnam gener-
ation: “You don’t need a weatherman
to know which way the wind blows.”
Dylan was in effect telling a rebel-
lious Vietnam generation not to place
too much faith in experts — use your
common sense in your efforts to
bring down the establishment. Today,
society has done a 180 — the Viet-
nam generation is now the establish-
ment, and employing experts is a key
tactic to asserting authority and, in
some case, to infantilizing the public.
To be “guided by the science”
should never be an excuse for us to
blindfold ourselves willingly in defer-
ence to expert opinion.
█
Dr. Cory Franklin is a retired intensive care
physician.