So the lid is blown off insider trading by congress... Kerry makes 111 pharmacy trades, while urging support of community pharmacy access..Pelosi hubby rakes in millions in trades... all based on insider trading.. just what the SEC is putting people in jail for. Dennis Hastert..just happens to won land where a federal highway gets an earmarks...More scum from scum... Well OCCUPY WALL STREET... ? They all do it...
Do play the video.
Funny you didn't mention Boehner...but anyways, yes. This is clearly a law that needs to be changed asap!
Doesn't make Wall Street less guilty for their part in all of this but yes. Hopefully this 60 minutes story will put an end to it and raise awareness...wait...60 minutes?? CBS?? That liberal cesspool?!?! Ran this story! OMG! Next you're going to tell me there is no war against Christmas.
I couldn't mention them all... it would be the congressional roll call. I put in Hastert... and Bohner is in da video... CBS understands ratings... 60 minutes if one of the few programs people watch. Wall Street will always do what is has done. No surprises there. At least I KNOW what the interests of Wall Street are... they are predictable. We keep running to the wolves to protect us from the fox. What is it? A bigger grin? Wall Street has an enabler..and they pay a pretty cheap price for it.
Just one more thing...now i don't condone such programs as Two and a half men and the big bang theory...but CBS last week had 5 of the top ten rated shows on television. Just saying..."60 minutes is one of the few programs people watch" is a wildly inaccurate statement.
I have stated all along the press is the watchdog of the government. 60 minutes did their job.
Which brings us to another point. Why does congress have their own rules? They do not deserve their pensions, their healthcare, their "inside trading" benefits.
Until these jerks are thrown out and their houses reformed, the American people will continue to get used by our elected officials.
redblack
Member Profile
yep. further proof that wall street owns our government. but don't blame government itself; blame the politicians and money-changers who corrupted it.
michele bachmann might want her country back - whatever the hell that means - but i want my government back.
Yardvark
Member Profile
Great to see you joining the Occupation, kootchman. (If that's what you're saying.) I absolutely agree.
It's absurd that Congress is allowed to take bribes and then collude with each other to influence laws that directly benefit them. The bribery needs to stop and the many, obvious conflicts of interest need to be recognized.
I think this is definitely one point that we all agree on!
Yardvark
:)
It's been kicking around for awhile. The 28th Amendment.
"Congress shall make no law that applies to the citizens of the United States that does not apply equally to the Senators and Representatives; and, Congress shall make no law that applies to the Senators and Representatives that does not apply equally to the citizens of the United States." Congress shall make no laws that exempt them from the provisions of federal law.
Kman..we may not see eye to eye on lots of things, but I agree with you on this one..
Watched the "60 Minutes" link (thanks, Kootch) and I like Brian Baird's proposed bill. Unfortunately, it doesn't go nearly far enough. For example, it doesn't require politicians to put their money into a blind trust. All it says is that politicians have to report their trades more often and that they shouldn't make a stock trade based on "non-public info." How exactly are you going to police that one? To prove guilt, you would have to prove the politician KNEW how a proposed law was going to affect the share price of a given stock they profited from. And that's a lot harder case to make than it sounds. You can't base it just on hearsay or supposition. You've got to have a paper trail, e-mail records, wiretapped conversations, etc.
In fact, insider trading generally is a helluva lot harder to bust on than people think. Consider this real-life example:
****************************************************************************************
My friend works for a local Boeing subcontractor. A few years ago the company started pushing hard for employees to invest in the company, and this naturally helped push the stock price up. As soon as the price peaked out, though, the VP dumped a ton of his shares, and then Ka-POW! —The stock dropped precipitously on the news of some new law or airline order deal that fell through.
The VP cashed in and the humble employees got screwed. Was this "insider trading"? You bet it was! But how you gonna prove that? The VP filed a timely report on his stock trade, which was all he was required to do by law.
***************************************************************************************
Think about it: Who's an "insider" exactly?
Do you work at a publicly traded company? Then you're an insider of that company, because you know more than the average Joe about that company's plans.
