Before we start, go check out the start of a new series over at Glibertarians!
Now then: Queen Nancy wants Congresscritters to continue to be allowed to engage in insider stock trading, the likes of which will get any of the rest of us tossed in the pokey. Why? Because she’ gotten insanely rich from the practice. Excerpt:
From 2007 to 2020, the speaker and her spouse raked in between $5.6 million and $30.4 million (the rules don’t even require exact disclosure) from just five Big Tech firms: Facebook, Google, Amazon, Apple and Microsoft.
Never mind that the companies’ fortunes depend on laws Congress may or may not pass. As The Post has also noted, for example, Pelosi has been stalling legislation to ban Internet firms from favoring their own products in search results. Maybe it’s a coincidence she and her husband have also bet on Google, but it sure makes you wonder.
Remember, too, lawmakers are privy to info the public doesn’t see, so they may have an edge when trading stocks. (Perhaps that explains why the Pelosis have generally outperformed the market so nicely?)
Letting pols trade individual stocks, rather than investing only in index funds, raises such questions as whether they “have access to insider information” or if their trades will “impact policy-making,” warns the Revolving Door Project’s Jeff Hauser.
Nor does Pelosi’s claim that her stocks are in her husband’s name and that they’ve made no trades with inside knowledge hold up: Former Office of Government Ethics boss Walter Shaub calls that a “red herring”; unless members of Congress are willing to “wear microphones around the clock,” he quips, “the public has no way of knowing what information they intentionally or inadvertently shared.”
By now, most people know that Pelosi considers herself above everyone else. Recall how she repeatedly flouted mask rules? But looking to keep racking up tens of millions, despite the blatant conflict of interest, raises the prospect of outright corruption.
It’s a strong argument for banning stock trades by lawmakers and their families altogether. Let them place their holdings in a mutual fund or blind trust.
Why the hell do we continue to put up with this kind of crap from our elected employees? This is just a license for corruption and graft. Imagine the possibilities – insider trading by the very pols who pass legislation affecting the companies whose stock they are trading.
It’s one of a kind (as the article notes) with the concomitant hypocrisy that all these assholes exhibit, every day. The mask flouting, the hair appointments in Covid-closed salons, the concealed-carry permits held by blue-state pols (see Feinstein, Diane) who argue against such permits for the rest of us.
This kind of crap won’t end until the voters end it. I’d be in favor of an amendment to the Constitution, stating that “Congress shall be exempt from no law applied to the general population,” or some such – some lawerly types would probably have to work out the exact language.
But I think a comfortable majority of voters would agree that this shit’s gotta stop.
