House Democrats to propose ban on lawmaker stock trading

Re: House Democrats to propose ban on lawmaker stock trading – report

#201

Post by TheEzEzz » Thu, Jul 28, 2022, 7:03 PM UTC

hedora wrote: post #86

Sevii wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's do a trade. Congress people get paid 1mil/year adjusted for inflation plus pension, but in return they don't get to own stocks or real estate while they are in office.

I'd take it further: $1M/year for life, have to divest all investments they own coming in to office (i.e., turn them to cash). Accepting any third party payment during or after being elected (and during campaigns) is treason. If their kids accept their inheritance, the rules apply to them too. The rules always apply to spouses. Let them invest in whole-market funds / ETFs, but only allow withdrawls 5 years after leav…

I increasingly think something like this is the way. You can only get money out of politics by putting money into politics. We have to align incentives correctly, and money is the way to do it. Nobody would every run a business where they pay their leaders $170k but allow those same leaders to make millions from outside stakeholders by leveraging their job role in ways that don't align with the company's goals. That's what politics currently looks like; the incentives are quite literally as backwards as is possible.

We're a capitalist society. That doesn't mean "let companies do whatever they want, including buying politicians", it means "we use capital as a means of setting incentives to drive good outcomes". Let's use our capital incentives correctly to drive good outcomes from our elected leaders. They work for us.

Re: House Democrats to propose ban on lawmaker stock trading – report

#202

Post by saxonww » Thu, Jul 28, 2022, 7:03 PM UTC

eloff wrote: post #195

hayst4ck wrote: post #105

Lawrence Lessig (Harvard law professor famous for fighting for sane copyright law) does a great presentation on the root cause of Americas problems. He also ran for president in 2016. It can be watched here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJy8vTu66tE The short version is that to win primaries you need money. Money mainly comes from corporations and rich people. Taking money from corporations and rich people creates…

Wouldn't this be solved rather easily by prohibiting fund raising and using tax dollars to finance campaigns? Everyone gets the same budget? That means money has no sway over politicians and money can't influence the result unfairly.

The issue with this and any proposal is that the people making the decision have no incentive to make it. Politicians limiting their own fundraising, establishing term limits, eliminating gerrymandering, etc. - it goes against their interests.

It's up to us to vote in people who would do this, but as pointed out, it's become difficult to do so in one election for one candidate, let alone the hundreds over the span of several years necessary to get people in place to actually make something positive happen.

Re: House Democrats to propose ban on lawmaker stock trading – report

#203

Post by nicoburns » Thu, Jul 28, 2022, 7:04 PM UTC

ryandvm wrote: post #181

philosopher1234 wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is that a lesser concern? How can the public have any influence over their politicians this way? You're saying corporations can choose who gets into power becasuse they finance them, and the public cant even tell what they're voting for to punish them. It seems all around worse.

Because the corporations would no longer have a record that a politician actually voted in their favor. They would be donating to campaigns based on rhetoric alone. Therefor the representatives would have no incentive for voting anything but their conscience. (Obviously disclosing your cryptographic vote receipt to a donor would be forbidden.)

Yes, but this would also apply to the electorate. Voters would have no record around what a politician actually voted for either. Which would seem to be hugely problematic for a system of representative democracy.

Re: House Democrats to propose ban on lawmaker stock trading – report

#204

Post by waitTho » Thu, Jul 28, 2022, 7:07 PM UTC

csours wrote: post #158

ryandvm wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Getting money out of politics would be a great reform (removing lobbyists, campaign finance reform, etc.). It also strikes me as almost impossible to implement. It's like getting the president of a company to switch to system whereby leadership is elected by the workers. It's all risk and low reward for them . However, another political reform I've toyed with in my head is secret voting in the House and the Senate. W…

I wonder if the Senate could pass a rule that allows them to choose when to take a secret vote. I don't know of anything in the Constitution that prohibits such.

The Constitution provides open ended and vague language allowing both chambers to set their own rules for conducting business, so yeah, both could.