Do you tell your friends about what's going on at your company? —Presto / Change-o! Now they're insiders, too.
And I haven't even mentioned all those folks (and there are many) who control so much stock in a given company that they can affect the share price simply by making a major sale or purchase.
They're ALL insiders, but there's just no way in hell you can prove that they were trying to profit from some special knowledge of a stock on any given trade they make.
I'm not saying we shouldn't try to regulate insider trading, but we've gotta be realistic about the percentages, because really, it's just too big to even get a handle on. This is why I favor boosting the capital gains tax over trying to nab insider traders. With a higher capital gains tax, cheaters — including those in Congress — will never be able to get away clean.
It's simple: The more they steal, the more they have to pay back into the kitty. We can take the tax money now when we need it and nab the cheaters later, when we have time.
See how that works?
They just simply shouldn't be allowed to benefit at all. I have a lot of rules I am required to follow from the AICPA. Specifically rules about ownership of public companies where I might be engaged on an audit. All of these rules are to remove any possibility that my knowledge as an accountant could not would be used to benefit me financially.
Plain and simply put they shouldn't be allowed to make money like this.
Bostonman, everything you've said here leads me to believe you're an honest dude. But if you weren't such an honest dude, what's to stop you from cashing in on your knowledge as an accountant? AICPA rules? Ha!
Just sitting here on the toilet, I can think of at least a dozen ways you could cheat without even a remote possibility of getting caught.
What? What!?
Did I just say something?
Why y'all lookin' at me like that?
Well technically you are right. I could do it but if I get caught I would lose my CPA license with no chance of getting it back. My career would be ruined, I wouldn't be able to get a job as an accountant pretty much anywhere.
No amount of money is worth that to me.
It should be abundantly clear that there is no separation of church and state, if you will, between the government (elected and hired) and corporate America (lobbyists, consultants, CEO's, etc.) and never has been. It is a revolving door and the insiders become the outsiders and vice versa on a constant basis and they all profit politically or financially or both. Unfortunately, the Supremes seemed to have joined the herd lately, although maybe that's the way its always been, and they're just getting more exposure lately. And 'the media' (which used to be the 'free press') has also joined the game as the ownership limitations have been eroded, in part because they can be such huge revenue producers (unlike the days of Walter Cronkite.)
A recent concept from the White House that hasn't gotten much ink is to require Executive branch agencies to publish letters from members of Congress in which they request special treatment for a company in their district, pet project, etc. Apparently, these letters have become quite common in response to the earmark ban. Interestingly, this proposal builds on action taken by Bush43, which banned federal agencies from accepting funding requests from members of Congress unless those requests were specifically included in legislative texts.
http://nationaljournal.com/whitehouse/text-of-draft-executive-memo-20111105
Also, a link in a recent article on the home page on the Triangle rezoning issue caught my eye. The link included a letter from the Seattle Planning Commission that had this info on the back page (just incl. a few as a sample):
SEATTLE PLANNING COMMISSION RECORD OF DISCLOSURE & RECUSAL:
- Catherine Benotto disclosed that her firm, Weber Thompson, works on commercial and multifamily projects throughout the city and that she served on the West Seattle Triangle Advisory Board representing the Planning Commission.
- Commissioner Josh Brower disclosed that his firm, Brower Law, represents developers of commercial and multifamily property throughout the city.
- Commissioner Matt Roewe disclosed that his firm, VIA Architecture, provides design and planning services to transit agencies, the city of Seattle and private sector developers in Seattle.
While I routinely had to sign waivers that I didn't own stock in bus mfgrs, etc., I never saw anything similar in my years working for the gubmint; wonder if we could require all elected officials and bureaucrats to do the same thing.
waynster
Member Profile
Wait you mean politicians are corrupt no way.... they take cash from lobbyist and do insider trading no way..... not in this goverment never happens never has....just like kman is bleeding heart liberal(sorry kman).....and wallstreet is inocent.... war never happens...now if anyone believes all that BS then they have a nice padded room reserved for them at western state......
