Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

npr.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

221–229 of 229 posts

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

#221

Post by s1artibartfast »

Causality1 wrote: post #191
s1artibartfast wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 m…

Thanks for the response. While I don't agree that stocks and companies are counter to the public good, I understand how someone could feel this way.

How do you personally invest and save if you avoid stocks?

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

#222

Post by SkyMarshal »

giantg2 wrote: post #218
SkyMarshal wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'd go a step further and restrict them to index funds. Or alternatively, restrict them to govt debt only. Make sure they have direct skin-in-the-game for the debt they're responsible for managing.

Hahaha that's awesome. I bet they would abuse that too though

True, there would have to be some requirement that they keep, say, at least 30% of their net worth invested in govt debt for 10yrs after they leave office. To better incentivize them to manage it for the long term rather than short term.

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

#223

Post by audiometry »

It’s so gross that they do this. When I worked at banks on Wall Street, they all had onerous approval processes for employees to trade. Pre-approvals that lasted for one day only etc. All these rules attempting to prevent insider trading. Amazing that these scummy Fed employees and congressmen don’t have any encumberence like that. So gross.

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

#224

Post by somethinggggggg »

kilroy123 wrote: post #159
neom wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a Congress ETF?

No, the problem is the disclosures come out way too late. There isn't a way to track and move with the market in real-time.

You could track corporate donations.

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

#225

Post by dtech »

kuratkull wrote: post #171
dtech wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Incentivizing that large public companies do well, not quite the same.

Equally weighted ETFs exist. Those would give a lot more exposure to smaller companies.

I highly doubt ETFs exists or can be made that give exposure to your privately owned "mom & pop" shops, or even larger privately owned companies.

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

#226

Post by webinvest »

93po wrote: post #217
bencollier49 wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Came here to say the same thing. Trades by lawmakers should be instantaneously public.

They'd just use shell corporations or friends/family in that case. The only people who would still trade under their name have nothing to hide to begin with and aren't the problem we're trying to solve.

Don’t underestimate the power of default options

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

#229

Post by morpheos137 »

ramblenode wrote: post #88

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…

Honestly it was super clear to me by late January or early Feburary 2020 that the pandemic was a big deal. I had no closed door briefings and I have no political connections. I am just a smarter than your average bear critical thinker I guess.
Post reply on HN