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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

#201

Post by gigatexal »

jrochkind1 wrote: post #156

If you read past the headline to just the first bullet point, you don't even have to go past there: > The Federal Reserve announced sweeping new rules for its top officials Thursday, banning trading in individual stocks and bonds. The top officials of the Fed. not congress people. The comments thread here is making me wonder if all HN comment threads are made up mostly of posters who haven't read beyond the headline.

The Fed is setting the example here that congress should follow but won’t cuz it’s already too corrupted by representatives with conflicts of interest.

Re: Fed to ban policymakers from owning individual stocks

#202

Post by dragonwriter »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #199
dragonwriter wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The guidelines all but state that you're not expected to read it before commenting: No, noting that accusations of not reading the article are never positive contributions to the discussion is not even in the neighborhood of advocating not reading the article. You can even point out that the article addresses a concern, as that is a useful contribution to the discussion.

> noting that accusations of not reading the article are never positive contributions to the discussion is not even in the neighborhood of advocating not reading the article. That depends on whether you believe that accusations of not reading the article tend to cause people to read the articles.

> That depends on whether you believe that accusations of not reading the article tend to cause people to read the articles.

No, what it is fairly charcsterized as it was upthread does not depend on that.

Whether you agree that it is generally good advice might depend on that, or more generally what the net effect of tolerating such accusations is on the tone and tenor of discussions.

Having experienced online discussions in many fora since the 1980s, I tend to agree that accusations of not reading doing more harm than good, like most collateral attacks on presumed motive, background, or other reasons for a post you disagree with rather than addressing and supporting the substance of the disagreement directly.

Re: Fed to ban policymakers from owning individual stocks

#203

Post by andreareina »

chillacy wrote: post #133
poulsbohemian wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd rather see Congressional salaries indexed to household incomes. While sure, $174K might be nominal in the private professional world, it's still 3x average US household income. They have health insurance and pensions. Better gig than the vast majority of their voting constituents. It might give them some humility and understanding of the plight of those constituents if they were remunerated similarly.

If one believes that legislators should be drawn from a pool of competent individuals who have options in private industry, you'd look at executive salaries in industry instead of the average US household. Singapore indexes its government pay to that of the private industry for this reason, but they're also ruthlessly meritocratic and some might say, elitist. Yet also very effective. The two seem related to me, but i…

Living in Singapore, I know a number of people who would have trouble with that statement.

Re: Fed to ban policymakers from owning individual stocks

#204

Post by westurner »

westurner wrote: post #124
kolbe wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“The Fed” as in the Federal Reserve: no. “The Fed” as in the Federal Government: yes.

"Blind Trust" > "Use by US government officials to avoid conflicts of interest" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_trust https://www.oge.gov/ ... If you want to help, you must throw all of your startup equity away. ... No, you may not co-brand with that company (which is not complicit with your agenda). ... Besides, I'm not even eligible for duty: you can't hire me. ... Maybe I could be more helpful from competitive…

Fed or no, wouldn't you think there'd be money in solving for the https://performance.gov Goals ( https://www.usaspending.gov/ ) and the #GlobalGoals (UN Sustainable Development Goals) -aligned GRI Corporate Sustainability Report? #CSR #ESG #SustyReporting

Re: Fed to ban policymakers from owning individual stocks

#206

Post by robotburrito »

I have long felt that once you get elected to Congress or higher office that you should be stripped of all of your assets like real estate, stocks, etc. After you are done serving the people you would be given a reasonable salary, a free home, and would live the rest of your life like some sort of monk barred from ever participating in the capitalist system again.

Re: Fed to ban policymakers from owning individual stocks

#207

Post by jdavis703 »

batch12 wrote: post #186
jdavis703 wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, Congress people must live in the districts they represent. And while $174k is quite decent even in SF, this person will have a standard of living below even what a software engineer with no management responsibilities is going to have.

Maybe they would be able to better empathize with the vast majority of people they represent.

Why would an ambitious person run for office if the pay is low? We’ve already tried this experiment with government industries like teaching, and then we wonder why American educational policy is loosing global competitiveness.

Re: Fed to ban policymakers from owning individual stocks

#208

Post by dragonwriter »

jdavis703 wrote: post #207
batch12 wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe they would be able to better empathize with the vast majority of people they represent.

Why would an ambitious person run for office if the pay is low? We’ve already tried this experiment with government industries like teaching, and then we wonder why American educational policy is loosing global competitiveness.

> Why would an ambitious person run for office if the pay is low?

Power. Exposure. Experience and connections that are useful in highly-paid lobbying and other political influence positions. Serving their own direct, or others who will be thankful, financial interests in ways that will generate orders of magnitude more returns than the direct pay of the position. Etc.

Re: Fed to ban policymakers from owning individual stocks

#209

Post by matheusmoreira »

jrochkind1 wrote: post #156

If you read past the headline to just the first bullet point, you don't even have to go past there: > The Federal Reserve announced sweeping new rules for its top officials Thursday, banning trading in individual stocks and bonds. The top officials of the Fed. not congress people. The comments thread here is making me wonder if all HN comment threads are made up mostly of posters who haven't read beyond the headline.

I certainly don't read the article most of the time. The comments here are more interesting than the post. They're what I come here for. Besides, it's nearly certain that any important information will be directly quoted here in a comment.

Re: Fed to ban policymakers from owning individual stocks

#210

Post by jdavis703 »

dragonwriter wrote: post #208
jdavis703 wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would an ambitious person run for office if the pay is low? We’ve already tried this experiment with government industries like teaching, and then we wonder why American educational policy is loosing global competitiveness.

> Why would an ambitious person run for office if the pay is low? Power. Exposure. Experience and connections that are useful in highly-paid lobbying and other political influence positions. Serving their own direct, or others who will be thankful, financial interests in ways that will generate orders of magnitude more returns than the direct pay of the position. Etc.

That seems like exactly the sort of behavior citizens would want to minimize.
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