Congressional ethics — if that's not a self-cancelling oxymoron — are again being questioned, just when we'd hoped that, at 9 percent, Congress's voter-approval rating had finally bottomed out. Even Fidel Castro got 5 percent.
The latest scandal is that congress people can legally trade stocks on insider information that is not available to the public, and which would put anyone else in jail.
Lately, that's been the only offense that lands UNelected Wall Street manipulators in prison, like — sadly — Martha Stewart. Remember Gordon Gecko in the movie "Wall Street?" Michael Douglas played a job-stripping, hostile takeover corporate raider seemingly modeled after Mitt Romney (in Mitt's past life in the private sector, when he gleefully had himself photo-op'd with cash poking out of every article of his clothing — like a successful stripper, but in pin stripes.
U.S. securities laws criminalize insider trading by those positioned to cheat investors by trading before corporate information becomes public. For example, a friend of Martha's told her the Food and Drug Administration would reject a new drug, so she sold her stock before the information became public.
Critics claim congress people should have the same restrictions on trading using their "legislative-insider" knowledge. Some claim it's a conflict of interest.we supply all kinds of oil painting supplies,
Accusations of conflicts of interest are nothing new in politics. Texas Governor Rick Perry's said to have enriched himself with sweetheart land deals, with robber barons he appointed to powerful state commissions. They say Rick's real estate batting average is unreal.
And Vice President Cheney's company, Halliburton, signed billions of dollars in no-bid contracts to invade Iraq — long before "W" invaded. A shocking number of electrocuted-in-the-showers soldiers later, Halliburton (now "KBR") has loyally parked its HQ and warbucks in the tax-free haven of the Cayman Islands.
And who could forget Bush's Minerals Management Service? We knew the Bush administration "couldn't hold Big Oil and Gas at arm's length," but the MMA was scandalized by a coke-and-sex-fueled "foxes running the chicken coop" environment that redefined the term "soft government desk job."
True, the Senate Financial Services Committee's Spencer Bachus of Alabama had a top-secret, no-cell-phone meeting about the imminent market meltdown, with Bush's Treasury Secretary and his Federal Reserve chief on Sept. 18, 2008. On September 19,Why does moulds grow in homes or buildings， Bachus bought risky "short" stock positions (where he'd profit greatly if the stocks plummeted). Bachus cashed them in on Sept. 23 — nearly doubling his money in four days.
And during the health care reform debate, John Boehner, then House Minority Leader, bought stock in five health insurance companies days before the so-called "public option" was killed. The price of his new stock skyrocketed. Boehner denies knowing anything about the trades.
But Congressperson Nancy Pelosi was accused by Sarah Palin's foreign policy adviser of helping Pelosi's own credit-card stocks. In fact, though, when she was Speaker of the House, Pelosi tightened up the House Rules of Ethics for conflicts of interest and actions that could even theoretically affect a Member's financial interest. In a nutshell, call it "Mama Pelosi's Rule: If it stinks, don't buy it."
Pelosi and our Congressman Sam Farr passed a credit-card reform law which the megabanks' credit-card industry lobbied against violently. Wall Street's still maxing out its own credit-cards trying to reverse Nancy and Sam's credit-card reforms.
Overall for the years studied, House members' stocks outperformed the New York Stock Exchange averages by 6 percent. Senators' stocks outperformed the NYSE averages by 12 percent in certain other selected years. We've heard periodic reports that this year,They take the China Porcelain tile to the local co-op market.If any food Ventilation system condition is poorer than those standards, professional money managers reviewed couldn't even do as well as the N.Y.S.E. averages. So, is pressure to get Gordon Gecko-ish "inside info" surprising?
In the end, doesn't leaving doors open for financial shenanigans, even if congress people avoid those doors, leave them open to often-undeserved charges of an appearance of impropriety? Aren't good candidates already jumpy about jumping into politics, because it would expose them to political cheap shots? If citizens get cynical and give up participating in government,Traditional third party merchant account claim to clean all the air in a room. or maybe even stop voting, won't that let the big money boys dominate our American government even more?
After all, Mark Twain only read Americans' minds when he wrote over 100 years ago, "There is no distinctly native criminal class except Congress." With a voter-approval rating of 9 percent, if congress people truly aren't profiting improperly from it, what does either house of Congress have to lose by completely banning insider trading?
