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Many believe it's time to do away with lawmakers making stock trades

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Re: Many believe it's time to do away with lawmakers making stock trades

#191

Post by Causality1 »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #156
Causality1 wrote: post #106

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.

>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?

Two different ways, in my opinion. The most direct way was the part about serving the people of the United States. I can't do that in a neutral way while actively manipulating the economy, even slightly. The more indirect way is the oath to bear true faith and allegiance to the Constitution. To me "true faith" means much more than following the letter of the law. By and large, companies big enough to IPO are amoral money machines that do all they can to bypass the laws regulating their behavior and ignore the rights of American citizens, and even getting caught is just a line item on their legal budget. I can't participate in a system like that while bearing true faith to my country and Constitution.

Re: Many believe it's time to do away with lawmakers making stock trades

#192

Post by [deleted] »

Kranar wrote: post #118
koheripbal wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So meetings can not take place over a meal? ...or are you specifically saying they can only order certain dishes? Maybe we should force all meetings with politicians to take place on the floor of a mcdonalds. No chairs - that would be too fancy.

It's already illegal for lobbyists to pay for dinners or meals of any kind, including at a McDonald's.

[deleted]

Re: Many believe it's time to do away with lawmakers making stock trades

#193

Post by literallyaduck »

Congress should be sequestered while in office and all financial activities frozen. If they want to trade again they can start a year after they leave office and get out of sequestration. No aids, no spouses, and every moment recorded for the public record.

Re: Many believe it's time to do away with lawmakers making stock trades

#194

Post by zo1 »

dragontamer wrote: post #165
nine_zeros wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whoa whoa slow down there, what are we, a free market? That's only for HNWI and hedge funds.

Free markets do not necessarily mean that everyone has equal access to information. We've got market regulations so that less sophisticated retail investors have a chance against the more sophisticated / secretive groups with more money / knowledge / power than us. A laissez-faire market would encourage secrets as a means to protect ones own capital. To force some people to give up secrets (ie: regulations against in…

One thing we don't alwayd consider is that the free market always adjusts. So trading and the stock market without insider trading regulations may not look anything like what we have now. It may not even exist.

E.g. If I knew it to be trivial to manipulate stocks and gain from it using insider knowledge I'd be a lot less inclined to participate or put my capital into such a machine. For all we know some weird market may form around such knowledge.

Re: Many believe it's time to do away with lawmakers making stock trades

#195

Post by s1artibartfast »

bjourne wrote: post #128

When discussing doping in sports people are generally receptive to the following argument: Athletes will do everything they can to dope because the benefits far outweighs the drawbacks. It is probable that many of the world's top athletes are doped. However, when discussing financial trading people are generally not receptive to the following argument: Stock traders will do everything they can to exploit inside infor…

My understanding is that doping in sports is largely a solved problem at this point. I believe I have to submit biological samples witch are preserved indefinitely. Provides a significant barrier because future Technologies 10 allow retrospective analysis. Sure there are tons of athletes that modify and enhance their performance up to the Limit of acceptability, but I think there are the Wild West of doping is a thing of the past.

Re: Many believe it's time to do away with lawmakers making stock trades

#196

Post by LaMarseillaise »

b3morales wrote: post #150
whywhywhywhy wrote: post #55

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…

The average compensation for a member of the board of directors at an S&P 500 company is ~$300,000/year. Goldman Sachs pays ~$600,000/year. Senators and Representatives are paid $174,000/year.

I consider decision-making for the United States far more important than that of any one company in the S&P 500. Therefore, to be competitive, members of Congress should be paid at least twice what they are paid now.

Source: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-compensation-directors-in...

Re: Many believe it's time to do away with lawmakers making stock trades

#197

Post by imtringued »

dragontamer wrote: post #165
nine_zeros wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whoa whoa slow down there, what are we, a free market? That's only for HNWI and hedge funds.

Free markets do not necessarily mean that everyone has equal access to information. We've got market regulations so that less sophisticated retail investors have a chance against the more sophisticated / secretive groups with more money / knowledge / power than us. A laissez-faire market would encourage secrets as a means to protect ones own capital. To force some people to give up secrets (ie: regulations against in…

I thought about it for a long time and every time I see people talk about a free market they just mean less government intervention forgetting that we live in nature. Nature leaks into markets and what we get is a market of the "strong" until people notice that physical power and financial power are not the same and a revolution occurs.

Re: Many believe it's time to do away with lawmakers making stock trades

#198

Post by yunohn »

InitialLastName wrote: post #129
logicchains wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Here here! I think we need to deeply reexamine how much we pay officials. Senators/Governors should probably get triple their current pay with severe penalties for any financial fraud. Singapore is an example of why this doesn't work. It pays the prime minister $5 million/year, in theory to prevent corruption. However he got around this by making his wife CEO of Temasek, Singapore's national investment company whic…

I don't know that Singapore (effectively a single-party state whose PM has dictatorship levels of power) is the best example of how this works in a republic (or sub-republic) with separated powers.

Every major democracy is effectively a two party system. Further, both parties are usually quite corrupt, despite claiming to be the opposite of the other.
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