Wonder if we could require all elected officials and bureaucrats to [declare all potential conflicts of interest]
—metrognome.
The long answer is "No." Oh, you could always ask, but it'd be a nightmare trying to police something like that.
Progressively raising the capital gains tax is really the simplest and fairest way to address this. Contrary to the assertions of some conservatives here, it's not that scary. We don't want to penalize people like Bostonman for making a little profit on his nest-egg investments. But when a Denny Hastert or a Nancy Pelosi cleans up on a one-day IPO trade, that profit should be reported and taxed accordingly. Like at 90%.
Follow the money, people. Follow it, and tax it.
redblack
Member Profile
our congress has become a little too big for their breeches, so to speak.
how about we ban them from buying or selling stock altogether while they're in the capitol?
how about we base their health care benefits and pensions on their tenure?
howzabout we tie their salary raises to the consumer price index?
what about if they're not in the capitol doing their constituents' business, they're not on the clock? make 'em punch in and out.
don't get me started on lobbyists. we should all be occupying K street in DC.
Yea redblack.. you posted this
"yep. further proof that wall street owns our government. but don't blame government itself; blame the politicians and money-changers who corrupted it."
There are TWO essential partners to a bribe. Congress actively SOLICITS the bribes.
thank you for saying Congress and not differentiating between parties..it's time they all got their s*%t together...
redblack said "what about if they're not in the capitol doing their constituents' business, they're not on the clock? make 'em punch in and out."
I just recently heard that Congresspersons will be actually on the job, in session for a whole 138 days next year. I will try to find a source for that. But here's an eye opener about this year. I'd like to see how it breaks down as pay per hour actually "working"...
I hope everyone is going to pay attention to Congress right after Christmas and make sure they don't vote themselves a raise in 2011. As I understand it, they are automatically raised every January....that aboslutely needs to be stopped immediately.
What is it going to take to get Washington under control and don't any of you dare respond to me with a "get rid of Obama" statement. I am tired of the stupidity and laziness on the part of the voting public. They need to read, and think for themselves and not let windbags like Newt G. and Fox News tell them what " the facts are"!
Congress is a disaster....the attitude in this country is a disaster. How can anyone seriously consider listening to someone who says that the sole purpose of their party is to get rid of the sitting President....from the day he took office?
I am sure I remember any critisim of that overgrown Frat Boy we had to endure was always met with a scolding that we were unpatriotic.
????? But on a humorous side.....anyone in for an endorphin boost??? Watch Dave Richert's new campaign add! It is hilarious....they have it staged like he is addressing ...Congress, someone?? whatever...figure it out for yourself.
And my last comment......remember when ...well,if you are old enough...the publisher withdrew publishing more of RobertMacNarmara's mea culpa...well, let's boycott the man rewriting history...let's hear it for DICK...TORTURE...CHENEY! I actually watched the Fox interview on Saturday....with Sean, the Genius,Hannity.......it was so pathetic it really kind of made me sick.
hellonwheels206...
love your attitude...
would love it even if i didn't agree with it ;->
Get rid of Obama. Oh pray tell, give us YOUR list of enlightened, non-partisan sources of voter education sources. I can't wait for the 2012 sound bites...juxtaposed. This should be good, a retrospective on the campaign pledges of 2007, the actual results, and of course the excuses... How many #1 priorities has he had now? Let's see, Immigration Reform, Jobs (that was a good one) open and transparant government, 8% unemployment, 2/12/ "New" private sector jobs, no earmark legislation signed, ... AND... of course... BUSH DID IT! solo or with his WSB chorus...add high water marks for corporate.congressional cronyism... and profligate spending that would make Bush blush. 16.5 Trillion, 8, billion of deficit spending per day, .. he's da man!
dobro
Member Profile
Even in this digital era, one can recognize the sound of a broken record.
Oh pray tell, give us YOUR list of enlightened, non-partisan sources of voter education sources.