The latest scandal is that congress people can legally trade stocks on insider information that is not available to the public, and which would put anyone else in jail.
Lately, that's been the only offense that lands UNelected Wall Street manipulators in prison, like — sadly — Martha Stewart. Remember Gordon Gecko in the movie "Wall Street?" Michael Douglas played a job-stripping, hostile takeover corporate raider seemingly modeled after Mitt Romney (in Mitt's past life in the private sector, when he gleefully had himself photo-op'd with cash poking out of every article of his clothing — like a successful stripper, but in pin stripes.
U.S. securities laws criminalize insider trading by those positioned to cheat investors by trading before corporate information becomes public. For example, a friend of Martha's told her the Food and Drug Administration would reject a new drug, so she sold her stock before the information became public.
Critics claim congress people should have the same restrictions on trading using their "legislative-insider" knowledge. Some claim it's a conflict of interest.we supply all kinds of oil painting supplies,
Accusations of conflicts of interest are nothing new in politics. Texas Governor Rick Perry's said to have enriched himself with sweetheart land deals, with robber barons he appointed to powerful state commissions. They say Rick's real estate batting average is unreal.
And Vice President Cheney's company, Halliburton, signed billions of dollars in no-bid contracts to invade Iraq — long before "W" invaded. A shocking number of electrocuted-in-the-showers soldiers later, Halliburton (now "KBR") has loyally parked its HQ and warbucks in the tax-free haven of the Cayman Islands.
And who could forget Bush's Minerals Management Service? We knew the Bush administration "couldn't hold Big Oil and Gas at arm's length," but the MMA was scandalized by a coke-and-sex-fueled "foxes running the chicken coop" environment that redefined the term "soft government desk job."
True, the Senate Financial Services Committee's Spencer Bachus of Alabama had a top-secret, no-cell-phone meeting about the imminent market meltdown, with Bush's Treasury Secretary and his Federal Reserve chief on Sept. 18, 2008. On September 19,Why does moulds grow in homes or buildings， Bachus bought risky "short" stock positions (where he'd profit greatly if the stocks plummeted). Bachus cashed them in on Sept. 23 — nearly doubling his money in four days.
And during the health care reform debate, John Boehner, then House Minority Leader, bought stock in five health insurance companies days before the so-called "public option" was killed. The price of his new stock skyrocketed. Boehner denies knowing anything about the trades.
But Congressperson Nancy Pelosi was accused by Sarah Palin's foreign policy adviser of helping Pelosi's own credit-card stocks. In fact, though, when she was Speaker of the House, Pelosi tightened up the House Rules of Ethics for conflicts of interest and actions that could even theoretically affect a Member's financial interest. In a nutshell, call it "Mama Pelosi's Rule: If it stinks, don't buy it."
Pelosi and our Congressman Sam Farr passed a credit-card reform law which the megabanks' credit-card industry lobbied against violently. Wall Street's still maxing out its own credit-cards trying to reverse Nancy and Sam's credit-card reforms.
Overall for the years studied, House members' stocks outperformed the New York Stock Exchange averages by 6 percent. Senators' stocks outperformed the NYSE averages by 12 percent in certain other selected years. We've heard periodic reports that this year,They take the China Porcelain tile to the local co-op market.If any food Ventilation system condition is poorer than those standards, professional money managers reviewed couldn't even do as well as the N.Y.S.E. averages. So, is pressure to get Gordon Gecko-ish "inside info" surprising?
In the end, doesn't leaving doors open for financial shenanigans, even if congress people avoid those doors, leave them open to often-undeserved charges of an appearance of impropriety? Aren't good candidates already jumpy about jumping into politics, because it would expose them to political cheap shots? If citizens get cynical and give up participating in government,Traditional third party merchant account claim to clean all the air in a room. or maybe even stop voting, won't that let the big money boys dominate our American government even more?
After all, Mark Twain only read Americans' minds when he wrote over 100 years ago, "There is no distinctly native criminal class except Congress." With a voter-approval rating of 9 percent, if congress people truly aren't profiting improperly from it, what does either house of Congress have to lose by completely banning insider trading?
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