Don't you hate rich republicans who fatten their portfolios while in congress?

[dali71]

It's impossible for one party to have more HOR candidates than the other, unless some ran unopposed, in which case they wouldn't need to spend on a campaign...

So you're questioning why there were more candidates in the link that you posted? Since the link was for "all candidates", I'm assuming they included the primaries.

 

[Darwin333]

It's not a matter of law that they can't commit that specific offense, at all. There's a difference between insider information and a higher level of information. all investors strive for the latter. The article depends on innuendo rather than actually citing pertinent statutes. Hedge fund managers often obtain greater returns, too- that's because of a higher level of information and insight. "insider Trading" has a legal definition, and no congress critter has apparently been shown to have met that dubious standard.

Joe Nacchio is an excellent example of insider trading activity, and politicians who maintained that the "fundamentals of the economy are strong" (remember that?) in an attempt to profit personally would also have been guilty of much the same.

"The US Senate and the US Supreme Court are the only two out of 975 federal entities that seem to have no rules or laws prohibiting them from trading stocks based on nonpublic information they gain on the job. A 2004 study revealed that US Senators' stock trades performed 12.3% better than the market average.

The Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act intended to close this loophole for members of Congress; however it has yet not come up for a vote despite being introduced three times."

If they can not trade on insider information why was a bill introduced just a few months ago for the 3rd time to prevent them from trading on insider information?

http://insidertrading.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=001513

Insider trading always involves some sort of deception.

For normal folk of course it does because its a crime. You tend to keep stuff like that secret because you don't want to get caught. However, deception is not required to be guilty of insider trading.

"Insider trading is the trading of a corporation's stock or other securities (e.g. bonds or stock options) by individuals with potential access to non-public information about the company." Period. No deception required, only non-public information that gives you an unfair advantage.

Joe Biden, and some others-

http://www.opensecrets.org/pfds/CIDsummary.php?CID=n00001669&year=2006

Ok, 1 out of over 500? You did say "and some others" so lets say 5 out of over 500 or 1%. Yup, chock full of "common folk" and I would wager that ole Biden isn't as poor as that report makes him look to be.

 

[Darwin333]

Rumors abound in finance, and acting on them is not insider trading. Only people close enough to the source of such rumors to know the truth can really be said to engage in insider trading. There are some grey areas in there, deception by omission being among them-

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9450770/ns/politics/t/feds-investigating-frists-hca-stock-sale/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insider_trading

If a lobbyist, for example, told a congressman about something specific happening wrt a company in his industry, and the congressman acted on it, that's not really insider trading per se. Why not? Because the lobbyist could easily be talking out his ass... he's not really an insider in the first place...

If I was sitting next to a Congressman when he learned the treasury was going to allow Lehman Bros to fail and we both shorted the hell out of it, I would have committed a crime and the Congressman would not have.

The law does not apply equally, period.

 

[Craig234]

Ok, 1 out of over 500? You did say "and some others" so lets say 5 out of over 500 or 1%. Yup, chock full of "common folk" and I would wager that ole Biden isn't as poor as that report makes him look to be.

You are arguing that members of Congress - the people who run the most powerful nation in the world - should have the average wealth of American citizens?

How many Fortune 500 CEO's and executives - companies far, far smaller than the United States government - have the average wealth of American citizens?

Their wealth shouldn't be the same, and it's not, but Congress is not a lottery people win.

Things used to be a lot worse when the Senate was known as 'the millionare's club' and was far worse about 'representing the people', who had not voted for them.

I want money to be taken out of politics, allowing people to need a lot less of it to get elected, which would help some with the 'wealth of members'.

But people often worry far too much about the wealth of the members, compared to the issue of the interests who buy them and the money THAT costs the US.

The compensation of Congress members is a drop in the ocean compared to that.

We'd have zero problem finding 535 people who would serve in Congress for zero pay - and that would be the most expensive thing to the American people we could do. They'd serve the interests.