By bailing out the markets, we only subsidized the foolishness that created the disaster in the first place. The incompetents were allowed to keep their jobs. And not only keep their jobs—they reaped huge rewards.

Worse, by playing up the “response to crisis” view of the bail out—think about all of the discussion around Bernanke’s performance—we again rewarded incompetence by judging the players in this disaster not on their failures leading up to the crisis, but by how they were so effective in bailing themselves out. In Darwinian terms,we’ve just selected for the most selfish and most foolish.

via a comment on Brains … Brains … – Paul Krugman Blog – NYTimes.com.

Executive compensation for ruthless failure… it sounds like fiction. Life truly is stranger than fiction, isn’t it?