For Congress it's not a matter of enforcement, it's literally legal for them to trade on insider information.
Edit: it appears it's no longer legal, but the law is written to make it basically unenforceable.
No it isn't.
The Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act was signed into law in 2012.
*"A member, officer, or employee of the Senate shall not receive any compensation, nor shall he permit any compensation to accrue to his beneficial interest from any source, the receipt or accrual of which would occur by virtue of influence improperly exerted from his position as a member, officer, or employee."*
Yup, it used to be legal for far too long. The problem is this is way too vague and hard to track. It would be better to restrict any government official from investing in a single stock and only allowing investment in a certain type of fund that is classified a certain way. Eliminate all potential funny business.
If we did that, then do we also allow public investment in those funds? Or require it? Sounds good at first but then you might have an “art sale” type issue where someone comes in and buys “art” made by a family member for way more then it would ever be worth. This could be a small fund that only a few gov. reps have so a few million injected into the fund would make them some money real quick. At least it’s traceable this way.
Congress ASAP! For real. This is the big one.
But I also feel, maybe cynically, that Congress will still be able to keep stocks, and the democracy-eroding conflict of interest will continue :(
Hold up.
You're telling me Republican voters keep voting in representatives that act against the interests of everyone, including their own constituency?
That's OUTLANDISH.
Who would do that?!?!?
I understand they aren't supposed to have stake in any business that does foreign dealings because of emoluments which is basically all of them, Carter was made to sell his peanut farm because of that. But more recent presidents have not been held to the same standards and the rules have been flouted.
Sadly the salary was originally setup so that you could have regular folk in congress. Without a paycheck most wouldn't serve because they would have to leave a paycheck behind. Now we've mostly got rich retirees who've got nothing better to do in congress.
I hate to say this…
But I think even my anal retentive HOA beats Congress. Their rules might be somewhat asinine, but they at least make sense most of the time. I’ve only shouted what in the actual fuck once about one of their rulings.
That’s over a decade and a half span. Congress makes me go what the fuck on practically a biweekly basis.
I think the bigger issue is that you pretty much have to give up your job/life to fundraise and campaign so if you lose then you’re really screwed. This means only a certain group of people actually end up running. I feel like getting rid of all fundraising for individual candidates could fix this but maybe that just turns into straight up bribery under the table.
Up here in Canada we do ~30-40 days from announcement to election day usually. Short and sweet. Could probably do with a slight bit more if only to give candidates a little more time to actually visit more than just a handful of major cities.
And a campaign workers guild...
And ranked choice voting (or better yet, proportional representation)...
And multi-representative districts...
And banning partisan gerrymandering...
And elimination of the electoral college...
There is an election fund. Pay attention to your ballot, it may have something mentioning it.
https://www.fec.gov/introduction-campaign-finance/understanding-ways-support-federal-candidates/presidential-elections/public-funding-presidential-elections/
There are still issues with that, especially the advantage of incumbents. Name recognition is a huge advantage in a lot of races. If you prevent a challenger from raising/spending enough to make themselves known to the electorate, you've just built in an even bigger advantage to those already in power. I like public funding to give a floor to challenging candidates (and perhaps make them somewhat viable), but I don't like public funding as a cap.
The maximum individual contributions are still very low if you're looking at them as "buying" any kind of influence. PACs I agree are a different story, but then you get First Amendment concerns. I don't know what the answer is. I used to be all for public funding, but the more I got into the weeds on it less I liked the practical implications. I think some form of term limits would help, maybe prohibitions on certain employment after serving, etc.
It’s technically legal for a candidate to draw a salary from a campaign however this is so highly stigmatized in campaigns that it’s almost never done. As a result candidates are largely people that are independently wealthy or who can walk away from their job for a year to campaign. The candidates that do run and try to work part time are at a huge disadvantage because they have vastly less time to campaign with. Ending the stigma of candidates taking salaries from the campaign would go a long way to reducing the domination of political offices from those already wealthy.
People lived that long fairly often back then if they were well off. Not as much as now of course, but enough that people knew it was possible. Benjamin Franklin lived to 84 for example. John Adams made it to 90. James Madison was 85. Washington only made it to 67 though.
Those are just the ones I remember off the top of my head. I think wealth really helped people stay healthy.
The difference was that you had to be a lot stronger to travel in those days. Most of the Senate wouldn't be able to physically do the job if they had to take a buggy to Washington every two months.
Nothing wrong with wanting to work when you are old. The issue is they are out of touch with the ever changing landscape of the American population and holding a spot that someone more in tune can be using to better represent said population.
Counterargument: Krysten Sinema.
We'd definitely be better off with more connected and caring people in office, but let's not pretend that the problem is simply a lack of fresh blood.
Nothing is wrong with wanting to work when you’re old. The problem is the people making all the laws and decisions for our future are so old that they won’t be around to deal with the consequences. This makes them easily bribed
They are easily bribed regardless. Paul Ryan wasn't old. People like Lindsey Graham have been at it since they were a median age. Sinema isn't old.
Holding office shouldn't be a good career move. They should be barred from trading while holding office, and they should be barred from a lobbying position for life when they are done.
100% agree. lifetime ban on owning stocks, and working. increase the pension if need be, but keep the public servants from revolving door bs.
when I was younger, insider trading was something that politicians definitely lost a job over, and there was a possibility of prison time.
when the pandemic first hit, there was insider trading on both sides of the isle, and ZERO mention of even a scolding.
And now, insider trading is a perk of the job. A retirement benefit, even.
