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Senators to Propose Ban on U.S. Lawmakers, Executive Branch Members Owning Stock
141–150 of 238 posts
Re: Senators to Propose Ban on U.S. Lawmakers, Executive Branch Members Owning Stock
#142Earlier quoted context omitted.
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Congresspeople do not make $200k per year for life. The vast majority don't even make $200k while they're in office.
Right.. They make $174k/year (except the few leadership roles) which was last increased in 2009 -- so roughly $130k equivalent based on the BLS inflation calculator..
https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=174%2C000.00&y...
To receive a congressional pension, you need 5 years of service (to be elected to 3 terms), the pension can't exceed 80% of your salary, and is based on the number of years of service.. There are ~280 prior members of congress collecting FERS pensions and the average collected was $41k/year in 2016.
Re: Senators to Propose Ban on U.S. Lawmakers, Executive Branch Members Owning Stock
#143Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 a…
> preventing infiltration
I believe this is correct.
> by organized crime
I believe this depends on the precinct.
Re: Senators to Propose Ban on U.S. Lawmakers, Executive Branch Members Owning Stock
#144I 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/
Does a "Congress tracker fund" make money? What with all the rumoured insider trading ...
We should not expect it to beat the market, since legislators themselves don't beat the market:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00472...
> We find no evidence of superior investment performance whether we look in aggregate or at Senators specifically accused of informed trading. Over a six-month horizon, stocks bought by House Members underperform on average by 26 basis points, while stocks sold underperform by 11 basis points.
Re: Senators to Propose Ban on U.S. Lawmakers, Executive Branch Members Owning Stock
#145All show and no go. Like most such "reforms", it is intended for naive public consumption while also being easily circumvented. Setup a trust or corporation run by a family member and continue with business a usual.
One major flaw of our system is that it's nigh impossible to get lawmakers to pass laws favoring the public good that act against their own interests.
Re: Senators to Propose Ban on U.S. Lawmakers, Executive Branch Members Owning Stock
#146Earlier quoted context omitted.
TBH will the regulation change much? If congressmen won't be allow to own stock, they will use proxy (wife, siblings, parents, in-laws).
Aka pulling a John Kerry https://wibc.com/154888/climate-czar-john-kerry-throws-wife-... .
Kerry's wife, Theresa Heinz is estimated to have net worth of $750m or more. Is it really a stretch to think that she might be the one who owns the private jet?
Re: Senators to Propose Ban on U.S. Lawmakers, Executive Branch Members Owning Stock
#147Earlier quoted context omitted.
This kind of thing, outsiders from both sides of government joining to try to get something done is the only way you will ever get any reform. Also why the insiders from both sides will be so scathing about outsiders on the other side and claim they are literally $evil_person_from_history
I'm scathing about Josh Hawley because he encouraged a coup against the US government, not because he's some sort of "outsider".
I'm sure you believe that. I dislike him and I don't. Go figure.
Re: Senators to Propose Ban on U.S. Lawmakers, Executive Branch Members Owning Stock
#148Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why? What kinds of things might you be able to do through your wife that require all this scrutiny?
The wife may be privy to the banks customers activities, and the husband must be considered privy to all the same, simply by proximity regardless of her honesty or intent. The wife may have knowledge about $bigco buying or selling $bigthing, and the husband may gain that same knowledge from her, even if she's honest and never intentionally disclosed it. (people aren't perfect and clues can slip, or he simply has acce…
I worked at a publicly traded company where everyone internal had knowledge of product releases with Apple. It was a trading frenzy with open discussion of trading decisions that predictably paid off. I remember it distinctly because it was right after company-wide training on insider trading with talks of prison time etc before our discounted stock grants. All it did was teach people how to conduct insider trading. The training was considered all that was needed for compliance. Zero enforcement, insider trading is the default. Humans cannot resist.
Re: Senators to Propose Ban on U.S. Lawmakers, Executive Branch Members Owning Stock
#149Earlier quoted context omitted.
This isn't a reason to not support the current effort. Democracy is an iterative process, not a magic wand that you wave to instantly teleport to a flawless system. This bill is step one. When (not if) it gets circumvented, that's when the next law addressing that problem can be passed.
This bill is step one. No, it's not. It's just the latest in a long line of campaign finance reform --- most of which is ineffective because it was purposely designed from the get-go to be easily circumvented. The open secret here is that you're counting on an organization (Congress) to police itself. This makes no more sense than an counting on Congress to avoid raising it's own pay. How has that worked out?
> This makes no more sense than an counting on Congress to avoid raising it's own pay
Congress hasn't had a raise since 2009. Their current effective pay is the lowest its been in 75 years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salaries_of_members_of_the_Uni...
Re: Senators to Propose Ban on U.S. Lawmakers, Executive Branch Members Owning Stock
#150There is 0% reason Nancy Pelosi should be allowed to be one of the best traders in history, it’s nothing but corruption. Either lawmakers should not be allowed to own stock, or insider trading shouldn’t be a crime, though the latter option is a lot more abusable.
Have you considered that the meme about Pelosi being "the best trader in history" might be just a complete lie? I don't even disagree with the proposals to restrict trading in congress but it's kind of wild how credulously everyone is repeating these things..