Congress members benefitting from insider trading...

General General Discussion
1

Seems like members of Congress are or have been using information gleaned from them positions to give themselves an advantage when it comes to their personal investments. For you and I this would be “insider trading” and is highly illegal. For them its just another day on the job.

U.S. Representative Spencer Bachus (R-AL) had access to highly sensitive financial information during the 2008 bailout debates that may have helped him earn tens of thousands of dollars by trading stock options, even as most Americans’ portfolios took a beating.
On Sunday, Rep. Bachus’s trading behavior came under fire in a 60 Minutes report based on Throw Them All Out, the book by investigative journalist and Breitbart editor Peter Schweizer that has triggered a political earthquake in Washington. Schweizer, who is also a Breitbart editor, devotes a significant portion of the book to exposing possible congressional insider trading.

http://biggovernment.com/whall/2011/11/13/exclusive-financial-documents-suggest-gop-rep-bachus-profited-from-insider-trading-on-tarp-bailout/

I think our system has become so corrupt and rigged NONE of us will ever know the full scale of the bribery, corruption, and behind the scenes deals that are made. The entire thing is a dog and pony show designed to make Americans feel like they still have a say in government…behind the scenes is what we will never see.

Even for those of us hoping to see justice come out of the FF case look at this picture which was taken just before the Senate hearing with AG Holder…

2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Gf8NK1WAOc

I, too, am shocked! Shocked, I say!

3

Since we are bashing Bachus, let’s not forget that the book in question also named Nancy Pelosi and someone else.

4

Surprised I am not.

5

If I were to take a guess, I’d say the vast majority are involved and it crosses the aisle.

6

#1 The collective net worth of all of the members of Congress increased by 25 percent between 2008 and 2010. http://www.rollcall.com/issues/57_51/And-Congress-Rich-Get-Richer-209907-1.html

#2 The collective net worth of all of the members of Congress is now slightly over 2 billion dollars. That is “billion” with a “B”. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/01/congress-net-wealth-income-gap_n_1069377.html

#3 This happened during a time when the net worth of most American households was declining rapidly. According to the Federal Reserve, the collective net worth of all American households decreased by 23 percent between 2007 and 2009. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/01/congress-net-wealth-income-gap_n_1069377.html

#4 The average net worth for a member of Congress is now approximately 3.8 million dollars. http://www.rollcall.com/issues/57_51/And-Congress-Rich-Get-Richer-209907-1.html

#5 The net worth of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi increased by 62 percent from 2009 to 2010. In 2009 it was reported that she had a net worth of 21.7 million dollars, and in 2010 it was reported that she had a net worth of 35.2 million dollars. http://thehill.com/homenews/house/166767-pelosi-wealth-jumps-62-congress-wealth

#6 The top Republican in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, saw his wealth grow by 29 percent from 2009 to 2010. He is now worth approximately 9.8 million dollars. http://thehill.com/homenews/house/166767-pelosi-wealth-jumps-62-congress-wealth

#7 More than 50 percent of the members of the U.S. Congress are millionaires. http://www.cnbc.com/id/40233691

#8 In 2008, the average cost of winning a seat in the House of Representatives was $1.1 million and the average cost of winning a seat in the U.S. Senate was $6.5 million. Spending on political campaigns has gotten way out of control. http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2008/11/money-wins-white-house-and.html

#9 Insider trading is perfectly legal for members of the U.S. Congress – and they refuse to pass a law that would change that. http://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/insider-trading-is-legal-for-members-of-congress-and-they-refuse-to-pass-a-law-that-would-change-that

#10 The percentage of millionaires in Congress is more than 50 times higher than the percentage of millionaires in the general population. http://www.thesmokingjacket.com/entertainment/congress-financial-information

#11 U.S. Representative Darrell Issa is worth approximately 220 million dollars. His wealth grew by approximately 37 percent from 2009 to 2010. http://thehill.com/homenews/house/166767-pelosi-wealth-jumps-62-congress-wealth

#12 The wealthiest member of Congress, U.S. Representative Michael McCaul, is worth approximately 294 million dollars. http://www.rollcall.com/issues/57_51/And-Congress-Rich-Get-Richer-209907-1.html

A law that would ban insider trading by members of Congress has been stalled for years on Capitol Hill. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB20001424052748704866204575224631314927058.html#mod=todays_us_page_one

A very interesting study… http://www.professorbainbridge.com/professorbainbridgecom/2010/05/congressional-insider-trading-bill-stalls.html

A 2004 study of the results of stock trading by United States Senators during the 1990s found that that senators on average beat the market by 12% a year. In sharp contrast, U.S. households on average underperformed the market by 1.4% a year and even corporate insiders on average beat the market by only about 6% a year during that period. A reasonable inference is that some Senators had access to – and were using – material nonpublic information about the companies in whose stock they trade.

