U.S. Congress Inside Trading, Banking Scandals, The Euro

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Tue Nov 15, 2011 3:57 pm

Soooo... there was a report this Sunday on 60 Minutes (cbsnews.com) that pretty much concretely outlined the 'legal' inside trading that goes on in Congress. And in a blink-and-you'll-miss comment there's concrete evidence that several members of Congress (including Nancy Pelosi--Nancy, I am disappoint

) intentionally bet on the financial industry crashing and/or credit card reform failing to make profit.

With that out of the way, one seriously has to wonder whether the ECB's white-knuckled fear of inflation is just a cover for them betting on the crashing of the euro and making bank. I mean, Italy and Greece falls, Germany is going to have to do a massive internal bailout. Also very neatly avoids the necessary inflation required to bail the euro out. Of course this comes at the cost of a second financial crisis and a very, very likely second recession or worse. But if you have the right kind of information you could stand to make a fuckton of money.

Anyone checking Merkel/Surkozy's/ECB's/campaign contributers' stocks lately? The crash of the euro seems to be a given at this point, I'm just wondering if they're really greedy and venal enough to be intentionally trying to cause it to enrich themselves.

tzor · Post by **tzor** » Tue Nov 15, 2011 4:18 pm

You're dissapointed? Remove those blinders from your eyes and see the ultra liberal elite for who they are. Pelosi has always been the queen empress of the US. Everything she does is for the personal empowerment of herself (and her husband, who in turn empowers herself). The reason is simple, she thinks she is so important that she is above everything, the law, the people, everthing. She is the closest thing we will ever have to roayalty. She is the ultimate expression of elite entitlement.

She should be arrested, charged with treason, and when convicted, she should be sentenced to a fate worse than death ... LIFE WITHOUT BOTOX.

Yes, I know, the Supreme Court would probably declare life with botox cruel and unusial.

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Tue Nov 15, 2011 5:29 pm

Uh, so some legislators are capable of grasping the blindingly obvious and investing accordingly. Is this somehow a problem? I mean, the people who bet on the financial sector collapsing also publicly said that the financial sector was going to collapse if something was not done, and then something was not done and the financial sector collapsed.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Tue Nov 15, 2011 5:48 pm

name_here wrote:Uh, so some legislators are capable of grasping the blindingly obvious and investing accordingly. Is this somehow a problem? I mean, the people who bet on the financial sector collapsing also publicly said that the financial sector was going to collapse if something was not done, and then something was not done and the financial sector collapsed.

Pretty much this. People who advocated policies that would make the system fail less and then bet on the system failing some don't warrant my ire. People who advocated policies that would push the failures bigger and invested accordingly are criminals. It really isn't a subtle distinction either.

Lago wrote:With that out of the way, one seriously has to wonder whether the ECB's white-knuckled fear of inflation is just a cover for them betting on the crashing of the euro and making bank. I mean, Italy and Greece falls, Germany is going to have to do a massive internal bailout. Also very neatly avoids the necessary inflation required to bail the euro out. Of course this comes at the cost of a second financial crisis and a very, very likely second recession or worse. But if you have the right kind of information you could stand to make a fuckton of money.

The conspiracy theory you're looking for is that German investors are looking to make mad bank if Greece is forced to privatize a bunch of shit. So you have to consider the idea that a lot of the people in the Austerity Now Now Now! crowd are completely disingenuous and actually do understand how catastrophic it has been and will continue to be.

But again: people pushing for credit card reform and then making money off of it failing are very different from people fighting against credit card reform and making money off it failing. The first is civic virtue, the second is shallow self interest. People pushing for policies that are against their own financial self interest is not hypocrisy.

-Username17

Josh_Kablack · Post by **Josh_Kablack** » Tue Nov 15, 2011 5:57 pm

There is one and only one easy solution to the conflict of interest caused by having congresspeople allowed to trade on insider information. Allow it but insist on full disclosure.

And unlike George Will, I really mean full disclosure.

We have the technology. Every single congressperson (and higher government official) should be on live streaming 24/7 webcast video surveillance (with searchable archives) from the time they are sworn in until they leave office. They're supposed to be our leaders, so they can jolly well be 10 2 years ahead of the rest of the nation on this and start tomorrow.

Will this have unfortunate consequences, such as making foreign powers aware of precisely how much we spend on embarrassing military weapons programs and making a disturbing (ie nonzero) amount of congressional porn available for free over the internet? Yes.

But it would be well worth those costs in the ways it will improve governance and the efficiency of the markets.

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Tue Nov 15, 2011 7:51 pm

Full disclosure tends to fail against the mighty spin. Time and again "family values" politicians are caught cheating on their spouses, or anti-gay politicians are discovered having homosexual sex, and their constituents have an amazing ability to forget about their boldfaced hypocrisy.

tzor · Post by **tzor** » Tue Nov 15, 2011 9:34 pm

name_here wrote:Uh, so some legislators are capable of grasping the blindingly obvious and investing accordingly. Is this somehow a problem?

