Wealthiest members of Congress have prospered since recession

[DonViejo]

Source: WaPo


Saturday, October 6, 2012 11:51:12 PM

National News Alert

Wealthiest members of Congress have prospered since recession


The wealthiest one-third of lawmakers were largely immune from the Great Recession, taking the fewest financial hits and watching their investments quickly recover and rise to new heights. But more than 20 percent of the members of the current Congress — 121 lawmakers — appeared to be worse off in 2010 than they had been six years earlier, and 24 saw their reported wealth slide into negative territory.

Those findings emerge from an ongoing examination of congressional finances by The Washington Post, which analyzed thousands of financial disclosure forms and public records for all members of Congress.




Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/capitol-assets-congresss-wealthiest-mostly-shielded-in-deep-recession/2012/10/06/5a70605c-102f-11e2-acc1-e927767f41cd_story.html

[midnight]

1. Insider trading has worked out very well for them....

[davidthegnome]

3. Indeed

Ah, these must be the "makers" Paul Ryan was talking about...

[2pooped2pop]

4. +1000 n/t

[karynnj]

5. There is no need to assume insider trading

The key is that they did not sell off the assets at the bottom of the market. ANYONE with diverse investments in the market in 2008, who left the money in the market through until about 2010/2011 would have seen their values recover. The DJIA is now higher than it was in September 2008. Friday it closed at a FIVE year high. The market was slowly declining in 2007 before falling off the cliff in 2008. The people hurt were those who needed the money in that interval when the market was slightly more than half what it was in either 2008 (before the fall) or 2011.

Note that this speaks ONLY of the value of people's capital assets. No one who remained in the Congress saw their wage income decrease or disappear. (There were people not re-elected but they are not included because the article is of people in Congress. ) Some of their examples of extraneous gains - like the Congressman who got married or the Congressman whose wife got family money are not unique to Congress. I would bet that most of us became at least slightly more wealthy upon marriage - even when marrying someone with similar wealth.

What this does point out has NOTHING to do with Congress.

The average financial value now for stocks and other financial assets is back to the 2007 level (which was higher than 2008). Anyone whose job was secure and who was not forced to give back salary and who had stocks they did not need to sell is most likely slightly ahead now. Almost everyone in Congress likely falls into this definition.

The average WAGE is not and the availability of jobs is not back to 2007 (or 2008). So, if you needed a first job, lost your job, or saw your wages go down (or not increase at the rate of inflation), this economy has been a disaster.

This is essentially what Occupy Wall Street said - and what any number of Democrats have spoken of as an increase in the income gap. (2 Americas is more than a recurrent Democratic theme, it explains just what happened in the last 3 decades.)

[valerief]

2. Jesus H!

Another Californian has consistently ranked in the top five of the richest House members: Rep. Darrell Issa (R). He has also been one of the most successful investors on Capitol Hill, with estimated wealth of $448 million in 2010, according to The Post’s analysis.
<snip>
Issa appeared to lose about $90 million in 2008, but his portfolio regained an estimated $197 million within two years of the financial meltdown.

[Wilms]

6. And some of them are Ds. n/t