House GOP unveils new legislation on stock trading ban
thehill.com15 points by 1659447091 4 hours ago
15 points by 1659447091 4 hours ago
Has the GOP stopped receiving insider information to trade on, while the Democrats have not? It’s extremely odd for them to be interesting in passing an anti-corruption bill that will harm their own party and so I assume that they’re losing at the insider trading polls.
> “While this bill prohibits Members from buying new stocks, it does nothing to remove the conflict of interest that arises from owning or selling existing stocks. Members can still act on legislation, investigations, and briefings that directly influence the value of their stocks for personal benefit”
It seems like an improvement, but it doesn’t solve the issue of members of Congress using political office to financially benefit themselves, e.g. voting for defense spending packages to boost shares in a defense contractor they hold.
Republicans will try to use this to deflect from Trump’s blatant market manipulation and use of his office to enrich himself. Meanwhile the revolving door will continue and members of Congress of all parties will still get rich from their privileges one way or another. So it goes.
Defense stocks haven't been doing exceptionally well in recent memory (not terrible, but you could certainly beat that portfolio).
And if you're prevented from day trading, especially at margin, you're not going to get filthy rich off insider info.
Yeah they'll just outsource the legal ownership and pass along the material info without the problematic paper trail.
The US is an unserious and fucked up country.
There exists convincing statistical evidence that internet commenters worrying about congressional insider trading are not doing so on the basis of actual evidence suggesting insider trading by congressional insiders.
Given that we're now under a regime of rule-by-law rather than rule-of-law, it would be reasonable to assume the only goals of this are for propaganda purposes (make people think some kind of reform is being done) and as a cudgel to go after members of Congress who don't fall in line with the fascists.
[dead]