Why is insider trading by politicians not being sanctioned?

Exactly though - no one really cares that politicians are corrupt, we just accept it.

All of these guys should go to prison. All of them. But we do the opposite and vote them in. Because we care more about them aligning with our personal politics and interest than we do about their integrity.

 

Just one more turn. The bounce wilp be spicy!!

 

Vote on the bill, damn it!

 

And there are posters here who think I'm an extremist because I label these politicians as the "establishment".


The people I feel sorry for the most in this specific conversation is gen x CNN and MSNBC addicts who think that Pelosi and Shumer's number one priority above all else isn't maximizing their personal investments. These guys are grifters first and public servants second.

I'm quite confident that there are people in there 20s and 30s who have parents who are just like this.

 

Not surprising. They slow walked this until the death of it for this session. The House bill was introduced on Jan'22 (no Republicans co-sponsor) and the Senate bipartisan bill was introduced on Feb'22 (but of course, it needs a lot of work). There was never a bipartisan push to get this through as a priority. Warren was probably the only one pushing this (while others advocate for it but didn't prioritize it).

This will now join the other bills that will have to wait until after the midterm (like the same-sex marriage bill). They all want to quickly head home to campaign for the election. The only priority left is must-pass legislation (passing the stopgap bill to keep the gov running past 9/30).

 

What was the last Republican Bill that had bi-partisan support on this forum?

 

72 members of Congress have violated a law designed to prevent insider trading and stop conflicts-of-interest


news organizations have identified 72 members of Congress who've recently failed to properly report their financial trades as mandated by the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act of 2012, also known as the STOCK Act.

Congress passed the law a decade ago to combat insider trading and conflicts of interest among their own members and force lawmakers to be more transparent about their personal financial dealings. A key provision of the law mandates that lawmakers publicly — and quickly — disclose any stock trade made by themselves, a spouse, or a dependent child.

But many members of Congress have not fully complied with the law. They offer excuses including ignorance of the law, clerical errors, and mistakes by an accountant. Insider has chronicled this widespread nature of this phenomenon in "Conflicted Congress," an ongoing reporting project initially published in December.

While lawmakers who violate the STOCK Act face a fine, the penalty is usually small — $200 is the standard amount — or waived by House or Senate ethics officials. Ethics watchdogs and even some members of Congress have called for stricter penalties or even a ban on federal lawmakers from trading individual stocks. On Capitol Hill, lawmakers are now seriously debating such a ban

 

$200 fine for insider trading? LMAO, that rule isn’t serious then

of course many won’t even bother to report and will continue doing insider trading

What’s the downside?

 

So less than what they spend at lunch with their broker.

 

Curious why? What would you prefer to see?

 

Being a US representative or senator is a privilege. If you want to partake in stock trading you can avoid being a US Senator or Rep. Think of the far superior type of people the job would attract now rather than grifters.

They should have good salaries with nice public housing and a comfortable lifestyle where they would feel content and not have ambitions beyond just serving the public.

 

The nyt article only went into to exposing folks with deep conflicts of interest between the shares they or direct family members own and the Comittees they serve on.

I think it’s reasonable to ban that, but it won’t pacify the growing number of pundits tracking Nancy and Paul Pelosi’s streak for timing the markets before government moves.

Closing one door can open another for corruption. Biden took a pledge not to own stocks early in his career. After peering into the Hunter Biden trainwreck, there was a family need to feel like they belonged among the higher rungs of power among billionaires and centi-millionaires. Hunter's lobbying efforts as a lawyer were the direct fruit of that?

I don't know how far this angle applies when discussing banning trading equities. Does that go further and banning real estate deals in the state you live in? Questions of fairness abound.

I do believe many in Congress are aware of the cash grab and don't even hide that they're making windfalls off insider info.

I also know white collar crime enforcement is paper thin. Sounds like the average Joe needs to push this if they want to start addressing corruption.

 

I agree. Her proposed bill doesn't prohibit all... still can own "widely held investment fund" if it doesn't present a conflict of interest and the fund is diversified. The ban on stock ownership in gov isn't new (DoD members cannot own certain type of stocks such as defense-related stocks), it just hasn't been applied to Congress.

Text - S.3631 - 117th Congress (2021-2022): Bipartisan Ban on Congressional Stock Ownership Act of 2022 | Congress.gov | Library of Congress

 

double posts

 

How many Fed presidents have resigned in the past 18 months to take care of "health and family"?

Lot of folks put their faith in the hallowed Fed, and will gloss aside outright theft and criminality. Comes into question why they were so slow to react about inflation last year:

1. They were caught up in political infighting while Jerome's seat was in question with the new admin
2. Ethics probes started hitting them deep and served as a distraction
3. They had a stake in juicing the markets along with everyone else in Washington
4. They are blind, overrated, and incompetent but has been getting continual passes since 08 because asset prices go up while the American Dream is slowly being eroded for the middle and lower classes/regions. If you want a quick and simple link to pin populism, wealth inequality, and growing social unrest since Occupy WS/Tea Party, look nowhere else to historic near zero to zero interest rate policies along with QE.

After Trading Scandal, a Fed President Corrects His Financial Reports
The Federal Reserve was rocked by scandal over trading by three of its officials. Now, the head of the Atlanta Fed is reporting undisclosed transactions.

This is the kicker.

Mr. Bostic’s retirement account bought small amounts of various index funds on March 19, 2020, while asset prices were sagging as the pandemic took hold in the United States. On March 23, the Fed announced a wide-ranging market rescue. On March 24, Mr. Bostic’s account sold out of several other funds and bought into several more.

Many of the transactions — along with others on April 8, a day before the Fed again heavily intervened in markets — took place after the Fed Board had sent a letter on March 23 to regional central bank ethics offices warning officials to avoid unnecessary trading when the central bank was so active in markets.

It is not clear whether Mr. Bostic profited from the transactions, and according to his statement, he would have lacked any knowledge that they had occurred.

But his account might have benefited from trading during a period when the Fed fundamentally shifted the tone in markets. That underlines why the Fed has come under intense pressure to be more transparent about how its officials are managing their money.
​

Here's a hypothetical: Wife makes call to retirement account fund with sell/buy orders. Retirement fund mgr knows to keep his mouth shut with a multimillion dollar account. Bostic then says, "Wasn't me, I have no clue what's going on. I was more worried about saving the financial system"

 

Seems reasonable to me to allow congressmen to be passive investors by participating in a diversified and widely-held fund and only prevent active trading in individual stocks. Over half the public is invested in the stock market in some fashion, but only 14% (per Pew) trade individual stocks. It's no great imposition on them

 

I think requiring members of Congress to only own stock in blind trusts would be suitable and require them to maintain that for a certain period of time after the left Congress.