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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

#91

Post by [deleted] »

DavidPeiffer wrote: post #44
jrockway wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure that's necessarily fair. If you're 75, you probably don't want your retirement nest egg in 100% stocks. There isn't a policy congress could institute that guarantees stocks will retain their value in a 4 year window.

Index funds aren't necessarily 100% stocks. A basic target date fund will taper down the stock percentage as you get closer to the targeted retirement date, not to mention the myriad of dedicated bond funds with every focus/tilt you can imagine.

[deleted]

Re: Fed to ban policymakers from owning individual stocks

#92

Post by [deleted] »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #70
toomuchtodo wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 beh…

Alternatively - maybe it's not so great that government is so big and central and has so much power. Politicians are gonna find ways to corrupt that power no matter what. The same could be said for megacorps. Unfortunately, we don't live in an ideal world. China and Chinese SOEs are going to be big and powerful and centralized for the foreseeable future no matter what - and if we don't have anything to oppose them -…

[deleted]

Re: Fed to ban policymakers from owning individual stocks

#93

Post by amelius »

whiddershins wrote: post #86
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…

I hold the unpopular opinion we should pay elected officials waaaaaay more. Like 1B/year for President or something. Some amount that would attract the best, and make being corrupt seem so very counterproductive.

Or how about we allow only Nobel prize winners to be president?

If they're bad at being a president, then at least they contributed to society.

Re: Fed to ban policymakers from owning individual stocks

#94

Post by CountDrewku »

Factorium wrote: post #15
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.

What? You're suggesting we pay politicians upwards of $1 million are year? Absolutely not.

I don't want people making careers out of politics. Nothing good comes of that.

Re: Fed to ban policymakers from owning individual stocks

#95

Post by pphysch »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #70
toomuchtodo wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 beh…

Alternatively - maybe it's not so great that government is so big and central and has so much power. Politicians are gonna find ways to corrupt that power no matter what. The same could be said for megacorps. Unfortunately, we don't live in an ideal world. China and Chinese SOEs are going to be big and powerful and centralized for the foreseeable future no matter what - and if we don't have anything to oppose them -…

Deliberately getting rid of "big government" just leads to even more unaccountable megacorps filling the void. That's been the lesson of America for the past 40-50 years.

If you want any chance of competing on the global stage in the 3rd millennium, the solution is to embrace big government and do it right. It is possible to implement anti-corruption mechanisms. Like any security measure, they will never be infallible, but they will certainly increase the friction required to be corrupt.

Otherwise, your country will be a sickly host to parasitic & transnational megacorps. Like America and many smaller countries today.

Re: Fed to ban policymakers from owning individual stocks

#96

Post by jessaustin »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #70
toomuchtodo wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 beh…

Alternatively - maybe it's not so great that government is so big and central and has so much power. Politicians are gonna find ways to corrupt that power no matter what. The same could be said for megacorps. Unfortunately, we don't live in an ideal world. China and Chinese SOEs are going to be big and powerful and centralized for the foreseeable future no matter what - and if we don't have anything to oppose them -…

People who live in normal nations laugh at both the people subject to the China authoritarian monstrosity and the people subject to the USA authoritarian monstrosity. Building and subjecting oneself to such a giant voracious parasitic automaton is obvious folly. They don't laugh too loudly, however, because they've read The Jakarta Method. China is actually less of a threat (except to close neighbors like Vietnam) because they have millennia of tradition and scholarship encouraging them not to care too much what barbarians say.

Re: Fed to ban policymakers from owning individual stocks

#97

Post by bee_rider »

mywittyname wrote: post #58
brodouevencode wrote: post #2

Does anyone think the SEC will take similar actions against elected officials? Given there have been plenty of stories about this happening it seems like it should be up for consideration.

Even if they could ban them, it probably wouldn't curb their behavior. It's trivial to obscure trades. A better approach, IMHO, is to make their trades available to the public as quickly as possible, and force brokers to mandate trading grace periods for elected officials. At least then, the public has a chance to get in on the action. So if a corrupt-ass senator on the house foreign intelligence committee buys up so…

The higher ups in the fed, under the plan reported in the article, will still be able to do things like invest in a mutual fund. Applying that rule to elected officials would seem to be a good first step toward getting or obviating the type of transparency you are looking for.

Re: Fed to ban policymakers from owning individual stocks

#98

Post by googlryas »

officeplant wrote: post #35
jrockway wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure that's necessarily fair. If you're 75, you probably don't want your retirement nest egg in 100% stocks. There isn't a policy congress could institute that guarantees stocks will retain their value in a 4 year window.

If they're 75 they should focus on retirement.

Or - run for President!

Re: Fed to ban policymakers from owning individual stocks

#100

Post by josho »

louloulou wrote: post #46
davesque wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, the other day this really hit home for me. I don't know why I hadn't previously thought about it in such clear terms. Being a congressperson has to be one of the most morally hazardous occupations in the world. I mean, you have more direct control over how our entire society works than almost anyone else. So you become the perfect target for bribery and gain access to countless levers that you could pull in you…

Welcome to the libertarian/small government world view!

Wow, so that actually deters me from libertarian ideals. It sounds like your logic is something like the following:

Government is corruptible, so we should have small/weak governments.

But, a small gov. doesn't solve the root problem, it just make it easier to corrupt what little power is left. Isn't the real solution to have some group responsible for providing oversight and enforcement to elected officials?

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