251–260 of 493 posts
Only way to consistently outperform the market is lobbying, insider trading or fraud (see Madoff)
I personally consider that part of my own portfolio. No par value, sold at a higher price.
> For example, Pelosi in Dec 22 was against more stimulus. Her husband buys deep ITM TSLA and AAPL calls that day. December 23rd, she is suddenly for stimulus again, with those same companies ralling 5%, giving her an instant +30 return. > Congressman Gottheimer is absolutely an incredible options trader. He’s been selling calls at peaks on $MSFT all 2021, & seemingly buying back the contracts on dips. This in blocks…
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I'm not saying Pelosi isn't fabulously wealthy, nor that she isn't engaged in activities which are unethical to enrich herself; but her fridge and ice cream are not evidence of this. The Speaker of the House makes a quarter million dollars per year. That's more than enough to afford such luxuries. https://pressgallery.house.gov/member-data/salaries
If she only made the 250k, she'd be spending like 12.5% of her yearly take home pay on a fridge. That seems like a little much. ($250k is like $160k take home with her home town taxes. 20/160 = 0.125)
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> Pelosi in Dec 22 was against more stimulus. This is not true. It’s very odd to see the kind of right-wing conspiracies based on outright fabrications spread on HN as literal truths. Here is an article from December 22 were Pelosi is calling for more stimulus: www.cnbc.com/amp/2020/12/22/trump-calls-covid-relief-bill-unsuitable-and-demands-congress-add-higher-stimulus-payments.html Here is her direct tweet dated 12/…
> It’s very odd to see the kind of right-wing conspiracies It's even more odd to see the, "if you disagree you're alt-right/ a Nazi" mentality on HN. Why does a member of congress need to day-trade stocks, let alone leveraged derivatives? It's absurd.
You believing that "right-wing conspiracies" automatically means ties to "alt-right/Nazis", I think this says more about your personal biases than the person you are responding to.
Did this really harm your confidence in the markets, or did it only harm your confidence in politicians who have been doing this for hundreds of years whether there was mandatory disclosure or not?
Insider trading regulations are based around people feeling willing to use the capital markets at all. People use the US capital markets, so expanding that regulation is not necessary.
For the latter observation, I would like there to be quicker reporting so that we can trade alongside it.
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Isn't Pelosi worth like 100 million or something? How much money is enough for these people? :( How quickly are these trades made public? Maybe we should just copy the congress people's trades and make some profit ourselves :P
> How much money is enough for these people? :( What kind of attitude is that? If you have savings, one seeks a return on said savings by investing them. That's perfectly normal and rational behavior at all wealth levels.
How much money is enough if you already have $100M and to gain more, you have to manipulate and cheat?
But even without changing the question, $100M invested in a very low risk manner will generate considerable cash flow (if you regularly take some profits). So without even spending your "savings", you can live very comfortably.
However, a special thing happens when you are high net worth. You suddenly have a lot of lenders begging to loan you money at very low interest rates. They need a place to put money, and they know you have assets to cover any loan they might give you. So you, the wealthy individual with $100M in assets, CAN still go buy nice stuff even if your cash flow from your investments isn't huge.
Honestly, unless you just need to show people how much money you can drop because you're so rich you don't care, you don't actually have to spend any of your money to live bigly.
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> How much money is enough for these people? :( What kind of attitude is that? If you have savings, one seeks a return on said savings by investing them. That's perfectly normal and rational behavior at all wealth levels.
"normal and rational" is different from "ethical or moral". "All wealth levels" are not the same.
[1] https://www.house.gov/representatives/find-your-representati...
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Just require them to announce their trades publicly 24 hours in advance. And let them manage their own finances. All these shenanigan's would disappear.
Why should they be held under less scrutiny than CEO's? They typically have to clear their stock sales with the SEC months in advance.
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For a long time, Congress had an exemption to insider trading. They no longer do, but, insider trading still requires material non-public information about the company in question -- and Congressional acts are the most public thing possible. Betting that a company's stock will go up (or down) and then making it happen after you make the bet isn't insider trading, it's activist investing, and is totally legal.
Maybe it's legal, but it should absolutely not be. There's too much risk that a legislator's personal interest will run counter to the interests of the public, and the system should have safeguards against this.
It is all practically very corrupt, viewed from most angles. The few well-meaning politicians either don't get elected or don't stay in office, because it costs too much to get there and stay there (funding); so to get there and stay there, you have to play the game. And playing the game means ensuring your wealthy donors get what they want from you in terms of legislation.