As I explained on another thread, there's no such thing as a "non-partisan" source of news. Therefore, the best one can do is to gather and compare information from MANY different sources (including personal experience) and then decide for oneself what's true.
Kootch..that's so damned constructive I don't know where to begin. All you do is complain, complain, complain. You flame, you try to get people riled up. It works sometimes. But..it's getting old. You cannot come up with ideas, suggestions, how to make anything better, except the infernal "flat tax" argument. Sadly (I'll bite) Bush did do a big part of it. And you damned well know it. But it's easier to blame it all on the sitting president. I cannot imagine why anyone of the Repubs vying for candidacy wants the job. You and I both know it's not up to the president alone. And if you think we're in trouble now? Ha ha ha ha...with a do nothing Congress? Oh, no..this week Congress is not tackling jobs or the economy. This week they're tackling whether or not the mighty military can apprehend and hold indefinitely Americans here in our own country. I'm sure that as long as it says "In God We Trust" on it, it's all good :-/
Getta grip.. re-read post 22.. a thinkalike posting is not inflammatory? I know, not in Jan world it's not. . As to why a Repub would want the job... the perks are great, and the bar has never been lower. Lower taxes, cut spending. Yep, so simple it defies imagination. Funny, in trip down WSB memory lane... all the "wonderful examples of Euro health care, 38 hour work weeks, month vacations, were touted as the 8th wonders of the world..etc etc etc etc... and where are they now? SItting in the White House broke, destitute, and trying to stave off the reckoning....begging for help from someone slightly less broke. It's called a spending problem. Here is the latest from the WWW ... even in these times, you'd think instead of fudging numbers and playing pander games, we'd get a straightforward appraisal .nope..more shifty dealing, obfuscating. The Way of The Democrat. http://www.king5.com/home/Fact-check-Has-Washington-cut-budget-by-105-billion-Hardly-134564258.html
Funny, in trip down WSB memory lane... wonderful examples of Euro health care [...] and where are they now? SItting in the White House broke, destitute, and trying to stave off the reckoning....begging for help from someone slightly less broke.
—What? Where is WHO now?
The King 5 article you linked to claims that Gregoire is stretching the amount of budget cuts she's made.
Yeah, that's probably true. Gregoire's exaggerating.
********* NEWS FLASH ******* NEWS FLASH ********** NEWS FLASH *********
POLITICIAN CAUGHT EXAGGERATING !!!!
I'm so tired of you telling me to get a grip, like I'm somehow deluded. I did read post 22. And I found your attempt at "humor" humorless. You added nothing to the conversation. You don't know my world, and thankfully, I don't know about yours much. You condescend like your word is golden and the only truth out there...sorry if I don't believe it.
"It's called a spending problem"
kootch...
i did exactly what you said to do.
i reread #22
and it made me smile just as much the second time around
thanks!
i needed that
it's been a long long day
The "who" is the European Economic Council.... because they don't have the reserves to bail out the democratic socialists, they want a participation of the IMF.. and of course, WE the US taxpayers pick up a smidge over 21% of all the IMF loans obligations. The debt cost, is rising because the credit rating is falling, and when debt exceed growth of GDP... you are a tanked economy. The want cheap IMF money would be my guess, at below market rates. Sorta the direction we are going. See Fitch's US Debt
"The summit meeting came as the United States received a reminder of its own debt woes. Fitch Ratings lowered the country’s ratings outlook to negative from stable, though it maintained its sterling AAA grade for United States debt"
Ms. DBL for your perusal
You say she is exaggerating... lying through her teeth?
kootchman...
only fools put themselves into hock with the IMF...
Desperate people do desperate things. Hence the cautionary tale, let us not become desperate, over leveraged, fiscal basket cases, any more than we are. Imagine, we have picked up the defense tab for Europe for the last 60 years, so they could give out the party favors to their liberal/socialists and STILL they ran the pork train off the rails. Proving once again the sage advice of one B. Franklin, one of the 1st 1% .
“Once the people find they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the Republic.” – Benjamin Franklin
kootchman...
the pork train is not the problem.
