Senators to Propose Ban on U.S. Lawmakers, Executive Branch Members Owning Stock • Hacker News Board

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

#101

Post by smcin » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 2:22 PM UTC

ckardat123 wrote: post #73

smcin wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sen Cynthia Loomis (R-WY) [EDIT: 'Lummis'] doesn't show up on the list (for stocks), is she still the biggest crypto trader? https://www.marketwatch.com/story/congresss-crypto-traders-t...

The list on the homepage just shows recent transactions. You can search for individuals on top to see their full transaction list. Lummis bought up to $100K of Bitcoin in 2021: https://www.quiverquant.com/congresstrading/politician/Cynth...

I had already searched your site and found nothing. But that was because I misspelled her name as 'Loomis' not 'Lummis'.

Anyway when I search under correct name, I only find 2 trades, from 2021. She really had no other trades?

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

#102

Post by fallingknife » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 2:23 PM UTC

I say let them trade. But they should have to report all their trades 5 business days in advance. So they can trade however they want, but any member of the public can front run them.

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

#103

Post by RajT88 » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 2:23 PM UTC

philipov wrote: post #92

thrtythreeforty wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it could be backtested, which I think is the point - "is the supposed insider trading actually profitable for Congress members?"

I think I recall someone doing that analysis and posting about it on HN, but I don't remember what the conclusion was.

There's been articles which did the math before. Several - really every few years someone takes another pass at it.

They do well. Generally, retiring their tenure wealthier than their congressional salary would allow at a 100% savings rate.

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

#104

Post by PartiallyTyped » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 2:23 PM UTC

mikestew wrote: post #97

PartiallyTyped wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My immediate family can't trade Amazon stock even though I am just some random employee in this behemoth. It's relatively minor, but it's still legal repercussions.

...though I am just some random employee in this behemoth. I'm skeptical of "just some random employee", or a ban on immediate family trading AMZN. Because it's the first I've heard of this for an SDE that doesn't work in finance for Amazon, and I know plenty of folks that work at Amazon and trading AMZN has come up. I'm not saying you're wrong, but I'd sure double-check on that because it doesn't match my experience…

I read it on my contract, but I may be forgetting something.

It is possible that this is org wide.

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

#105

Post by delecti » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 2:23 PM UTC

I couldn't get around this paywall, but the coverage on Fox describes what was in the WSJ report:

> Sens. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., and Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., are set to introduce the legislation in the Senate. It would prohibit those affected from owning stocks in individual companies, even through a blind trust, the Wall. Street Journal reported Wednesday.

"No individual stocks, period" seems like a fairly reasonable restriction.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/sens-hawley-gillibrand-push...

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

#106

Post by tivert » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 2:25 PM UTC

mschuster91 wrote: post #95

skizm wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To less of a degree, when applying for law enforcement jobs, family members and sometimes friends have to surrender a lot of personal data. I had to hand over my SSN along with pretty much all my PII and do interviews on behalf family members when they applied to be cops. I tried to say no, but at the end of the day they're holding their jobs hostage until I comply. Hate it.

What, the cops are actually doing at least something to weed out the bad apples now? Sarcasm aside: interesting how far they go for a simple copper on the street now. Here in Germany, that level of background checks (Sicherheitsüberprüfung Ü2/Ü3) is only done for higher level (i.e. leadership) cops and IT staff. [1] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sicherheits%C3%BCberpr%C3%BCfu...

>> To less of a degree, when applying for law enforcement jobs, family members and sometimes friends have to surrender a lot of personal data. I had to [hand] over my SSN along with pretty much all my PII and do interviews on behalf family members when they applied to be cops. I tried to say no, but at the end of the day they're holding their jobs hostage until I comply. Hate it.

> What, the cops are actually doing at least something to weed out the bad apples now?

How is forcing a friend or family member to surrender their own PII have anything to do about "weed[ing] out the bad apples"?

My intuition is that those kinds of background checks have been going on for a long time, and have been focused on stuff like preventing infiltration by organized crime rather than specifically rooting out police brutality.

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

#107

Post by Workaccount2 » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 2:25 PM UTC

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…

How the hell would Pelosi have insider information on Microsoft that made it run?

Everyone here knew about Openai, ChatGPT, and Microsoft since day 1.

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

#108

Post by lesuorac » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 2:27 PM UTC

marktucker wrote: post #67

lesuorac wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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) ?

What amount of money do you think you'd have to pay them in order for them to say "Yeah, that's enough. I'm not going to use my position to my advantage."?

Well abuse is human nature.

But if they're making say ~2M/yr then there's very little reason to go lenient on a company so that they'll give you a retirement job there afterwards. It also means that if somebody wants to bribe you then the bribe has to be rather large as you're both risking that salary and you also certainly don't need that bribe. (Although I do also think the government should stop footing the bill for a lot of the stuff the congress critters do and if you want to spend 1/2 your presidency golfing that comes at your own expense).

The salaries of government people has filter down affects though as federal employees cannot make more than the vice president (~261,400).

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

#109

Post by gautamdivgi » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 2:27 PM UTC

The problem with this is that now you will have their spouses or children own the stock and not have similar reporting requirements. I don’t believe this ban will accomplish much.

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

#110

Post by caseysoftware » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 2:28 PM UTC

This looks good in principle but the implementation will be key.. because people like Pelosi would just say “I don’t own stock, my husband does!”