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Unusual Stock Trading by Whales in US Congress

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Re: Unusual Stock Trading by Whales in US Congress

#191

Post by slowmovintarget »

nitrogen wrote: post #134
wpietri wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whatever the behind-the-scenes truth, I think the appearance of conflicting interests is a problem regardless. For a lot of elected offices and high public service positions, I think their wealth should be put into a blind trust, one constrained by law to buy broad, boring things like index funds. That would surely be a problem for some individuals. But I don't think it's a systemic problem. We only need to find 0.00…

We only need to find 0.00013% of the US population Maybe we should use sortition then instead of elections? What could be more democratic than random average people (meeting some criteria) taking a turn at the wheel?

A significant percentage of random average people have no practical understanding of economics, and no ability to think of consequences to policy.

Granted, neither do a significant percentage of the currently serving congress if current policy is anything to go by.

Re: Unusual Stock Trading by Whales in US Congress

#192

Post by op00to »

thepete2 wrote: post #135

One thing I've always wondered: Does the stock market basically consist of insider traders making a profit off of people without that knowledge? I feel like even with immense restrictions on insiders in place, information is so easy to pass on to sb. else, that it should be impossible to prevent this. Heck, I could cough once for buy, twice for sell. Who's going to surveil me and notice that?

Yes, literally.

Re: Unusual Stock Trading by Whales in US Congress

#193

Post by Zelphyr »

mabbo wrote: post #9

The very people whose job it should be to stop this sort of thing are the ones who are profiting from it. How do you change this? No really, how can we force congress to change the rules so that elected officials can't profit from inside information? Why would they ever vote for such a bill?

We have to do the work. We have to educate ourselves on the issues which means reading bills as they are going through the process and being voted on, calling and writing our representatives to tell them how we want them to vote on those bills.

I have family who just love to complain about what legislators are doing and how they're voting but have not once, ever, actually contacted their representative about these issues. Not once have they actually read the bills and tried to understand them. It's all based purely on whatever news channel they're watching. Yet, they somehow think that through all that complaining they're actually accomplishing something.

I know my family isn't unique in this. I was just talking to a contractor who is doing work on my house that started in on this nonsense.

Re: Unusual Stock Trading by Whales in US Congress

#194

Post by throwawaygh »

psychlops wrote: post #151
wpietri wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whatever the behind-the-scenes truth, I think the appearance of conflicting interests is a problem regardless. For a lot of elected offices and high public service positions, I think their wealth should be put into a blind trust, one constrained by law to buy broad, boring things like index funds. That would surely be a problem for some individuals. But I don't think it's a systemic problem. We only need to find 0.00…

Just require them to announce their trades publicly 24 hours in advance. And let them manage their own finances. All these shenanigan's would disappear.

Why not just prohibit members of Congress of owning stock? They are some of the most powerful people in the world. Why is it so much to ask that a Senator or especially Representative serving in the most powerful legislative body in the world just take a cash position for 2-6 years?

Re: Unusual Stock Trading by Whales in US Congress

#195

Post by jhallenworld »

munk-a wrote: post #168
sneak wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this presupposes the lie that the government is by, of, or for the (majority of the) people. This is a closed system, and most are not allowed anywhere near the control room. It, including these trades, is working as intended.

> It, including these trades, is working as intended. You can view the US in a lot of cynical ways but it was not created as a vehicle to allow the wealthy to continue to gain wealth at the expense of the poor. Insider trading between congressmen using their posts to fleece the public was never an intent of the government.

It was at least created for them to at least preserve their wealth. In the debates leading up the creation of the Senate, here is a typical argument:

"...our government ought to secure the permanent interests of the country against innovation. Landholders ought to have a share in the government, to support these invaluable interests and to balance and check the other. They ought to be so constituted as to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority. The senate, therefore, ought to be this body; and to answer these purposes, they ought to have permanency and stability. Various have been the propositions; but my opinion is, the longer they continue in office, the better will these views be answered"

https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Madison/01-10-02-004...

Re: Unusual Stock Trading by Whales in US Congress

#196

Post by thelean12 »

ModernMech wrote: post #85
kyleblarson wrote: post #69

How else is Pelosi expected to afford her $20k sub z fridges filled with 13 dollar a pint ice cream?

I'm not saying Pelosi isn't fabulously wealthy, nor that she isn't engaged in activities which are unethical to enrich herself; but her fridge and ice cream are not evidence of this. The Speaker of the House makes a quarter million dollars per year. That's more than enough to afford such luxuries. https://pressgallery.house.gov/member-data/salaries

If she only made the 250k, she'd be spending like 12.5% of her yearly take home pay on a fridge. That seems like a little much.

($250k is like $160k take home with her home town taxes. 20/160 = 0.125)

Re: Unusual Stock Trading by Whales in US Congress

#197

Post by tgb »

giantg2 wrote: post #54
gadders wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if specific trades are sketchy or legit, but I do think there should be some sort of log of net worth when you join congress, senate, houses of parliament etc and politicians be expected to explain any large gains over their time in office.

Frankly, it's insider trading and should be restricted/prosecuted as such.

I think the insider trading aspects of this are the lesser concern. There's substantial debate over whether insider trading is actually a net negative for society or whether it makes sense to regulate, surprisingly. [1]

The primary concern here is whether or not this influences their decisions when it comes to governing, whether they choose the option that is most profitable rather than best for their country.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insider_trading#Arguments_for_...

Re: Unusual Stock Trading by Whales in US Congress

#198

Post by LanceH »

sneak wrote: post #130
YinglingLight wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Congressional acts are the most public thing possible Not when said action occurs a week before the Congressional act is announced. Is this HN thread flooded with bots or something? Have never seen this level of sympathy for politicians.

What they said was objectively true, regardless of your opinions for or against the situation.

The current count for who has pledged to vote for what is highly relevant and private information.

Re: Unusual Stock Trading by Whales in US Congress

#199

Post by adolph »

dvaun wrote: post #42
genericone wrote: post #2

Where are they aggregating all this insider data from? Is there an index of stocks being traded by government insiders and officials that can be tracked in real-time?

The Office of the Clerk of the House has a page for downloading Zip files of annual data[0]. If you take the DocID from the XML or TXT files in those sets you can send a request to: https://disclosures-clerk.house.gov/public_disc/ -pdfs/ / .pdf - works for the values "ptr" and "financial" - self-explanatory - the DocID from the entries in the XML or TXT files Example: Nancy Pelosi disclosure/filing on 2021-04-09[1] […

If you are using Python, this is an approach to get PDF tables into Pandas dataframes.

https://towardsdatascience.com/how-to-extract-tables-from-pd...

Re: Unusual Stock Trading by Whales in US Congress

#200

Post by diebeforei485 »

throwawaygh wrote: post #194
psychlops wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just require them to announce their trades publicly 24 hours in advance. And let them manage their own finances. All these shenanigan's would disappear.

Why not just prohibit members of Congress of owning stock? They are some of the most powerful people in the world. Why is it so much to ask that a Senator or especially Representative serving in the most powerful legislative body in the world just take a cash position for 2-6 years?

I agree. Their wealth should be in a blind trust (unless they run the company or farm or whatever).
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