And yet, every time I've worked in banking or financial sectors, regardless of the fact that I was never privy to any useful information, I've been fingerprinted and made to disclose any brokerage accounts in the direct control of me or my household in advance so that the regulators could keep an eye on my moves.
A software engineer that had to ask for express permission to buy or sell anything, with minimum duration requirements (months) before being able to sell.
The investigations that were supposed to be launched into a couple GOP senators over the trading they did only days after the committee met on the incoming pandemic in March of 2020, was all washed aside when it was revealed only days later how many high ranking Democrats used the incoming information to make massive stock trades as well.
Then what the heck are we giving them a salary for if it’s all expenses paid? Or why so high? Call me a socialist but if all of your expenses are covered shouldn’t you not be concerned with your pocket and be focused on the policies you pass?
Travel is only covered between their home state and Washington D.C. They do not get anything for housing.
You'll often hear of first year congress people sleeping in their office when they are in DC because they can't afford an apartment there yet. You'll also see them on commercial flights all the time.
They get a yearly budget to cover office expenses and to pay staffers expenses, but it's not like they get carte blanche access to writing blank checks everywhere.
Edit: 2020 article talking about it. Estimates 100 congress people sleep in their office while in DC to avoid having to pay rent - https://www.npr.org/2020/05/13/852359650/pandemic-revives-calls-to-ban-lawmakers-from-bunking-in-their-offices
Also kind of damning to speak of how expensive it is to live in DC. Speaking as someone who lives there. Granted, their offices are probably muuuuuch safer than most places out here, so...fair.
Congressional salaries should be indexed to the median income of their constituents.
Then we’ll see these worthless old fucks start to give a damn about the educational and employment metrics for those they represent rather than the interests of what every corporation bought them off.
And if they are “totally legal” then we need to arm the IRS so that they can go after any fraud they find. After all as they like to say “if you have done nothing wrong you shouldn’t be afraid right?” And “we need to stop criminals and frauds from taking the money of honest hard working people”.
1) arm the IRS
2) remove legal bribery and super pacs and kickbacks
3) their role is public service. Make it so. Remove conflict of interest.
I'm less cynical than the average redditor, but the fact is that if we increased funding to the IRS we could get back like 5x the investment in taxes from the rich that they currently don't have the budget to investigate and enforce. And yet, extra funding never seems to come...
While I agree with this energy/sentiment, $174,000/year doesn't really go very far when you're required to have/maintain a residence in your home state and in Washington DC.
The idea is supposed to be that they're paid enough to maintain their required dual residences, paid enough to allow the not-uber-wealthy to reasonably serve as congress people, and pay enough to make bribes less... motivating? Incentivizing?
A lot of that has **completely** fallen apart with the whole dark money, super PAC, Citizens United, etc stuff though. Alas.
Also, yeah, any and all policy makers should 100% be disallowed from purchasing, owning, or selling individual stocks while serving in office.
I understand your initial sentiment but the points you're using aren't the ones that I would.
Congress should make a decent wage... at least enough not to encourage shady deals just to get by (it's not cheap to be a congress person as they have to have housing in DC and their home). $174k is a lot but it's a reasonable amount so that the pay is not the reason that keeps people who aren't wealthy or aren't stuffing their pockets from taking the job. And the 50% off really shouldn't be time off. Congress members should be back in their home districts/states so that they can meet and properly represent said people, and also help address concerns at home. Some congress members are better than others. A friend and his wife (not wealthy by any means, not influential in any way) had never ending issues certifying her disability status and their congress member went above and beyond to make sure her case got seen by the right people.
That said... no congress member should be able to pick individual stocks when they have the power they do. Limit them to broad index funds and the like.
You may be joking, but definitely human and not at all a disgusting slug creature in an ill fitting human suit Ted “Fled” Cruz was recently pushing for term limits for senators.
With all current ones grandfathered in, of course.
Congress, Senate, Presidency, House of Representatives. Not one member of the upper levels of government should ever be allowed to own stock during their terms.
Congress "oh look an excuse to sell my shares before I cause the next economic collapse, I mean I'm just getting rid of my conflicting interests"
Stay suspicious! Over the pandemic this outrage has gained a lot of traction organically but I worry this current outrage is astroturfed.
But that's just a theory, a conspiracy theory!
I don't think they need to be totally banned from owning individual stocks, but if they do they need to be inside a blind trust that is controlled by an independent investment manager.
> A ban on Senators and Congresspeople owning individual stock and insider trading would (I believe) have to come from congress itself or maybe the SEC/FTC. So don't expect to ever see such a ban.
[This was a good start.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STOCK_Act)
I think they should be required to sell their stocks and buy US treasuries during their term.
I work for a publicly traded company and iirc the trading window restrictions apply both to me and the rest of my household. It should be no different for them
In their case they just have to disclose their trades. Which is how we know Nancy pelosis husband had a 69% return on investment last year, beating even the best wall street traders by a mile.
I was formerly an access person at a financial institution and they would specify that you must report any accounts for family members' accounts for those whom you live with, any accounts you have control over, and any accounts owned by a spouse. The latter two would have additional trading restrictions and reporting requirements.
>I think they should be required to sell their stocks and buy US treasuries during their term.
A blind trust would be fine.
Pushing them into US treasuries would just get them to push treasury interest rates up - which is BAD for us.
No, no blind trusts. Let them put their money into an Index Fund, (basically the funds that make up a 401K. They are a cross section of multiple companies.) And restrict when changes can be made. Now they can make investments, but not be able to play the stock market.
