151–160 of 229 posts
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Politics.
Especially American politics. It seems to be a very american phenomenon for voters to find bad things only on the "other" side and totally ignore the same thing on "their" side.
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I think the cleanest law here is to change the law to clarify that non-public information gained by public servants and representatives that can have an affect on a stock's price should be treated as "material non-public information." Then the SEC can do their jobs like they do with other insider traders. Remember that ONLY elected congresspeople are exempt from rules like that. Other public servants are not. This is…
> "This is one of the biggest signals that the US is an oligarchy and not a democracy." The constitutional doctrine of separation of powers generally limits regulatory law enforcement by the executive against the legislative branch. This is actually a signal of constitutionally limited government-- this is a design feature.
Your argument is akin to saying that members of congress cannot be prosecuted for murder through the usual channels, because that would be the executive interfering with the legislature.
Furthermore, how is the legislature not able to bind itself to have its members be subject to law enforcement by the executive branch?
It's the most blatant example of insider trading. Company insiders might have inside access to a single company. Lawmakers have access to inside information that can affect the entire industry or market. It's a perfect example of how we do have class stratification in society and that rule of law and equality are laughably distant ideas in a sea of hypocrisy.
I'd be more concerned that if a law maker had a million of Tesla stock and Tesla lobbied them, it would take someone with concrete morals to not factor in their potential gains. Humans are not great at making decisions without considering their own incentives - you can trick yourself and your subconscious can sway you.
When they bought that Tesla stock, was it just because they thought Tesla was a great investment opportunity or was it because they believe in a renewable energy economy? If it was an ideological investment too, then they may make decisions to support the industry (and therefore their investments) naturally without any nudging. The lobbying/campaign contributions are just gravy at that point.
I lean towards NPR saying "mutual funds or nothing" but it doesn't address the fact that they could still leak sensitive information and/or help out a family member, friend, etc, etc
I'm completely fine with politicians being paid significantly more if them, their partners and their relatives faced serious prison time is they did the sort of insider trading that is considered completely normal and weirdly they're allowed to do but it's illegal if the lowly plebs do it. End of the day these people are paid very little on paper for the amount of pressure and responsibility yet if you follow their f…
U.S. Reps and Senators have an annual salary of around $180,000*, which is in the order of twice the national median income. Why do you think they need to be paid more? --- *They also have a baked-in-statute annual cost of living adjustment, which is more than we can say for the vast majority of people in the country. Though they have voted not to take it for the last decade. (If they had, I believe the current salar…
$174,000, except for the Speaker of the House ($223,500) and the President Pro Tem of the Senate and the Majority and Minority leaders in both houses (all $193,400).
> which is in the order of twice the national median income.
Its almost 5 times the median personal income ($36K), and almost 3 times the median household income ($62K).
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The argument can be made that insider trading isn’t actually a bad thing as long as it’s legal, precisely because allowing that information to trickle into the markets destroys alpha. Anyone who thinks hedge funds aren’t constantly trading on insider information has their head in the sand. Of course then you have problems where people with private information are incentivized to leak that information, which is bad fo…
Germany has more permissive insider trading laws, and public participation in German capital markets is much lower. Insider trading laws inspire confidence in the market for non-insiders, the average public.
But, I do agree that (at least) an attempt to make insider trades more transparent does help inspires confidence.
Holding any elected position should come with a lifetime ban against holding stock in any publicly traded company, full stop. Congressman, president, sheriff, county commissioner, I don't care. Either you're a public servant or you aren't. My position in the government wasn't even an elected one and I still believe the oath I took is fundamentally incompatible with holding stock.
This is interesting, can you expand on why you feel this was at odds with public interest?
And their partners, parents, children, friends? This problem looks unsolvable to me.
Before the STOCK Act passed, Congress outperformed the market by 20%, with some senior Republican leaders doing as well as 35% [0,1]. Before the pandemic began in the US, 4 US Senators were picking up medical stocks after closed-door briefings. Investigations were opened by the DOJ, but they were all dropped. [0] https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/03/congress-i... [1] https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/1…
Is there a Congress ETF?
Before the STOCK Act passed, Congress outperformed the market by 20%, with some senior Republican leaders doing as well as 35% [0,1]. Before the pandemic began in the US, 4 US Senators were picking up medical stocks after closed-door briefings. Investigations were opened by the DOJ, but they were all dropped. [0] https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/03/congress-i... [1] https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/1…
If anyone is interested, I've been building dashboards that display trades made by U.S. congressmen and estimate their returns over time from their trading while in office. https://www.quiverquant.com/sources/senatetrading https://www.quiverquant.com/sources/housetrading One weakness of the performance visualization is that some of the most extreme results are from people who have only made one or two trades while in…