Don't these people get a salary already? If "serving the people" isn't enough as an incentive, maybe they shouldn't be in a position for serving the people?
Outlaw politicians owning stocks at all, it makes no sense they ever could in the first place, when the incentives are so obviously misaligned. It simply lives too much room for misbehaving actors, no matter how much bandage you put on top.
I really think the best and maybe only way to avoid this wealth building nonsense are much harsher term limits — public service should be severely limited to prevent people from being in decades long positions to abuse it. Term limits also prevent the incessant campaign fundraising to some extent, because say you're limited to 2 terms... there's not much point in personal fundraising on your last one
I think the simplest way forward would be to require immediate, not delayed, disclosure of trades. If they’re doing something, let everyone see it immediately and it specific detail.
We could also implement some planned trading requirements for large purchases of individual stocks: If someone wants to trade more than $100K of something, make them announce it 7 or even 1 day in advance. They still get to buy it, but the market can front-run the investment if they believe there’s inside info at play.
It's even more damning than that I think.
>we find that lawmakers who later ascend to leadership positions perform similarly to matched peers beforehand but outperform them by 47 percentage points annually after ascension.
The same person makes more after being put in a leadership position than before. That essentially removes any possibility of 'well maybe they're just more knowledgable and that's why they're in leadership.'
I would say jokes aside but the political system promotes this corruption.
That said, there should be national minimum standards for the elections.
Chain of custody is something all elections adhere to in the US, but if it's not a federal requirement, it should be.
What's really needed are hand marked paper ballots, electronically counted using open, independently audited machines with no network connectivity (obviously). "Scantron" style machines That should be a minimum requirement.
Nobody stole the election from the doddering old fool in 2020. Internet bullshit doesn't stand up in court where they do have evidence standards.
Edit: Back on topic ... individual stock trading by representatives clearly should be illegal. And apparently we need more independent watchdogs with better protections against a puppet who mindlessly goes along with the last person to manipulate them.
Ticker: NANC, its an ETF
So we're looking at 11% - 3.5% = 7.5% real return over 5 years, or roughly 1.5% per year. I'll easily recommend passing on this one.
And everyone ignores the fact that her husband is a professional in the finance and venture capital world. Investing is literally his job.
Anyway, if you want to track her trades there are ETFs to do it. It’s not an exclusive investment thing. If you’re in the US you could buy them from your broker right now.
There are also countless sites that will push the Nancy Pelosi portfolio to your inbox, but they’re universally spammy and almost always pushing some other agenda too.
As a rule: If they’re focused specifically on Nancy Pelosi and not looking at top congressional trades as a whole, they’re more interested in pushing a political content than financial content.
Oh, and it’s important to know that you can’t actually track congressional portfolios in real time. The disclosures are delayed so you can only track them after the fact. If you believe they’re front-running insider info then the changes may have happened before you could possibly get the signal to buy or sell.
One smacks of hypocrisy while the other is a dirt bag behaving exactly as expected.
Bribery or anything else that affects their lawmaking decisions is significantly worse because the impact is so much larger.
But there is a third option: They are making decisions based on what will move something the most - doesn't matter what, and doesn't matter which way, and doesn't matter for how long. Then they invest in that thing a bit before the decision becomes public that moves that thing.
Lawmakers deciding what laws to argue against/for based on how much money it'll get them personally is a benign issue? It's a very hard problem to solve, when the people making the laws have to outlaw behavior that makes them rich, but it's a very worthwhile one if you manage to get it down, because then you'll again get politicians working for the people rather than against.
The boundaries between corruption, lobbyism, incompetence and nepotism can get very blurry (sometimes even actually representing your constituents interests can look this way!).
But policy makers enriching themselves by insider trading are seen as corrupt by pretty much everyone.
What is the less benign corruption seen in Washington that you feel is most pressing?
I don't know if that's realistic or not as the electorate has already shown they don't care enough to vote their representatives out for doing it and it's unlikely that current members would restrict their earnings. I guess it's good that we know about it, at least.
George Washington was paid 4x Trump, I believe.
In the context of corruption cleanup, I think people understand that paying people well avoids corruption. Mexican cops, that sort of thing.
Yes, not popular, but important.
The problem arises from how we run elections. It's very hard to dislodge an incumbent when the small group of people voting in a primary are very biased, and then the people voting in the general election really don't want the candidate from the other party.
I suggest reading "Breaking the Two-Party Doom Loop: The Case for Multiparty Democracy in America" by Lee Drutman.
https://www.amazon.com/Breaking-Two-Party-Doom-Loop-Multipar...
Many people agree with Bay Area's idea that people making less than $105k are poor - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46036803
https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/RL30064#:~:text=The%20c...
We have several high tech companies as well as a pro sports team that perpetually influence politics to the city’s detriment, and the stooges that get put on our ballot each election are simply under-equipped to combat them.
Obama signed the STOCK act into law, but of course, who watches the watchmen?
Paying enough to cover the expenses of the job isn't a solution to all problems, just kind of a minimum bar if we want a normal person to be able do the job without relying on other income sources.
By having lawmakers as peers, you’d have a natural feel for what laws have momentum, who would benefit, etc.
I’m not ruling out corruption, just that assuming malicious intent often masks underlying dynamics.
It’s not insider information to buy or short a stock knowing you’re about to do something that will impact a company.
It should be an expected price of public service that you remove yourself from most other ambitions.
Every single one of these scoundrels will stand up at a college graduation and exhort the virtues of public service and sacrifice for country. But somehow they all manage to get rich in the midst of their own service and sacrifice.
I'd hope that if they were required to live off of their (rapidly depreciating) savings and income, like most Americans, they might consider some of their legislative choices differently.
Or is that one of those, "Of course that exists, but if you have to ask how much it costs, you can't afford it" kind of things?
mahatofu•33m ago
burkaman•32m ago
stego-tech•30m ago
It’s absolutely disgusting that this sort of Insider Trading has been allowed to continue unchecked, and a significant contributor to the normalization of American corruption and its associated regulatory capture.
andsoitis•30m ago
showerst•29m ago
Be wary of all the third party congressional stock trackers for this reason.
threatofrain•25m ago
derrida•24m ago