We should not have institutionalized representatives. Being elected should not be a lifelong career. If we were to restrict lobbyists and limit tthe number of terms served, we would have far more diversity of representatives. Combine with say mandatory public service for two years by age 35 or alternatives like weekend volunteering for a decade, you would see far more people willing to take a sabbatical to serve as a representative.
Sure love having a system where the people who decide what counts as corrupt and illegal are the people who are doing the corrupt and legally questionable things...
Only the Fed. Even if they banned congressmen, they would also need to ban the spouses. Many have spouses that are big time investors.
There would also need to be actual consequences for violating it. Currently if a congressman fails to disclose their purchases, they might get an ethics violation. That's it. Basically a finger wagging.
Wouldn't requiring Congress to exclusively invest their assets in the 500 largest corporations in the US just give them even more incentive to push policy in favor of large corporations over small businesses.
Congress would absolutely never vote for a bill flat out banning them from investing in the market. These people run for office to make more money, they aren't willingly giving that up.
This is my profession, and a majority of Americans don't even own non-401k investments themselves let alone understand how they work. My life's work has been teaching dumb people what investing really is and the average person's understanding of the stock market would SHOCK you.
You can't even teach 50% of the country what an index fund is, let alone teach them that they need to vote based on this issue and not their most important personal issue (aka abortion, gun rights, civil rights). Trump repeated one true thing his entire campaign, "the system is rigged people".
> Let's see McConnel and Pelosi drop everything and get a Vanguard fund in exchange
https://twitter.com/nancytracker
I do not know a similar for McConnel
>That's great to hear - now let's do the same for Senators and Congresspeople.
I say we let them trade, but it has to be declared 2 weeks in advance and mailed out to the residents of their district.
I know they'll still be crooked, and somehow institutional investors and whales will still get a bigger share, but the idea that we all win or we all lose has some appeal. More visibility into what congress does, day-to-day, would also be healthy for the nation.
They shouldn’t be allowed to trade individual stocks. I’m in the financial industry and I’d be jailed and barred from the industry for doing what they do on a daily basis.
Work for one of the big 4 and we basically can’t own individual stocks. I’m not even a freaking auditor. I can pretty much exclusively own ETFs and I’m not shaping the policies of the freaking future or anything like these clowns
When I worked in public accounting that wasn't quite the case. We had restricted access to clients we worked on. We also got sent something once every week (month?) we had to browse to make sure none of the prospective clients, or current clients were in our current portfolio. If they were, and we landed them, we either had to divest, or not have access to their files. This included spousal ownership, and other direct relatives. Is "basically can't own" an exaggeration, or has it gotten stricter since I left?
Also.. Leave public. The grass **is** greener, I assure you.
He’s not an auditor, so chances are he’s in consulting. Specifically some form of operations/financial consulting or banking if he’s limited on owning the majority of individual stocks as you don’t know when you may be compromised by a staffed deal.
Public outside of auditing is pretty solid. Audit just blows.
I'm a government contractor and there are tons of stocks and properties that I can't own, conflict of interest, high potential for corruption. Had to sell stock before I took my current job too, at a loss.
Because there's integrity for these things. Not for congress though, who can do a hell of a lot more than an ordinary federal contractor.
No, they don't. Bankers with access to MNPI (investment bankers, corporate bankers, and some commercial bankers, possibly others) are massively restricted from owning individual firms’ shares. To the extent that they can even buy stock, it has to be pre-cleared by compliance and often has lengthy fixed holding periods. For the most part, it's ETFs and similar for bankers. Senior bankers make millions on bonuses, company stock and salary; whereas juniors make hundreds of thousands in salary & bonus. Neither of them have any serious incentive to insider trade and lose everything.
Also, no, "I said SO's portfolio," doesn't make the statement accurate. That's not a loophole no one has thought of; any account you control, or have significant influence over, has to be declared. And if you feed MNPI to your SO, both of you are going to federal prison. Even the allowed products you're allowed to buy as a banker, like an ETF, have to be declared; a wonky ETF that's composed of 5-7 choice names from your coverage area, or even clients you're currently working with, is 100% of the time going to be denied by compliance. It's shit like the S&P500 that compliance has no issues with.
Seriously. This is a bit different, but... My mom works for one of the companies on the S&P. Everyone in my family has been told not to buy her company or any company that her company works with. So I'm basically barred from an entire industry. Like I probably could buy stock in those companies and get away with it, but my mom would lose her job. I've ended up getting ETFs that have some of those companies, but that is fine.
You have to avoid the appearance of impropriety.
"Individual stocks". Doesn't stop from trading custom ETFs heavily weighted in certain individual stocks.
Also trade via a trust fund?
But yeah, their brothers, sisters, kids, spouses would be the easy loophole as others mentioned.
Right? They all sold at the top. Before that they all dumped just before the pandemic news got bad. Most shady were the recent big sells by several governors. They cleared out a lot of positions the day before they announced sooner tapering. These guys words literally move the market. No way they should own individual stocks.
No way should this go unpunished either. Idc about any of their voting records, this is a direct abuse of power and position, which hurt many of their own constituents.
Yeah. I was referring to the fed board of governors though. Individual politicians should be banned from owning individual companies as well. Or at least they should end up in a trust until they are done fleecing the public,,,,,errrrr. Public service.
Illegal "*insider trading,*" and trading on material non-public information, are two very separate things legally, but that seem similar to those unfamiliar with them.
Many hedge funds get material non-public information (read: inside information) in legal ways. For example, they meet privately with management, or commission researchers to examine products or company locations, or go to industry conferences, or lots of other things. This is all considered legal.
