2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumMembers of Congress trade in companies while making laws that affect those same firms
One-hundred-thirty members of Congress or their families have traded stocks collectively worth hundreds of millions of dollars in companies lobbying on bills that came before their committees, a practice that is permitted under current ethics rules, a Washington Post analysis has found.
The lawmakers bought and sold a total of between $85 million and $218 million in 323 companies registered to lobby on legislation that appeared before them, according to an examination of all 45,000 individual congressional stock transactions contained in computerized financial disclosure data from 2007 to 2010.
Almost one in every eight trades 5,531 intersected with legislation. The 130 lawmakers traded stocks or bonds in companies as bills passed through their committees or while Congress was still considering the legislation. The party affiliation of the lawmakers was almost evenly split between Democrats and Republicans, 68 to 62.
Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) reported buying $25,000 in bonds in a genetic-technology company around the time that he released a hold on legislation the firm supported. Rep. Ed Whitfield (R-Ky.) sold between $50,000 and $100,000 in General Electric stock shortly before a Republican filibuster killed legislation sought by the company. The family of Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Tex.) bought between $286,000 and $690,000 in a high-tech company interested in a bill under his committees jurisdiction.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/members-of-congress-trade-in-companies-while-making-laws-that-affect-those-same-firms/2012/06/23/gJQAlXwVyV_story.html?wpisrc=al_excl
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Congress is a club for high rollers in politics.....
Lugnut
(9,791 posts)global1
(25,242 posts)You do realize that if we common folk traded on inside knowledge - we be put in jail. Just ask Martha Stewart. And I don't really consider Martha a 'common folk'.
Iggy
(1,418 posts)wait, that should be US of A = FAIL.
Problem: In Bloggo world, daily there are 1,000's of "progressives" attacking, ridiculing
and mocking Rmoney. All while _ignoring_ what the wealthy one percenters in congress (most of
them lackeys of the one percent) are doing.
Weak, very weak.
polichick
(37,152 posts)Our whole system is corrupt and broken.
Control-Z
(15,682 posts)What did Martha Stewart go to jail for again?