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Unusual Stock Trading by Whales in US Congress

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Re: Unusual Stock Trading by Whales in US Congress

#401

Post by sweeneyrod »

pc86 wrote: post #383
itsoktocry wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Pelosi's husband has been very bullish for a long time on Tesla, Apple & tech in general I do believe. I'm curious where you are reading about Paul Pelosi's stock picks. Regardless, so what? He has no business owning and/or trading shares of companies the person he shares a bed with has influence over.

Does Nancy Pelosi have influence over Tesla? Even if you take a pretty hard-line attitude about members of Congress being prohibited from doing things like trading their own portfolios, it's hard to make a cogent argument that Paul Pelosi, who is by all measures a private citizen, should be restricted from trading specific stocks.

"it's hard to make a cogent argument that Paul Pelosi, who is by all measures a private citizen, should be restricted from trading specific stocks"

No it's not. If you grant that Nancy Pelosi should be treated similarly to a corporate insider, then it is pretty obvious that her spouse should be treated like an insider's would be.

Re: Unusual Stock Trading by Whales in US Congress

#402

Post by apis_nearctica »

slashdev wrote: post #381
burkaman wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not rational once you have enough money for you and those you care about to be infinitely comfortable for the rest of your lives. Say you have $100,000 in the bank, and you want to spend $10,000. What's the best use of that money? For a normal self-interested person, a rational use would be to invest in whatever will give the largest return, in order to have enough money for living expenses, retirement, childre…

You seem to have a fundamental misapprehension of capitalism. If you invest your capital, it's not being hoarded in a money bank like Scrooge McDuck. It's being put to use by the companies and institutions you invest in to provide products and services. Now I'm all for donating to charity, and it's a much better option than leaving massive wealth to your offspring, in my opinion. But investing your money is totally r…

If I buy some MSFT shares on the market, is my money being put to use by Microsoft? I see this kind of sentiment all the time but it seems to rely on a VC model of investment where you’re buying shares from the company/founders. I am dumb about this stuff so please someone correct me.

Re: Unusual Stock Trading by Whales in US Congress

#403

Post by dbt00 »

pc86 wrote: post #386
adamrezich wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is there no entity that even just tries to keep tabs on or possibly investigates these people, let alone charge them with crimes where appropriate? well there's this thing called the IRS that seems to spend most of their time auditing random citizens when the numbers they submit on their tax forms doesn't match the numbers the IRS already calculated on their side. maybe we could streamline that absolutely ridiculou…

This argument comes up a lot and it's an astounding oversimplification and gross misunderstanding of how taxes work in the US. The IRS does not know how much you owe until you file. They may have a rough approximation, but they absolutely don't know anything close enough to be able to bill you.

If you only have W2 income and take the standard deduction, 99% of what you need to know they know. Only changes like new address, dependent, etc would really be relevant.

Re: Unusual Stock Trading by Whales in US Congress

#404

Post by Havoc »

steveBK123 wrote: post #339
Havoc wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and sometimes all of the above. And you need to grant them access to the broker data feed and no derivatives. It's in part why I'm suddenly into crypto.

lot of them banning crypto or requiring disclosure as well

Why would they?

They only restrict me due to concerns about insider info...and I certainly don't know where bitcoin is going tomorrow based on my decidedly non crypto finance day job

Re: Unusual Stock Trading by Whales in US Congress

#405

Post by xwolfi »

wpietri wrote: post #100
sakopov wrote: post #15

> 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…

Whatever the behind-the-scenes truth, I think the appearance of conflicting interests is a problem regardless. For a lot of elected offices and high public service positions, I think their wealth should be put into a blind trust, one constrained by law to buy broad, boring things like index funds. That would surely be a problem for some individuals. But I don't think it's a systemic problem. We only need to find 0.00…

I work in a bank, at a low level. These trades would have gotten me fired.

Re: Unusual Stock Trading by Whales in US Congress

#406

Post by rootusrootus »

rocqua wrote: post #323
rootusrootus wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, I have long thought sortition might be the right answer. Right along with leveraging modern technology to reset our representative-to-citizen ratio to something like the constitution originally prescribed.

The thing is, the last few times I recall when some have tried more direct democracy (Brexit, a few referenda in europe, california ballot measures) it seems to lead to decisions that seem rather sub-optimal. I am not sure the random citizen might actually be better at governing that a professional politician.

I think that is a completely fair assumption, you may be right. Partly why I think we should dramatically increase the numbers of representatives is to mitigate this problem somewhat. On average, I think a lot of regular citizens would do just fine. So we limit the damage by limiting the amount of power a single vote has.

It's kind of the same reasoning I use for extending the vote to children. In a country of 330 million, each individual vote is nearly meaningless on it's own so I figure the risk is much lower than the benefit of getting people involved at a younger age in a future that they should care deeply about. HN did not collectively appreciate this suggestion when I made it, however :).

Re: Unusual Stock Trading by Whales in US Congress

#407

Post by float4 »

mLuby wrote: post #389
SavantIdiot wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You cannot. As long as there are rigged markets and cadres of elites, we can truly do nothing. Sad, really. Not helping the matter is half of the US is below average intelligence and will elect crooks because they say the right things. If only there were more Ron Wydens and AOCs. But you see red states electing nutjobs who barely have high school degrees (Boeber) because they shout the loudest.

> half of the US is below average intelligence That is what average means. (Looks like we two are keeping it balanced!)

> > half of the US is below average intelligence

> That is what average means.

That is what median means.

Re: Unusual Stock Trading by Whales in US Congress

#408

Post by [deleted] »

wpietri wrote: post #100
sakopov wrote: post #15

> 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…

Whatever the behind-the-scenes truth, I think the appearance of conflicting interests is a problem regardless. For a lot of elected offices and high public service positions, I think their wealth should be put into a blind trust, one constrained by law to buy broad, boring things like index funds. That would surely be a problem for some individuals. But I don't think it's a systemic problem. We only need to find 0.00…

[deleted]

Re: Unusual Stock Trading by Whales in US Congress

#409

Post by calylex »

ABeeSea wrote: post #118
sakopov wrote: post #15

> 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…

> 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/…

Are you retarded? That tweet was made on 12/22 at 6:30PM which is basically the same as 12/23 the date the article claims Pelosi switched her vote.

Here is more reference for her "no" position prior to that date https://www.google.com/search?q=stimulus+pelosi+reject&safe=...

Re: Unusual Stock Trading by Whales in US Congress

#410

Post by ABeeSea »

calylex wrote: post #409
ABeeSea wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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/…

Are you retarded? That tweet was made on 12/22 at 6:30PM which is basically the same as 12/23 the date the article claims Pelosi switched her vote. Here is more reference for her "no" position prior to that date https://www.google.com/search?q=stimulus+pelosi+reject&safe=...

Do you have a specific article with a first hand source saying she was against stimulus? Because her continued and unwavering support for the HEROES act suggest she was always pro-stimulus.

The top article in your Google search (lol) link is the Sun. A British tabloid with the same owner as Fox News.

Also calling me “r****” is definitely against HN civility rules.

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