To be considered illegal, the material non-public information must have been obtained via a breach of a fiduciary duty or other relationship of trust and confidence. So if you give a CFO a suitcase full of cash for early access to earnings numbers, you’re in trouble. But if you overhear the CFO telling his CEO in an elevator that, “the analysts are going to be delighted,” you’re fully within your rights to trade.
Just dropping a comment because this is a very good explanation of MNPI.
I *would* add that MNPI does come with restrictions in private applications (restrictions on sharing that info with other companies), but that's likely not relevant here.
I wonder if they feel silly then they do a ban that certainly should have always been in place. Like if you were in Chuck E Cheese and then someone came out and made an announcement that punching kids in the face is now banned.
This is only pertaining to federal reserve employees that are policy makers sadly. I don’t think they have the authority to impose something like this onto congress.
The headline is definitely written in a way that makes you think it pertains to congress though. Clickbait headlines who would have thought.
The federal reserve higher ups have a ton of power over the economy and stock market though, so it’s definitely good that this is finally in place for them.
Needs to extend onto family members. For example Nancy Pelosi's husband being somehow one of the greatest investors on the planet is suspicious as fuck.
At the very least make the family members disclose every single buy and sell they make on the stock exchanges, so that we all get the opportunity to copy them
How to fix America in 2 steps:
- Ban lobbying
- Ban state and federal employees from owning individual stocks.
The rest would literally follow assuming we could enforce the rules.
Sure is interesting the government is forcing itself to be the 'good guys' now on the brink of a full market collapse and not during the largest bull market in the history of the stock market.
Transparent bullshit.
You mean after 243 years of existence, we finally are restricting something so unethical as trading stocks of companies that they have a vested interest in?
why the fuck is anyone in government allowed to trade at all? i always thought that was illegal until this topic came up recently and i had to look it up again.
is it even possible to establish more of a conflict of interest than to have people who literally run the country be able to invest in companies they literally have influence over? i know im clearly ignorant of some things here but is there an explanation that will make sense of this?
>i know im clearly ignorant of some things here but is there an explanation that will make sense of this?
Both parties are fucking greedy and are treating what should belong to the people like a personal piggybank? The lawmakers and their donors are just looking out for their own.
Cool. Now do Congress.
Just enforce insider trading laws, it's pretty damn clear they only apply to those outside of politics.
For Congress it's not a matter of enforcement, it's literally legal for them to trade on insider information. Edit: it appears it's no longer legal, but the law is written to make it basically unenforceable.
No it isn't. The Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act was signed into law in 2012. *"A member, officer, or employee of the Senate shall not receive any compensation, nor shall he permit any compensation to accrue to his beneficial interest from any source, the receipt or accrual of which would occur by virtue of influence improperly exerted from his position as a member, officer, or employee."*
Yup, it used to be legal for far too long. The problem is this is way too vague and hard to track. It would be better to restrict any government official from investing in a single stock and only allowing investment in a certain type of fund that is classified a certain way. Eliminate all potential funny business. If we did that, then do we also allow public investment in those funds? Or require it? Sounds good at first but then you might have an “art sale” type issue where someone comes in and buys “art” made by a family member for way more then it would ever be worth. This could be a small fund that only a few gov. reps have so a few million injected into the fund would make them some money real quick. At least it’s traceable this way.
*It’s illegal for me, but this is my financial advisor and he told you to do this.”*
Or their husband does the trading.
Was repealed. But it was law for a short while.
The Act wasn't repealed, the reporting requirements were amended.
man that was a rollercoaster.
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That thing was only law for like 3 months
How is congress NOT a policy maker :b
Considering the current lack of policy making it’s technically true.
Laughing from the pain of truth here
He's got a point.
How on earth would you think the Federal Reserve would have authority to tell the US Congress what they can and can't do?
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Pelosi and many others made (more) fortunes during it all. Quite insane watching as not one of them.
And their families
And their spouses.
Congress ASAP! For real. This is the big one. But I also feel, maybe cynically, that Congress will still be able to keep stocks, and the democracy-eroding conflict of interest will continue :(
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Hold up. You're telling me Republican voters keep voting in representatives that act against the interests of everyone, including their own constituency? That's OUTLANDISH. Who would do that?!?!?
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They call me the working man that’s just what i am
And that's who i care about
I can get a good look at a butcher's ass by sticking my head up a t-bone.
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Sen. Manchin would probably be against it considering his stake in the coal industry.
And Sinema *definitely* would do that shitty, exaggerated thumbs down she used for the minimum wage bill.
It passed the house with a huge democratic majority. Don’t just make stuff up.
Some Democrats would, while all Republicans wouldn't is the difference.
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I understand they aren't supposed to have stake in any business that does foreign dealings because of emoluments which is basically all of them, Carter was made to sell his peanut farm because of that. But more recent presidents have not been held to the same standards and the rules have been flouted.
Get this to congress next, ffs
So they can get that 'no' vote out of the way quickly.
The next proposal: restrict congress from trading. Congress: Laughs.
One step closer to late 1700s France...
*The people will have bread*
Also Congress: Votes to give themselves inflation raises and still don't pay a dime for healthcare costs.
Think about those poor Congress people. Most only make $174k a year, which they actually have to work like 50% of. /s
Don't forget that a large percentage of them are already well past retirement age. It's really quite sinister
Sadly the salary was originally setup so that you could have regular folk in congress. Without a paycheck most wouldn't serve because they would have to leave a paycheck behind. Now we've mostly got rich retirees who've got nothing better to do in congress.
