Unusual Stock Trading by Whales in US Congress • Hacker News Board

Re: Unusual Stock Trading by Whales in US Congress

#491

Post by menomatter » Sun, Apr 18, 2021, 11:54 AM UTC

sakopov wrote: post #15

> For example, Pelosi in Dec 22 was against more stimulus. Her husband buys deep ITM TSLA and AAPL calls that day. December 23rd, she is suddenly for stimulus again, with those same companies ralling 5%, giving her an instant +30 return. > Congressman Gottheimer is absolutely an incredible options trader. He’s been selling calls at peaks on $MSFT all 2021, & seemingly buying back the contracts on dips. This in blocks…

Is it possible to see how much has each member of congress profited/lost doing trading over time? We can build a tool like this right? As all the data in public?

Re: Unusual Stock Trading by Whales in US Congress

#492

Post by slashdev » Tue, Apr 20, 2021, 12:57 AM UTC

solipsism wrote: post #486

slashdev wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've got a fringe position there. If you want to defend it, be my guest. I believe it's pretty obviously a given. You're basically picking a fight with capitalism which, while far from perfect, it's the best system we've tried to date.

You're basically picking a fight with capitalism That's a straw-man. I've said nothing questioning capitalism. The stock market isn't a necessary component of capitalism any more than subprime lending is. The cost of the stock market is clear. The stock market causes and amplifies inequality. This isn't controversial. But I find proponents of the stock market have trouble defending it, when asked to really be clear a…

> That's a straw-man. I've said nothing questioning capitalism. The stock market isn't a necessary component of capitalism any more than subprime lending is.

The stock market, no, but the ability to invest/allocate capital is quite fundamental to capitalism. The stock market is merely one incantation of that. Let's take your criticism as only pertaining to the stock market.

> The cost of the stock market is clear. The stock market causes and amplifies inequality. This isn't controversial.

I'm not going to give you that one. The stock market enables the public to invest in these companies. That's why they're called public companies.

If you ditch it, suddenly only wealthy venture capitalists can do that. This has been happening more and more with companies starting private longer and longer thanks to abundant private capital that doesn't bring the onerous regulations of being a public company. Unfortunately that seems to be increasing inequality, as the public has been cut out of these kinds of riskier but high growth investments.

I'm sure there is a better way of doing it, but it isn't as cut and dried as you suggest.

Re: Unusual Stock Trading by Whales in US Congress

#493

Post by burkaman » Thu, Apr 22, 2021, 5:34 PM UTC

eloff wrote: post #484

burkaman wrote: post #471

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a reasonable amount of guilt tripping is healthy for a society. Obviously hoarding money shouldn't be illegal, but it should feel like anti-social behavior that most people disapprove of. It's like signing up to be an organ donor, or getting vaccinated, or being friendly to your neighbors. You shouldn't be forced into anything, but you should be socially pressured to make the choice that benefits your communi…

I agree with you, but I don't like the argument. Something of it smacks of hypocrisy. I think you should be guilted into donating 5% of your wealth by that reasoning. Yeah you don't have 100M, but just like them a 5% donation won't materially affect your quality of life. How do you feel about that? Do you still feel it's anti social behavior not to do that? Because I call hypocrisy otherwise.

Yes, I'm doing pretty well as an American software engineer, I should be pressured to donate some of my wealth (and I do). It's not a flat rate for everyone though, it's like tax brackets - as your wealth increases, you're expected to contribute a higher percentage back to the community. In a perfect world, taxes would be enough, and charity would be unnecessary because we'd all agree about how to fix all the problems in the world and just set tax rates accordingly. Obviously this is impossible, but in a slightly less perfect but maybe achievable world, we'd use taxes to cover issues with really broad agreement, and more fluid social norms to encourage charitable giving to cover the rest. In my view, there's not much moral difference between technically legal tax avoidance (like offshore accounts or tax inversion) and hoarding excessive wealth while people in your community are dying because of poverty.