Oh, I agree. But I’m fairly certain that what has been proposed by others would result in only rich people running for office, and more of a revolving door than is already present. (“OK, I’ll serve for only two terms, then jump to a lucrative corp job.”)
That’s why I advocate for strong rules, governance, and punishments, not monasticism.
What strong rules are you advocating for? Because your entire argument this entire thread has seemed to be “we can’t make rules against insider trading” and attempting to argue easily-made transactions with outsized effects are the equivalent to owning a house or business, both of which take significantly longer than a call to a friend, family member, or stock trader, sometimes on the level of years or decades. No one is arguing for poverty, but you’ve done a wonderful job burning down your slippery-slope strawman.
I’m not proposing any specifics on stronger rules. What I am advocating for, is to allow ownership and trading, within a stronger rule framework - as opposed to those proposing full eschewing of ownership and trading.
And what would that look like? Would congress people be allowed, or not be allowed to buy and sell stocks that can be impacted by legislation?
Who determines this, and who enforces it?
You keep arguing against this, but no one is doing it.
From the second post in this thread by Cervaise:
“I’m an extremist on this. National and state-level legislators should entirely divest themselves of equity, fixed-income, etc. holdings for the entire period of their service.”
Also from the second post in this thread, literally immediately after your faux-quote:
Is there a reason you deliberately left that out?
Because I am not responding to that aspect.
And what is faux-quote? Forgive me if I am not sufficiently proficient on the technological steps to create satisfactory (to you) quote posts.
A college professor of history pulling down $120k a year would make a far better legislator than many currently serving in Congress. And if he/she wanted to give it up after a couple of terms to return to the private sector, that sounds like the ideal application of the citizen -politician model the framers had in mind.
FTR, I believe that’s the first time I’ve ever used an originalist argument. I need a shower.
I’d be careful of that trope. The framers were considering wealthy (white male) landowners as “citizens”.
And he also points out that he is an extremist on it, knowing that most will not agree with the entirety of his stance, and is likely willing to compromise so long as there is some movement towards that.
You don’t negotiate by asking for what you want, much less what you need. If you ask for the least you are willing to settle for, what you end up with is less than that.
You negotiate by demanding more than what you actually want, so that the other side needs to come further over to compromise, and hopefully, you end up with at least some of what you want, and all of what you need.
That’s called taking a quote out of context. If you are going to use someone’s statement as an example, you should use the whole thing, rather than leaving out the part that undercuts your claim.
When you quote out of context to change the meaning of another posters words, as you did here.
Honestly, a fry cook at Wendy’s would make a better legislator than most currently serving in congress. Not every fry cook and every legislator, but on balance, if we replaced every member of congress with an entry level employee at a fast food joint, we’d probably be better off.
Fry cooks will have the same chance of serving as anyone else in the House of Sortition in my new nation of Atlantica.
OK, I can see that much of this discussion has descended into how I conduct myself, rather than opinions on the topic.
Ciao!
So you ARE deliberately misrepresenting Cervaise’s statement. Thanks for clearing that up. Combined with your “I support rules, but actively argue against any rules, while strawmanning arguments I don’t like” bit, everything that needs known about your position has been shared.
The faux-quote comment was simply that - a comment. You already have the chosen text selected - why not hit the little “quote” pop-up to ensure you don’t misquote something and others can find it more easily? Please don’t get upset about it, that was absolutely a throwaway, meaningless point of note.
Aren’t members of Congress covered by the same insider trading laws as anyone else? If so, why the need for different laws for them?
No they aren’t.
Not looking for different rules for them, but for them to have to follow the same rules as other people with insider knowledge.
Apparently, that’s like asking them to join a monastery.
But Congress MAKES THE RULES. That’s a big part of the problem, Congress simply WILL NOT make rules or enforce existing rules that inhibit their ability (or that of their buddies and donors) to shovel as much cash into their pockets as is humanly possible. Congress also decides funding levels for those who enforce the laws and those people have come to understand that pissing off Congress means their budgets get slashed. So we’re at a point of quis custodiet ipsos custodes and who the fuck is gonna bell this cat?
Isn’t there already a law concerning this? The Stop Trading On Congressional Knowledge act? Is it just not enforced, or is it too full of loopholes?
Incorrect. It’s not very difficult, it’s impossible for professional fund managers to beat the market consistently. If anyone could, then what they were doing would represent the new market.
If we discourage people who don’t understand this from running for office, then maybe we’ll end up with officeholders with a better grasp of economics. I’m not seeing how that’s a bad thing.
STOCK Act is a fucking joke. As the saying goes, “if the only punishment for a crime is a fine it’s only illegal if you’re poor.”
If they do, they are doing something illegal. Either it is a pyramid scheme, in which case you are being ripped off, or they are operating on insider knowledge, in which case, other people are being ripped off.
The people who invested with Madoff knew he was doing something illegal, they just thought that it was other people who were being scammed, not themselves.