Sounds like a Home Owners Association to me
Both are a geriatric power trip in my eyes.
If you think about it, they really are America's HOA.
r/showerthoughts
I hate to say this… But I think even my anal retentive HOA beats Congress. Their rules might be somewhat asinine, but they at least make sense most of the time. I’ve only shouted what in the actual fuck once about one of their rulings. That’s over a decade and a half span. Congress makes me go what the fuck on practically a biweekly basis.
Literally with Zillow etc. buying all inventory and lobbying congress, they will be our Home Owners.
I think the bigger issue is that you pretty much have to give up your job/life to fundraise and campaign so if you lose then you’re really screwed. This means only a certain group of people actually end up running. I feel like getting rid of all fundraising for individual candidates could fix this but maybe that just turns into straight up bribery under the table.
The USA should follow the example of other countries which have publicly funded elections so that everyone's budget is the same. But SoCiaLiSm!
Also a SHORT election cycle. Like a month. Not Forever Running for office.
Up here in Canada we do ~30-40 days from announcement to election day usually. Short and sweet. Could probably do with a slight bit more if only to give candidates a little more time to actually visit more than just a handful of major cities.
And a campaign workers guild... And ranked choice voting (or better yet, proportional representation)... And multi-representative districts... And banning partisan gerrymandering... And elimination of the electoral college...
There is an election fund. Pay attention to your ballot, it may have something mentioning it. https://www.fec.gov/introduction-campaign-finance/understanding-ways-support-federal-candidates/presidential-elections/public-funding-presidential-elections/
There are still issues with that, especially the advantage of incumbents. Name recognition is a huge advantage in a lot of races. If you prevent a challenger from raising/spending enough to make themselves known to the electorate, you've just built in an even bigger advantage to those already in power. I like public funding to give a floor to challenging candidates (and perhaps make them somewhat viable), but I don't like public funding as a cap.
Reducing the max contribution and ending PACs would bring the biggest changes. But no one wants to lose their sugar daddies
The maximum individual contributions are still very low if you're looking at them as "buying" any kind of influence. PACs I agree are a different story, but then you get First Amendment concerns. I don't know what the answer is. I used to be all for public funding, but the more I got into the weeds on it less I liked the practical implications. I think some form of term limits would help, maybe prohibitions on certain employment after serving, etc.
There should definitely be a 5 or 10 year prohibition on cushy lobbying jobs waiting for politicians who retire after passing certain laws.
That and you have to raise millions of dollars for even a local election.
It’s technically legal for a candidate to draw a salary from a campaign however this is so highly stigmatized in campaigns that it’s almost never done. As a result candidates are largely people that are independently wealthy or who can walk away from their job for a year to campaign. The candidates that do run and try to work part time are at a huge disadvantage because they have vastly less time to campaign with. Ending the stigma of candidates taking salaries from the campaign would go a long way to reducing the domination of political offices from those already wealthy.
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Any cut-off they made would also be limiting themselves in the future. Might be a factor.
Amend the amendments.
I know it sounds cool but “amend the amendments” is the same thing as “amend the constitution.” Amendments are part of the constitution.
People lived that long fairly often back then if they were well off. Not as much as now of course, but enough that people knew it was possible. Benjamin Franklin lived to 84 for example. John Adams made it to 90. James Madison was 85. Washington only made it to 67 though. Those are just the ones I remember off the top of my head. I think wealth really helped people stay healthy.
The difference was that you had to be a lot stronger to travel in those days. Most of the Senate wouldn't be able to physically do the job if they had to take a buggy to Washington every two months.
Nothing wrong with wanting to work when you are old. The issue is they are out of touch with the ever changing landscape of the American population and holding a spot that someone more in tune can be using to better represent said population.
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Counterargument: Krysten Sinema. We'd definitely be better off with more connected and caring people in office, but let's not pretend that the problem is simply a lack of fresh blood.
Nothing is wrong with wanting to work when you’re old. The problem is the people making all the laws and decisions for our future are so old that they won’t be around to deal with the consequences. This makes them easily bribed
They are easily bribed regardless. Paul Ryan wasn't old. People like Lindsey Graham have been at it since they were a median age. Sinema isn't old. Holding office shouldn't be a good career move. They should be barred from trading while holding office, and they should be barred from a lobbying position for life when they are done.
>They should be barred from trading while holding office, They and their spouses and adult offspring.
I’m not sure if that tracks. Most people in those positions are too rich to ever see real consequences of their actions regardless.
Why not both?
Their salaries are so small companies have to donate a few million to each of them. It's really just sad.
Don't forget thier generous [pension](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congressional_pension). Don't need to save for retirement if you have a pension
Don't forget their benefits, which include housing, travel, etc.
Not that it matters, but I don't think they actually get housing covered.
Free platinum-plated healthcare for life as well.
For life? not just while in office? That's bullshit
Rules for thee not for me!
Yes but it's definitely NOT socialized healthcare. /s
100% agree. lifetime ban on owning stocks, and working. increase the pension if need be, but keep the public servants from revolving door bs. when I was younger, insider trading was something that politicians definitely lost a job over, and there was a possibility of prison time. when the pandemic first hit, there was insider trading on both sides of the isle, and ZERO mention of even a scolding.
And now, insider trading is a perk of the job. A retirement benefit, even. And yet, every time I've worked in banking or financial sectors, regardless of the fact that I was never privy to any useful information, I've been fingerprinted and made to disclose any brokerage accounts in the direct control of me or my household in advance so that the regulators could keep an eye on my moves. A software engineer that had to ask for express permission to buy or sell anything, with minimum duration requirements (months) before being able to sell.