Re: House Democrats to propose ban on lawmaker stock trading – report

#205

Post by hazmazlaz » Thu, Jul 28, 2022, 7:07 PM UTC

nostromo wrote: post #51

Hear me out... few people want to run for federal office already. The pay isn't great and it's hard work. If the US was a company, there'd be no question that we'd need to pay our leadership much better to attract top talent. We pay senators $170k a year to manage our country with a $20 trillion economy. So what we end up with is activists who crave power and elites from rich families for whom $170k a year is a round…

I agree with you so much that it's difficult for me to convey. The magnitude of both the upside of good governance as well as the downside of bad governance is so great that it amazes me that we have so few pro-society incentives for competent and well intentioned individuals to serve on the highest governing bodies.

If I could wave a magic wand and change things, here's what I would do:

1. Increase pay for senators by 10x, and for congresspeople by 5x.

2. Institute term limits, maximum of 4 consecutive terms.

3. After leaving office, total ban on direct employment of any kind for a period of time equal to the time spent in office. During this 'freeze' period, give them a pension equal to their pay while in office.

4. Strict limits on the nature of employment allowed for spouses/children/close relatives.

5. Strict limits on volunteer/nonprofit work, board positions, and anything else that isn't direct employment.

6. Lifetime ban on political lobbying.

7. Ban on any investing outside of a blind trust for the duration of their time in office plus the duration of the 'freeze'.

Overall, my thesis is that we should take away as much as possible of the opportunity and the incentive for corruption for the purpose of financial gain. We do that by paying officials gobs of money and preventing them from participating in the system outside of their defined role as a government official.

Re: House Democrats to propose ban on lawmaker stock trading – report

#206

Post by unethical_ban » Thu, Jul 28, 2022, 7:07 PM UTC

throwaway_4ever wrote: post #73

nostromo wrote: post #51

Hear me out... few people want to run for federal office already. The pay isn't great and it's hard work. If the US was a company, there'd be no question that we'd need to pay our leadership much better to attract top talent. We pay senators $170k a year to manage our country with a $20 trillion economy. So what we end up with is activists who crave power and elites from rich families for whom $170k a year is a round…

How does paying a politician MORE than 3x median US pay make them less out of touch with the average American? We don't need politicians 15x out of touch with the median American's lifestyle. In NYC governor's last election, there was a question about how much the median house costs in Brooklyn, and two high level candidates gave absolutely bonkers answers like $90k and $120k, when it's actually $900k. You only want…

>You only want people as politicians because they feel it's their civic duty to serve their countrymen, not because it's a lucrative career.

That sounds great. I agree in principle.

However, I believe the parent is asserting that in practice, the kinds of people who are competent and able to effectively manage a large organization are the kinds of people that can make a lot of money in the private sector, and thus only go into public office if it is lucrative anyway.

Should it be lucrative because they can get bought by special interests, or should it be more lucrative simply because they get compensated above board more?

Perhaps someone who makes a million dollars a year would be someone less likely to be corrupted by a few more campaign dollars and kickbacks than someone making $170k.

Re: House Democrats to propose ban on lawmaker stock trading – report

#207

Post by deltarholamda » Thu, Jul 28, 2022, 7:09 PM UTC

rgbrgb wrote: post #163

deltarholamda wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fix for this was in the founding documents. We just jacked it up over the years. Congress passes laws. They aren't supposed to pass a vague law and then hand over the actual rule-making to unelected government bureaucracies. The House is the people's house. Each Representative represents some relatively equal number of constituents. The Senate is the States' house. The state legislatures sends senators. The Senat…

Trying to get clarification, as a layman here I think I'm missing your point. My understanding is that laws are by their nature kind of vague because the world is full of edge cases and they always require interpretation as they encounter new cases. > hand over the actual rule-making to unelected government bureaucracies. Are you referring to the judicial branch? Isn't that the system laid out in the founding docs? >…

>Are you referring to the judicial branch? Isn't that the system laid out in the founding docs

No, I'm talking about the executive branch agencies. An example would be, Congress passes a protected species act; they empower the EPA to regulate how this protected species act is enforced; the EPA makes policy of how the protected species act is enforced.

This isn't completely insane, as it's a complicated process. But in actuality, what happens is the EPA becomes a revolving door for special interests ("I worked at the EPA for 5 years, and now I'm head of Environmental Quality at BP!"), corporations "encourage" lawmakers to carve out exceptions in the law that help or protect the corporations, and the agency in general can be used as a weapon to selectively reward or punish people or companies while the ones who could be held accountable--the Congressional lawmakers--can wash their hands of all responsibility. ("It's the EPA, I didn't take away your farm because they found a mushroom species that's protected.")