Yes, because for everyone else in the United States, it is a crime that results in time. Martha Stewart got jail time for much less involvement in insider trading. If I had the ability to ram an amendment to the consitution it would be that no legislature can ever make itself immune from the laws that it writes.

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Tue Nov 15, 2011 9:35 pm

Is it insider trading when the information and assessments are publicly disclosed?

tzor · Post by **tzor** » Tue Nov 15, 2011 9:41 pm

Josh_Kablack wrote:We have the technology. Every single congressperson (and higher government official) should be on live streaming 24/7 webcast video surveillance (with searchable archives) from the time they are sworn in until they leave office.

NO NO NO. A thousand times NO. Think of the secutiry problems.

I would reccomend at least a 6 hour delay.

And certain restrictions and blackouts (unless we are audio only) especially in the congressional showers. On the other hand do we really want to know how loud Congressperson Smith farts when on the toilet?

Besides who gives a crap about a congressperson, everyone knows the real people with all the power are his/her congressional staff. They see the lobbyists, they write all the stuff while he/she is not around. The information gained is therefore minimal.

Still, it would make great reality TV.

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Tue Nov 15, 2011 9:48 pm

virgil wrote:Is it insider trading when the information and assessments are publicly disclosed?

Not even a little bit.

tzor · Post by **tzor** » Tue Nov 15, 2011 9:50 pm

virgil wrote:Is it insider trading when the information and assessments are publicly disclosed?

Yes. If you act on information before that information becomes public then that's insider trading, even if you fully disclose afterwards.

Let's suppose you just heard that your colleguge just got the votes to get the amendment that would require mixed companies (like GE with it's financial division and it's manufactring division) to divest. You know that this will completely destroy GE's ability to use one side of the company to hide profits from the other side, resulting in it paying massive taxes. You have been told that you have the votes to pass this on the floor.

You sell ALL of your GE stocks.

IF you weren't a congressman, you would be looking at a multi-year jail term for that. Disclosure or not.

Now change the scenario and make the information classified, for your eyes only. And you act on it. For a congressman that's 100% legal because they wrote the fucking law to make it legal.

I heard a commentator joke that if you removed that, no politician would ever run for office again. Congressional seats would sit empty.

sabs · Post by **sabs** » Tue Nov 15, 2011 9:54 pm

I'd run for congress

the pay is good.
And really, I wouldn't mind passing laws to make Tzor froth at the mouth.

Count Arioch the 28th · Wed Nov 16, 2011 12:25 am

The second I get an abundance of money and some power, I'll be neck deep in whores as soon as humanly possible. However, I will never act otherwise. Hell, I'll make it part of my campaign promises.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Wed Nov 16, 2011 1:46 am

Count Arioch the 28th wrote:Hell, I'll make it part of my campaign promises.

I'd vote for you. Fuck, if you ran for PM in Australia on that ticket? You'd still have a good chance of making it, thanks to the popularity of the PM being in the gutter, and the only person doing worse being the opposition leader.

Also, on family values politicians (and looting the system): Skip to 1 minute in

Nice to see that it's still relevant ~25 years later!

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Wed Nov 16, 2011 2:12 am

Koumei wrote:... You'd still have a good chance of making it...

What do you mean good chance? What do you mean because the current one is unpopular?

Are you actually that young that you don't remember Bob Hawk.

He basically did this already. And while largely drunk to boot.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Wed Nov 16, 2011 2:24 am

PhoneLobster wrote: What do you mean good chance? What do you mean because the current one is unpopular?

Are you actually that young that you don't remember Bob Hawk.

He basically did this already. And while largely drunk to boot.

27, so... possibly. Though really I just didn't pay attention to politics until... well, I only vaguely paid attention to Keating vs Howard, and prior to that might have thought we still got all our laws from Her Maj, for all I can remember. I only actually paid real attention roughly around "Howard's second term, which I tried to prevent", and even then, it wasn't that in-depth. My main dive into politics was when GNW went back on air after the end of Howard.

Count Arioch the 28th · Wed Nov 16, 2011 3:34 pm

Koumei wrote:
Count Arioch the 28th wrote:Hell, I'll make it part of my campaign promises.
I'd vote for you. Fuck, if you ran for PM in Australia on that ticket? You'd still have a good chance of making it, thanks to the popularity of the PM being in the gutter, and the only person doing worse being the opposition leader.

If you help me get elected, I'll even arrange for some whores for you as well. Just send your preferences for age, body type, and ethnicity 2 weeks in advance.

Although if I was in Australia, I'd probably want to play with the cool spiders you have there too. American spiders are boring.

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Wed Nov 16, 2011 5:18 pm

That really WOULD get Count elected...