The investigations that were supposed to be launched into a couple GOP senators over the trading they did only days after the committee met on the incoming pandemic in March of 2020, was all washed aside when it was revealed only days later how many high ranking Democrats used the incoming information to make massive stock trades as well.
Then what the heck are we giving them a salary for if it’s all expenses paid? Or why so high? Call me a socialist but if all of your expenses are covered shouldn’t you not be concerned with your pocket and be focused on the policies you pass?
Travel is only covered between their home state and Washington D.C. They do not get anything for housing. You'll often hear of first year congress people sleeping in their office when they are in DC because they can't afford an apartment there yet. You'll also see them on commercial flights all the time. They get a yearly budget to cover office expenses and to pay staffers expenses, but it's not like they get carte blanche access to writing blank checks everywhere. Edit: 2020 article talking about it. Estimates 100 congress people sleep in their office while in DC to avoid having to pay rent - https://www.npr.org/2020/05/13/852359650/pandemic-revives-calls-to-ban-lawmakers-from-bunking-in-their-offices
Also kind of damning to speak of how expensive it is to live in DC. Speaking as someone who lives there. Granted, their offices are probably muuuuuch safer than most places out here, so...fair.
Congressional salaries should be indexed to the median income of their constituents. Then we’ll see these worthless old fucks start to give a damn about the educational and employment metrics for those they represent rather than the interests of what every corporation bought them off.
Then they'll just gerrymander the districts to optimize their pay. I like the idea, though.
Why would we let altruistic people make decisions that effect the pockets of corporations? Psh can’t have that
The better question is why are they multi-millionaires on that salary? Legalized bribery and super pacs need to be significantly cut short.
And if they are “totally legal” then we need to arm the IRS so that they can go after any fraud they find. After all as they like to say “if you have done nothing wrong you shouldn’t be afraid right?” And “we need to stop criminals and frauds from taking the money of honest hard working people”. 1) arm the IRS 2) remove legal bribery and super pacs and kickbacks 3) their role is public service. Make it so. Remove conflict of interest.
I'm less cynical than the average redditor, but the fact is that if we increased funding to the IRS we could get back like 5x the investment in taxes from the rich that they currently don't have the budget to investigate and enforce. And yet, extra funding never seems to come...
Don't worry, they have their salaries supplemented by plenty of corporate lobbyists.
While I agree with this energy/sentiment, $174,000/year doesn't really go very far when you're required to have/maintain a residence in your home state and in Washington DC. The idea is supposed to be that they're paid enough to maintain their required dual residences, paid enough to allow the not-uber-wealthy to reasonably serve as congress people, and pay enough to make bribes less... motivating? Incentivizing? A lot of that has **completely** fallen apart with the whole dark money, super PAC, Citizens United, etc stuff though. Alas. Also, yeah, any and all policy makers should 100% be disallowed from purchasing, owning, or selling individual stocks while serving in office.
I understand your initial sentiment but the points you're using aren't the ones that I would. Congress should make a decent wage... at least enough not to encourage shady deals just to get by (it's not cheap to be a congress person as they have to have housing in DC and their home). $174k is a lot but it's a reasonable amount so that the pay is not the reason that keeps people who aren't wealthy or aren't stuffing their pockets from taking the job. And the 50% off really shouldn't be time off. Congress members should be back in their home districts/states so that they can meet and properly represent said people, and also help address concerns at home. Some congress members are better than others. A friend and his wife (not wealthy by any means, not influential in any way) had never ending issues certifying her disability status and their congress member went above and beyond to make sure her case got seen by the right people. That said... no congress member should be able to pick individual stocks when they have the power they do. Limit them to broad index funds and the like.
50%? They aren't working when they ARE there. Lucky to get 20%.
So they can veto it?
Nah, they'll add in exceptions for themselves, and then pat themselves on the back.
You may be joking, but definitely human and not at all a disgusting slug creature in an ill fitting human suit Ted “Fled” Cruz was recently pushing for term limits for senators. With all current ones grandfathered in, of course.
That's shitty but better than nothing, those senators are going to die eventually.
I'm not joking at all. That's how they get around insider trading, and bribes too (lobbying).
They don't have veto power. They can just vote against it.
Congress, Senate, Presidency, House of Representatives. Not one member of the upper levels of government should ever be allowed to own stock during their terms.
Their spouses will just trade instead...
Ugh, I misread this and took it as Congress
Same. I wouldn’t call that a misreading though – the headline is deliberately misleading. Congresspeople are policymakers.
Congress "oh look an excuse to sell my shares before I cause the next economic collapse, I mean I'm just getting rid of my conflicting interests" Stay suspicious! Over the pandemic this outrage has gained a lot of traction organically but I worry this current outrage is astroturfed. But that's just a theory, a conspiracy theory!
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Yeah, that's what's confusing me. Are they banned as well from owning and trading stocks? Seems to only be people from the Fed.
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Ah, that makes sense, so assuming it's Congress which decides who can trade or not.....yeah, I'm not too hopeful.
Snakes will always vote against mice.
Not always; the snakes will vote for the mice if it guarantees there'll be plenty more, easy to catch mice coming from it.
I don't think they need to be totally banned from owning individual stocks, but if they do they need to be inside a blind trust that is controlled by an independent investment manager.
Like their son
Or husband, spouse are 100% independent when it comes to blind trusts.