You're right that edge cases are hard. But the current paradigm of "enact sweeping reforms through vague legislation, and leave the details up to underpaid, overworked, and possibly ideological civil servants who can never be fired in any practical way" isn't sustainable. We know what happens, because it has happened.

Legislators participate in the revolving door policy, too. They do favors for corporate sponsors, and later they get a job there, or with a lobbying group that is funded by corporate sponsors, or with some other back-scratching deal. While doing something about insider trading is a good thing, that's not the real problem, and it feels to me that something like this is more like a bone thrown to keep the yapping dog quiet.

Re: House Democrats to propose ban on lawmaker stock trading – report

#208

Post by techdragon » Thu, Jul 28, 2022, 7:09 PM UTC

eloff wrote: post #195

hayst4ck wrote: post #105

Lawrence Lessig (Harvard law professor famous for fighting for sane copyright law) does a great presentation on the root cause of Americas problems. He also ran for president in 2016. It can be watched here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJy8vTu66tE The short version is that to win primaries you need money. Money mainly comes from corporations and rich people. Taking money from corporations and rich people creates…

Wouldn't this be solved rather easily by prohibiting fund raising and using tax dollars to finance campaigns? Everyone gets the same budget? That means money has no sway over politicians and money can't influence the result unfairly.

Unless Citizens United is overturned, this would take a constitutional amendment, "money is speech" per that Supreme Court verdict and so...

> Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

So this puts us as requiring a constitutional amendment since only that can carve out an exception to something earlier in the constitution (see the 21st amendment which repealed prohibition) and unfortunately constitutional amendments have an extremely high bar to clear to make them happen. Not just a "half of the bastards finally agree" like a regular law ...

Per article 5 of the constitution:

> Amendments may be proposed either by the Congress with a two-thirds vote in both the House of Representatives and the Senate; or by a convention to propose amendments called by Congress at the request of two-thirds of the state legislatures. To become part of the Constitution, an amendment must then be ratified by either—as determined by Congress—the legislatures of three-quarters of the states or by ratifying conventions conducted in three-quarters of the states

75 percent of the state congresses have to agree to it on top of 2/3 of the federal congress.

It will never happen short of some apocalyptic social shift.

Re: House Democrats to propose ban on lawmaker stock trading – report

#209

Post by hgomersall » Thu, Jul 28, 2022, 7:09 PM UTC

com2kid wrote: post #128

throwaway_4ever wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does paying a politician MORE than 3x median US pay make them less out of touch with the average American? We don't need politicians 15x out of touch with the median American's lifestyle. In NYC governor's last election, there was a question about how much the median house costs in Brooklyn, and two high level candidates gave absolutely bonkers answers like $90k and $120k, when it's actually $900k. You only want…

You want to pay people in positions of power so much money that they are afraid of losing their salary by being caught up in a corruption scandal. This is how America got rid of large swaths of police corruption. Go back 100 years and bribing police was trivial, they made so little money that taking bribes was how they kept afloat financially. Now days? An officer making $120k a year isn't going to take a $100 bribe…

First you need to make the corruption illegal.

Re: House Democrats to propose ban on lawmaker stock trading – report

#210

Post by onlyrealcuzzo » Thu, Jul 28, 2022, 7:10 PM UTC

noasaservice wrote: post #187

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Am I reading this right? We're going to pay $100Bn per year to 100 people chosen at random to run the country? Why would they have any incentive to do a good job? Also, why would they have any desire? Also, that seems like a lot of money. >95% of people would be happy with the $1M per year salary.

The number needs to be effectively an unbribeable number. If you're selected for public service, then you're expected to do good for the country, and not just a specific monied interest. And that means not having to worry about money ever again. You win capitalism. Done. Have fun. Live your life. That could also be done with annuities so that they get a "allowance" each month until dead.

Why wouldn't you take the money AND the bribes?

If you have a system in place that can find and punish bribes - why not pay them a reasonable amount of money - and just eliminate bribes without spending $0.1T per year...