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Fed to ban policymakers from owning individual stocks

cnbc.com

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Re: Fed to ban policymakers from owning individual stocks

#11

Post by lastofthemojito »

trident5000 wrote: post #8
lastofthemojito wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I understand it the STOCK Act hasn't been revoked, but members of Congress regularly ignore it and have never been punished for doing so: https://www.npr.org/2021/09/22/1039287987/outside-ethics-gro...

It wasnt technically revoked (my fault) but it was conveniently modified: https://thehill.com/policy/finance/293919-obama-signs-stock-...

You say "conveniently" as if it were modified to make the rules less onerous for members of Congress but that wasn't the case. From your link:

"Under the new law, the beefed-up reporting requirements will still apply to the president, vice president, members of Congress and candidates for Congress."

Re: Fed to ban policymakers from owning individual stocks

#12

Post by toomuchtodo »

awb wrote: post #7

The relatively low salaries compared to the huge amounts of power is almost begging for insider trading, influence peddling, etc. > The salary of a Congress member varies based on the job title of the congressman or senator. Most senators, representatives, delegates and the resident commissioner from Puerto Rico make a salary of $174,000 per year. https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/pay-salary/congressman-... Then a…

Your last sentence is really the key thesis. This isn't an argument to pay representatives (whether that be Congressional or at monetary policy orgs) more, but to have robust controls to better detect and action corruption. Greed knows no bounds (see: corrupt billionaires and Dark Triad personality traits [1]) and humans will be humans, so strong systems must be designed and implemented to defend against improper behavior.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_triad

Re: Fed to ban policymakers from owning individual stocks

#13

Post by lastofthemojito »

parineum wrote: post #10
lastofthemojito wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I understand it the STOCK Act hasn't been revoked, but members of Congress regularly ignore it and have never been punished for doing so: https://www.npr.org/2021/09/22/1039287987/outside-ethics-gro...

It was amended and basically rendered useless. https://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2013/04/16/17749...

It was amended. I wouldn't say the law was made more useless. The members of Congress who sit on the appropriate committees to investigate and punish violations are what's useless.

There doesn't seem to be any problem with getting the reports that members of Congress are filing. Check out senatestockwatcher.com and housestockwatcher.com or https://sec.report/Senate-Stock-Disclosures.

The problem is that even though there are known violations, there are no punishments.

Re: Fed to ban policymakers from owning individual stocks

#14

Post by smolder »

awb wrote: post #7

The relatively low salaries compared to the huge amounts of power is almost begging for insider trading, influence peddling, etc. > The salary of a Congress member varies based on the job title of the congressman or senator. Most senators, representatives, delegates and the resident commissioner from Puerto Rico make a salary of $174,000 per year. https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/pay-salary/congressman-... Then a…

This is about the Fed banning it's own policymakers from owning them, not about congress.

Re: Fed to ban policymakers from owning individual stocks

#15

Post by Factorium »

awb wrote: post #7

The relatively low salaries compared to the huge amounts of power is almost begging for insider trading, influence peddling, etc. > The salary of a Congress member varies based on the job title of the congressman or senator. Most senators, representatives, delegates and the resident commissioner from Puerto Rico make a salary of $174,000 per year. https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/pay-salary/congressman-... Then a…

This is the case all over the Western world. Federal Government politician salaries need to be 10x higher.

Re: Fed to ban policymakers from owning individual stocks

#16

Post by trident5000 »

lastofthemojito wrote: post #11
trident5000 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It wasnt technically revoked (my fault) but it was conveniently modified: https://thehill.com/policy/finance/293919-obama-signs-stock-...

You say "conveniently" as if it were modified to make the rules less onerous for members of Congress but that wasn't the case. From your link: "Under the new law, the beefed-up reporting requirements will still apply to the president, vice president, members of Congress and candidates for Congress."

Yeah I just ran with the first paragraph in that article. But further reading shows the rules stuck for congress. Regardless theres still an issue in my opinion when Nancy Pelosis husband is buying Microsoft calls one month before they are awarded a large government contract and several other suspiciously timed trades.

Re: Fed to ban policymakers from owning individual stocks

#18

Post by lastofthemojito »

trident5000 wrote: post #16
lastofthemojito wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You say "conveniently" as if it were modified to make the rules less onerous for members of Congress but that wasn't the case. From your link: "Under the new law, the beefed-up reporting requirements will still apply to the president, vice president, members of Congress and candidates for Congress."

Yeah I just ran with the first paragraph in that article. But further reading shows the rules stuck for congress. Regardless theres still an issue in my opinion when Nancy Pelosis husband is buying Microsoft calls one month before they are awarded a large government contract and several other suspiciously timed trades.

Oh, I 100% agree about that. My pedantic side is just coming out and I wanted to point out the problem isn't that there's no rule, or there was a rule and it went away ... it's that we can't trust Congress to enforce rules on itself.

Re: Fed to ban policymakers from owning individual stocks

#20

Post by FormerBandmate »

awb wrote: post #7

The relatively low salaries compared to the huge amounts of power is almost begging for insider trading, influence peddling, etc. > The salary of a Congress member varies based on the job title of the congressman or senator. Most senators, representatives, delegates and the resident commissioner from Puerto Rico make a salary of $174,000 per year. https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/pay-salary/congressman-... Then a…

Honestly, we should give the Federal Reserve performance-based pay. Elon Musk has literally been paid billions for Tesla's phenomenal stock outperformance, why shouldn't we pay the Fed Chairs tens of millions for sustained real GDP growth above 4% balanced with low wealth inequality, low inflation, and low unemployment? They have the most important job in America and they should be paid like it if they do well
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