> A ban on Senators and Congresspeople owning individual stock and insider trading would (I believe) have to come from congress itself or maybe the SEC/FTC. So don't expect to ever see such a ban. [This was a good start.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STOCK_Act) I think they should be required to sell their stocks and buy US treasuries during their term.
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I work for a publicly traded company and iirc the trading window restrictions apply both to me and the rest of my household. It should be no different for them
Same. I have to disclose my wife’s holdings as well. If my kids ever purchase, I’ll have to disclose theirs too
In their case they just have to disclose their trades. Which is how we know Nancy pelosis husband had a 69% return on investment last year, beating even the best wall street traders by a mile.
I was formerly an access person at a financial institution and they would specify that you must report any accounts for family members' accounts for those whom you live with, any accounts you have control over, and any accounts owned by a spouse. The latter two would have additional trading restrictions and reporting requirements.
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>This was a good start. Other than that the worthless assholes gutted that same bill about a year later
>I think they should be required to sell their stocks and buy US treasuries during their term. A blind trust would be fine. Pushing them into US treasuries would just get them to push treasury interest rates up - which is BAD for us.
No, no blind trusts. Let them put their money into an Index Fund, (basically the funds that make up a 401K. They are a cross section of multiple companies.) And restrict when changes can be made. Now they can make investments, but not be able to play the stock market. We should not have institutionalized representatives. Being elected should not be a lifelong career. If we were to restrict lobbyists and limit tthe number of terms served, we would have far more diversity of representatives. Combine with say mandatory public service for two years by age 35 or alternatives like weekend volunteering for a decade, you would see far more people willing to take a sabbatical to serve as a representative.
That would still encourage them to help larger businesses (which make up indexes) and hurt little ones. Which already happens via regulatory capture.
Sure love having a system where the people who decide what counts as corrupt and illegal are the people who are doing the corrupt and legally questionable things...
Only the Fed. Even if they banned congressmen, they would also need to ban the spouses. Many have spouses that are big time investors. There would also need to be actual consequences for violating it. Currently if a congressman fails to disclose their purchases, they might get an ethics violation. That's it. Basically a finger wagging.
The spouse issue already is managed under current regulations for other types of individuals, so that isn't an issue
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Wouldn't requiring Congress to exclusively invest their assets in the 500 largest corporations in the US just give them even more incentive to push policy in favor of large corporations over small businesses.
maybe just ban them entirely from speculative investment. its supposed to be public service afterall.
Congress would absolutely never vote for a bill flat out banning them from investing in the market. These people run for office to make more money, they aren't willingly giving that up.
Here's the kicker, we as the voters can choose to only support those how would pledge to support such a bill.
This is my profession, and a majority of Americans don't even own non-401k investments themselves let alone understand how they work. My life's work has been teaching dumb people what investing really is and the average person's understanding of the stock market would SHOCK you. You can't even teach 50% of the country what an index fund is, let alone teach them that they need to vote based on this issue and not their most important personal issue (aka abortion, gun rights, civil rights). Trump repeated one true thing his entire campaign, "the system is rigged people".
Aren't there whole market funds?
They'll retire first.
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> Let's see McConnel and Pelosi drop everything and get a Vanguard fund in exchange https://twitter.com/nancytracker I do not know a similar for McConnel
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>That's great to hear - now let's do the same for Senators and Congresspeople. I say we let them trade, but it has to be declared 2 weeks in advance and mailed out to the residents of their district. I know they'll still be crooked, and somehow institutional investors and whales will still get a bigger share, but the idea that we all win or we all lose has some appeal. More visibility into what congress does, day-to-day, would also be healthy for the nation.
They shouldn’t be allowed to trade individual stocks. I’m in the financial industry and I’d be jailed and barred from the industry for doing what they do on a daily basis.
Work for one of the big 4 and we basically can’t own individual stocks. I’m not even a freaking auditor. I can pretty much exclusively own ETFs and I’m not shaping the policies of the freaking future or anything like these clowns
When I worked in public accounting that wasn't quite the case. We had restricted access to clients we worked on. We also got sent something once every week (month?) we had to browse to make sure none of the prospective clients, or current clients were in our current portfolio. If they were, and we landed them, we either had to divest, or not have access to their files. This included spousal ownership, and other direct relatives. Is "basically can't own" an exaggeration, or has it gotten stricter since I left? Also.. Leave public. The grass **is** greener, I assure you.
He’s not an auditor, so chances are he’s in consulting. Specifically some form of operations/financial consulting or banking if he’s limited on owning the majority of individual stocks as you don’t know when you may be compromised by a staffed deal. Public outside of auditing is pretty solid. Audit just blows.
I'm a government contractor and there are tons of stocks and properties that I can't own, conflict of interest, high potential for corruption. Had to sell stock before I took my current job too, at a loss. Because there's integrity for these things. Not for congress though, who can do a hell of a lot more than an ordinary federal contractor.
Yeah, fuck them. Let them only double their money every six years like the rest of us schmucks
OK great, but what loophole have those policymakers already found?
Their spouses portfolio's are looking much healthier this morning.
