Insider trading is illegal -- unless you're in Congress!

Good 60 Minutes story. Based on a university research team's project into why so many reps leave office with much more wealth than when they arrived, on a salary of $174,000.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18560_162-57323527/congress-trading-stock-on-inside-information/

Kroft: So congressman get a pass on insider trading?

Schweizer: They do. The fact is, if you sit on a healthcare committee and you know that Medicare, for example, is-- is considering not reimbursing for a certain drug that's market moving information. And if you can trade stock on-- off of that information and do so legally, that's a great profit making opportunity. And that sort of behavior goes on.

 

That story was bullshit; you could tell while watching it that there were holes the size of Brinks trucks to drive through.

Towards that end, HuffPo comes riding to Boehner's defense...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/14/60-minutes-pelosi-boehner_n_1091656.html

...the exclusion of Cantor, noted at the end of the story, is further evidence of CBS game playing.

 

From the Goldman Sachs Elevator twitter:

#1: Congress is allowed to trade on insider information. #2: And only half of them are millionaires. #1: Losers.

 

The story wasnt bullshit, and the responses by the Boehner and Pelosi teams only satisfies people who believe that neither of them could exert influence or acquire knowledge outside of what is printed in the minutes of the committee meetings.

There is no reason on Earth that Nancy Pelosi should be allowed to participate in an IPO of any company being governed in America. Those shares are handed out as special favors to the privileged class to then flip and make a quick buck. A man named Frank Quattrone did that many years ago, offering IPO preference to people he had business interests with, and he went to prison for it.

In Pelosi's case, she made $100,000 in one day simply and solely because she is a member of Congress. That's what is bullshit.

 

Like the Goldman Sachs' and the Romneys of the world, they think its their f'n due.

 

Yeah, I'm not saying that the idea of members of Congress cashing in on insider info is bullshit; I'm just saying that the way CBS breathlessly went about covering it was.

It's hardly "new" news.

 

Now that is good.

 

Let's be honest - this has been going on since Congress began. It's also one of the flaws in the Constitution. Congress can impeach the President and members of the Judiciary, yet we expect and trust Congress to regulate itself?

 

What LTL said. And Gordon Gekko approves.

 

Aren't the voters supposed to regulate Congress?

 

Spencer Bauchus, who is my congressman and never draws a credible challenger, figured prominently in that. Trouble is, any Republican I could see challenging him would be worse by an order of magnitude.