Here’s the video of Pelosi trying to avoid talking about a conflict of issue regarding credit card companies and making investments and profits off of her voting record. http://youtu.be/nzKtmPFVGic

You are being manipulated.

7

To be quite honest I am so sick of reading this shit that I almost want to get my pitchfork, tar and box of feathers. What is it going to take to finally bring some sanity to D.C?

Millions of people are losing their home and jobs (not just deadbeats and slackers) and these people are living on the Hill like the high society of ancient Rome.

8

What would Thomas Jefferson do?

9

Talking about it or writing about it is illegal.

10

I was surprised to find out it was legal for them, but not at all that it was going on.

11

Nooooo!!! Say it ain’t so.

I just can’t believe it. Wow.

12

Does anyone really think that those who make the laws are really going to make it apply to them. Think about this guys.

They exempted themselves from the healthcare law. They make the tax laws and are all rich themselves. You really think they will tax themselves more? they make it illegal for people to trade on non-public information, except themselves. This is a shocker? They are all criminals making laws that apply to us but not them.

:suicide2:

13

Actually VB, even back then they were making huge land deals, etc on on insider information. This is simply how the world works. My father-in-law gets angry every time he talks about these so called public auctions in which they were not really public until after all the good stuff was sold to those “in the know” and he feels like he can never get ahead because it was always buddies looking out for their buddies.

Nothing new here. You know something that I don’t you have the advantage. That is life. If we don’t like it we need to work hard to make the right friends and get that information we want.

14

I am right there with you IG. But to answer your question:

“People deserve the government they get, and they deserve to get it good and hard.” ~ Timothy Moultrie

Problem is most people are just like my wife with Head in Sand syndrome. Most people are too busy with trying to survive that unless it directly impacts their own wallet or life, they do not pay attention.

Just the responses on this thread alone are proof of that. Not trying to demean anyone or anything. Just saying.

15

The Center for Responsive Politics has a list out of the richest members of Congress.

http://www.opensecrets.org/pfds/index.php

16

We simply need to bypass Congress and pass a Constitutional Amendment making EVERY law passed by Congress, applicable to all current and former members of Congress. Lord knows they’re never going to do it! :mad:

17

The forefathers had a solution for such circumstances, the 2nd Amendment. If the forefathers were alive today they would be Waco-ed for being “domestic terrorists”.

Our federal government has grown to large and is at the point where it will stop at nothing to protect it’s interests, the people be damned.

18

What we really need is someone to compile a list of Congressmen who won big on healthcare stocks in the months leading up to passage of ObamaCare. We can then apply the same investigation to financial stock trades leading up to Dodd Frank.

We should then run a campaign to halt all funding to the parties until they expel any legislator on the list.

19

How about on the back end. Remember Billy Tauzin, the Republican representative from Louisiana, who carried the Medicare prescription drug program in the House and promptly retired after it passed, taking a job for $2 million a year with PhRMA, the main pharmaceutical lobbying firm.

And while Tauzin may be one of the more egregious examples, there are scores of other congressman who have pulled the same shit.

20

My sister’s FIL had an interesting idea. Keep the number of people per legislative district the same now as it was back when.

That is: 1 rep per 30K people. That would give us 10000 people in the House of Representatives.

  • This would have lots of advantages: you probably could get to personally know your representative as he would be someone local to you. My city has 100k people more or less. We would have three Reps in my city alone.

  • This is too many to be able to effectively bribe.

  • Linked to the first point, you would probably have genuine citizen legislators since the salary would probably not be affordable to have it be abnormally high, and the cost to run for office would be much less so the average citizen could afford it.

  • Due to the number of Representatives, you probably would be limited to just passing basic laws since trying to get so many people to agree on the stupid crap we get now would be difficult

He had several other good points but I don’t remember them – it has been many years since we last talked about it.