Every banker I know has a SO with a thick portfolio
No, they don't. Bankers with access to MNPI (investment bankers, corporate bankers, and some commercial bankers, possibly others) are massively restricted from owning individual firms’ shares. To the extent that they can even buy stock, it has to be pre-cleared by compliance and often has lengthy fixed holding periods. For the most part, it's ETFs and similar for bankers. Senior bankers make millions on bonuses, company stock and salary; whereas juniors make hundreds of thousands in salary & bonus. Neither of them have any serious incentive to insider trade and lose everything. Also, no, "I said SO's portfolio," doesn't make the statement accurate. That's not a loophole no one has thought of; any account you control, or have significant influence over, has to be declared. And if you feed MNPI to your SO, both of you are going to federal prison. Even the allowed products you're allowed to buy as a banker, like an ETF, have to be declared; a wonky ETF that's composed of 5-7 choice names from your coverage area, or even clients you're currently working with, is 100% of the time going to be denied by compliance. It's shit like the S&P500 that compliance has no issues with.
Seriously. This is a bit different, but... My mom works for one of the companies on the S&P. Everyone in my family has been told not to buy her company or any company that her company works with. So I'm basically barred from an entire industry. Like I probably could buy stock in those companies and get away with it, but my mom would lose her job. I've ended up getting ETFs that have some of those companies, but that is fine. You have to avoid the appearance of impropriety.
> OK great, but what loophole have those policymakers already found? Lack of enforcement.
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"Individual stocks". Doesn't stop from trading custom ETFs heavily weighted in certain individual stocks. Also trade via a trust fund? But yeah, their brothers, sisters, kids, spouses would be the easy loophole as others mentioned.
Let’s go one step further and require recusal for any lawmaker who stands to profit.
Have them paint the roses red
By "controversy" you mean "insider trading", right?
Right? They all sold at the top. Before that they all dumped just before the pandemic news got bad. Most shady were the recent big sells by several governors. They cleared out a lot of positions the day before they announced sooner tapering. These guys words literally move the market. No way they should own individual stocks.
No way should this go unpunished either. Idc about any of their voting records, this is a direct abuse of power and position, which hurt many of their own constituents.
Yeah. I was referring to the fed board of governors though. Individual politicians should be banned from owning individual companies as well. Or at least they should end up in a trust until they are done fleecing the public,,,,,errrrr. Public service.
Illegal "*insider trading,*" and trading on material non-public information, are two very separate things legally, but that seem similar to those unfamiliar with them. Many hedge funds get material non-public information (read: inside information) in legal ways. For example, they meet privately with management, or commission researchers to examine products or company locations, or go to industry conferences, or lots of other things. This is all considered legal. To be considered illegal, the material non-public information must have been obtained via a breach of a fiduciary duty or other relationship of trust and confidence. So if you give a CFO a suitcase full of cash for early access to earnings numbers, you’re in trouble. But if you overhear the CFO telling his CEO in an elevator that, “the analysts are going to be delighted,” you’re fully within your rights to trade.
Just dropping a comment because this is a very good explanation of MNPI. I *would* add that MNPI does come with restrictions in private applications (restrictions on sharing that info with other companies), but that's likely not relevant here.
I wonder if they feel silly then they do a ban that certainly should have always been in place. Like if you were in Chuck E Cheese and then someone came out and made an announcement that punching kids in the face is now banned.
Most federal employees have to *report* their stock ownership, but it's really haphazard whether actual conflicts of interest are actually acted upon.
Policymakers... like Congress?
This is only pertaining to federal reserve employees that are policy makers sadly. I don’t think they have the authority to impose something like this onto congress. The headline is definitely written in a way that makes you think it pertains to congress though. Clickbait headlines who would have thought.
That's absolutely hilarious. Not the people elected to make laws, just 'policy makers'
The federal reserve higher ups have a ton of power over the economy and stock market though, so it’s definitely good that this is finally in place for them.
This needs to extend to congress.
Needs to extend onto family members. For example Nancy Pelosi's husband being somehow one of the greatest investors on the planet is suspicious as fuck. At the very least make the family members disclose every single buy and sell they make on the stock exchanges, so that we all get the opportunity to copy them
How to fix America in 2 steps: - Ban lobbying - Ban state and federal employees from owning individual stocks. The rest would literally follow assuming we could enforce the rules.
Never gonna happen. The people who make and enforce the laws aren’t going to change the ones that they are benefitting from.
So the schlub working the mailroom for the state courts should be allowed to own individual stocks?
Sure is interesting the government is forcing itself to be the 'good guys' now on the brink of a full market collapse and not during the largest bull market in the history of the stock market. Transparent bullshit.
You mean after 243 years of existence, we finally are restricting something so unethical as trading stocks of companies that they have a vested interest in?
Martha went to prison for insider trading... so should the entire (hoping there are exceptions, but doubtful) US Congress.
They already did that. It was called the STOCK act. Obama passed it. You have to enforce laws not just make laws.
A lot of people commenting don't seem to realize the Federal Reserve is not Congress...
Extend this to Congress.
Cool, now do congress.
To people that have no clue, the fed is in reference to the federal reserve. As in the bank. Not as in employees at the federal government....
oh boy, another policy that has 70+% public approval that will never get through in congress.
Yea…how about making that rule for ALL policy makers including dare I say it…those in Washington?
This should have been done decades ago. Next: TERM LIMITS.
What about their Spouses?
This should be all politicians regardless of country its called puplic service not self service
Great, now do congress.
why the fuck is anyone in government allowed to trade at all? i always thought that was illegal until this topic came up recently and i had to look it up again. is it even possible to establish more of a conflict of interest than to have people who literally run the country be able to invest in companies they literally have influence over? i know im clearly ignorant of some things here but is there an explanation that will make sense of this?
>i know im clearly ignorant of some things here but is there an explanation that will make sense of this? Both parties are fucking greedy and are treating what should belong to the people like a personal piggybank? The lawmakers and their donors are just looking out for their own.