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Fed to ban policymakers from owning individual stocks

cnbc.com

151–160 of 232 posts

Re: Fed to ban policymakers from owning individual stocks

#151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an example of the "you can pay people not to be corrupt" argument. It relies on people who are both willing to be corrupt, and happy to leave money on the table. It's exactly the same argument as paying for media not to include advertisements. What we should do is stop filtering for trash by having jobs that pay $174K require multi-million dollar application fees (i.e. a campaign.) That's exactly how you woul…

This is not a US only problem, virtually any country is run by a couple of political parties and their friends and they can do pretty much anything with little repercussions. I agree better pay is not the answer. The only reasonable alternative is to reduce their powers (especially reducing the amount of money they can spend and the laws they can impose on people) and spread them to local entities. Decentralisation i…

> This is not a US only problem, virtually any country is run by a couple of political parties and their friends and they can do pretty much anything with little repercussions.

Citation definitely needed on this one.

Re: Fed to ban policymakers from owning individual stocks

#152
post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alternatively - maybe it's not so great that government is so big and central and has so much power. Politicians are gonna find ways to corrupt that power no matter what. The same could be said for megacorps. Unfortunately, we don't live in an ideal world. China and Chinese SOEs are going to be big and powerful and centralized for the foreseeable future no matter what - and if we don't have anything to oppose them -…

Deliberately getting rid of "big government" just leads to even more unaccountable megacorps filling the void. That's been the lesson of America for the past 40-50 years. If you want any chance of competing on the global stage in the 3rd millennium, the solution is to embrace big government and do it right. It is possible to implement anti-corruption mechanisms. Like any security measure, they will never be infallibl…

Private businesses are the only thing that kept America relevant. If it wasn't for Big Tech, the USA would be poorer and much less relevant.

The centralised American army, with its huge spend, doesn't have much to show for.

I dislike megacorps as well: I would prefer to have smaller businesses so that the power would be more spread across society.

Incidentally the government and their regulations are often what helps monopolies to solidify and become unbeatable. Maybe if you get rid of all government and not only of "big government" you will have less corruption and mega corporations as well.

Re: Fed to ban policymakers from owning individual stocks

#153

But thank goodness Nancy Pelosi still can.

I’m curious why all the heat is on Pelosi for trading? I see people on twitter making similar remarks. Is she more corrupt than the other politicians or are people just parroting each other and it’s become a meme to be negative towards Pelosi in particular?

Re: Fed to ban policymakers from owning individual stocks

#155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alternatively - maybe it's not so great that government is so big and central and has so much power. Politicians are gonna find ways to corrupt that power no matter what. The same could be said for megacorps. Unfortunately, we don't live in an ideal world. China and Chinese SOEs are going to be big and powerful and centralized for the foreseeable future no matter what - and if we don't have anything to oppose them -…

People who live in normal nations laugh at both the people subject to the China authoritarian monstrosity and the people subject to the USA authoritarian monstrosity. Building and subjecting oneself to such a giant voracious parasitic automaton is obvious folly. They don't laugh too loudly, however, because they've read The Jakarta Method . China is actually less of a threat (except to close neighbors like Vietnam) b…

While I think all western countries can easily be considered authoritarian countries, given most of them demand half of the profits of everyone doing anything productive on their land, you're terribly deluded if you think they rank anything close to what China is.

China has concentration camps, kill businesses with a whip of the hand and apparently have half of the world (probably including your government) on their payroll.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlCYFh8U2xM

Re: Fed to ban policymakers from owning individual stocks

#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.

Re: Fed to ban policymakers from owning individual stocks

#157
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is about the Fed banning it's own policymakers from owning them, not about congress.

Would the Fed actually have the authority to even do that, regulate what securities Congress members are allowed to hold?

No, the Fed (which always means the Federal Reserve Bank) sets monetary policy and has 0 control over Congress.

Re: Fed to ban policymakers from owning individual stocks

#160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not a US only problem, virtually any country is run by a couple of political parties and their friends and they can do pretty much anything with little repercussions. I agree better pay is not the answer. The only reasonable alternative is to reduce their powers (especially reducing the amount of money they can spend and the laws they can impose on people) and spread them to local entities. Decentralisation i…

> This is not a US only problem, virtually any country is run by a couple of political parties and their friends and they can do pretty much anything with little repercussions. Citation definitely needed on this one.

really?
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