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

Senators to Propose Ban on U.S. Lawmakers, Executive Branch Members Owning Stock

wsj.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 238 posts

Re: Senators to Propose Ban on U.S. Lawmakers, Executive Branch Members Owning Stock

#31

Post by andsoitis »

exabrial wrote: post #16
thedangler wrote: post #11

Have you seen how much wealth a lot of congress have gained over their careers. There is no way someone can look at those numbers and come to the conclusion that they did become multi millionaires without inside information. It should be banned out right or every position they take is public knowledge within 1 trading day or less. "Representative Nancy Pelosi has made up to $12.5M off of Microsoft stock so far this y…

> It should be banned out right or every position they take is public knowledge within 1 trading day or less. Other way around, every position they _plan_ to take is public knowledge 24 hours in advance. EDIT: ==== Other comment says a week, I'm good with that

> every position they _plan_ to take is public knowledge 24 hours in advance.

If you know in advance what position someone is going to take, then, logically they have already taken the position (otherwise, how would you know with certainty what position they're going to take?.

This isn't mere wordplay; the practical consequence is that even if you knew in advance how they would vote on a particular decision (maybe you're definition of "position they plan to take"), you should assume they have also already made other steps to take advantage of that public knowledge. If my reasoning is correct, then I don't know that your proposal would make too much of a dent in the (safe to assume) "insider trading" that's happening.

So I think a better policy would be to be ban trading altogether for these folks, because that would also disincentivize people from pursuing these careers for extreme profit.

Re: Senators to Propose Ban on U.S. Lawmakers, Executive Branch Members Owning Stock

#32

Post by giantg2 »

_ea1k wrote: post #4

In practice, how would this work? A requirement that they only use index funds? But then wouldn't that bias them to support the companies that are the major movers in that index? Indexes are often heavily weighted to a small subset after all. TBH, it seems like an idea that sounds good on the surface but has practical issues in implementation that would make it irrelevant

[Deleted]

Re: Senators to Propose Ban on U.S. Lawmakers, Executive Branch Members Owning Stock

#33

Post by ghaff »

ldoughty wrote: post #17
_ea1k wrote: post #4

In practice, how would this work? A requirement that they only use index funds? But then wouldn't that bias them to support the companies that are the major movers in that index? Indexes are often heavily weighted to a small subset after all. TBH, it seems like an idea that sounds good on the surface but has practical issues in implementation that would make it irrelevant

Blind trust would be the most logical solution. You can put $X into the trust, but you never know which companies that money is invested in. When you ask for $Y to be paid out, the manager of the fund sells what they see fit to fulfill the request without the client's involvement/input

That's probably the most appropriate solution in at least some cases. Once you get to a certain level of government you may have at least some influence on interest rate changes or otherwise have early knowledge of events that can move the market as a whole.

The fact is that there are a lot of jobs that, at a minimum, place a lot of restrictions on the purchases and sale of stock of individual companies. (Many journalists and analysts for example.)

Re: Senators to Propose Ban on U.S. Lawmakers, Executive Branch Members Owning Stock

#35

Post by givemeethekeys »

anonym29 wrote: post #30
bell-cot wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ...iterative process... ...When (not if it gets circumvented), that's when... If the politicians manage the process correctly, they can forever be passing "reform bills" which sound good...but have enough loopholes so that nothing resembling actual reform ever happens. Rule of Thumb: If somebody claims they want to build a transportation system, then starts with a square wheel and talks about improving it as the ne…

Inefficient action being taken is still better than absolutely zero action being taken in addressing a problem. Think, for instance, about how many more people might become aware of / interested in the problem, who were previously unaware or uninterested in insider stock trading by members of congress, should a historic bill be passed to initialize the process of stopping the problem.

People will be more frustrated with no action. That is why politicians (like so many others) do the bare minimum to kick the can down the road some more.

Re: Senators to Propose Ban on U.S. Lawmakers, Executive Branch Members Owning Stock

#36

Post by digdugdirk »

carimura wrote: post #20
thedangler wrote: post #11

Have you seen how much wealth a lot of congress have gained over their careers. There is no way someone can look at those numbers and come to the conclusion that they did become multi millionaires without inside information. It should be banned out right or every position they take is public knowledge within 1 trading day or less. "Representative Nancy Pelosi has made up to $12.5M off of Microsoft stock so far this y…

I'm certainly not advocating for our ruling class but also consider that the cost to run and win a senate seat is something like $15M and a house seat over $2M (and that was data from a few years ago and only took averages, not the top races which were dramatically higher). And they are full time jobs that require an enormous amount of personal ambition (which is usually tied to wealth) so one can argue even being in…

... Is this the other side of the argument?

If so, it really helps frame just how messed up this system is.

Re: Senators to Propose Ban on U.S. Lawmakers, Executive Branch Members Owning Stock

#37

Post by _lb0d »

jchanimal wrote: post #25
_lb0d wrote: post #14

My wife works in the audit department of a bank. I'm heavily regulated by the SEC on what stocks, ETFs, mutual funds I can buy/sell. An internal group monitors my buying/selling and makes approval/denial before I can do so. I have to hold an ETF for 1 month before I can sell it--not that I should be swing trading ETFs, but still. It's very frustrating at times, especially when I'm relegated to using just her bank's t…

I think is standard practice at larger firms in the banking industry, it should be for government as well.

Agreed.

Re: Senators to Propose Ban on U.S. Lawmakers, Executive Branch Members Owning Stock

#39

Post by ckardat123 »

I started building out tools to track congressional stock trading in 2020.

Since then, I believe there have been 9 other proposals similar to this one. None of them have been even called to a vote.

It seem like Congress is pretty unwilling to regulate its own trading.

Until they are, feel free to track the trading here: https://www.quiverquant.com/congresstrading/

Re: Senators to Propose Ban on U.S. Lawmakers, Executive Branch Members Owning Stock

#40

Post by one_level_deep »

lesuorac wrote: post #28
ccppurcell wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about they do their jobs, and put off making money in other ways till after their term ends. Maybe they can buy government bonds.

Or perhaps the salary of congress critters /etc should be significantly higher than it is. Is the CEO of Tesla (~50B ?) really more impactful than the US president (~400k/yr) ?

[dead]
Post reply on HN