A recent leaked report admitted that austerity measures are not going to save the economies of Greece or any of the other troubled Euro economies.
Austerity measures mean that citizens have no money and without money there is nothing to fuel an economy...
basic economy 101.
this is pure politics.
want to talk about priorities..
here's an eyeful
http://thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/visualizing.jpg
Gosh.. i wonder where we could cut spending to make our economy more viable?
It's not a "leaked" report. Every analyst in the world says it is near impossible to save the wreck. And where is all the money? Where did all that wealth (you said in a previous post was in Greece.. ) go?
Austerity means they spent it all... they went on a socialist binge of spending and borrowing for 40 years or so... and no there is no more. No matter how much ya shake em up and down, there is no more money to get out of the pockets. At the least, smile and say the party was fun while it lasted, but the binge is over. Now you have to figure out how to generate wealth, faster than you spend it. You have to take a moribund society, circa 60's Soviet Bloc and make it more productive than the government is parasitic. It's going to be tough. Nice link... the point being we spend too much on defense? I'll agree to that. Now, start cutting... and throw the other on the bon fire too.. entitlements. But it ain't going to come from taxation..or you can wave as the good ship USS Capital goes saling over the horizon.
waynster
Member Profile
It was the wall street collapes that brought most of the world on its knees that and bad investments kootch you know when paper isn't backed by money happens every time when the greedy get greedier and can't stop... not to worry though the end is near dec 21 2012 lmao
kootch...
we spend way too much on defense..
so let's cut the safety net for our citizens first?
yeah.. that makes sense
redblack
Member Profile
blah blah blah socialists blah moribund blah soviets blah blah euro blah blah blah.
if what you say about parasitic governments is true, kootch, maybe you can point out all of the fatcat welfare queens driving cadillacs and eating filet mignon - $16 trillion worth! - on your dime.
the only parasites i see around here make more than $1 million per year, aren't investing, and aren't hiring. and they haven't been forced to give up a damned thing.
perish the thought!
It's not a safety net, which implies an emergency safety device... one used in the event of an accident... no, we have an enduring, deep foundation, quake and weatherproof, towering edifice of permanent entitlements. The holy of holies in the socialist spending pantheon.
kootch...
all a matter of perception isn't it...
those who are using it now because some fat cat investors couldn't resist snookering America's pension funds and collapsing our economy see it differently
so would you if you needed it
JoB ...Europe..an IMF client,,treatment formally reserved for underdeveloped nations,...seems the entire continent of Europe is about to become fools. But we are even the bigger ones! Now, Ms. JoB you tell me, how do you invest your pension funds...401K's where the entire Euro structure is at risk of collapse, the 7 major US banks took all that good QE money, and invested in Euro debt...and AGAIN have to be bailed out.. AGAIN! Remember when i said..and you cried no no no...that we should have forced a suspension of some portion of principal and let the banks ride the appreciation curve with the homeowner for later redemption? Ya wanna know who is going to escape this fiasco? Anyone holding equities in those companies with retained offshore earnings. They will get dividend income. The only liquidity in the market is corporate retained earnings. Aren't you glad the federal government didn't get it's hand on it! Whew, that was close. Your pension fund? It wasn't "snookered" it still exists..the market doesn't value much, and won't be for years to come. Cash conserving companies are the last line for a recovery. I hope the socialists stay away from them. We will need them to inflate the ballon again.. cause the government sure doesn't have it does it? $42 trillion private debt, 16 Trillion deficits, 3.7 Trillion operating budget, 8 billion per day additional deficit debt, and god know what the QE 1,2 .. 8 Trillion is going to do to to the economy. And this is going to be dumped on the upper 10%..... to fix by raising the marginal tax rate to 32%? Oh boy. .. You know who got killed in the last depression? The same people who are getting killed in this one. The same people who escaped the last one? The same ones who will escape this one. This wasn't an equities failure... this was a government cronyism, Wall Street engineered debacle. In fifty years the history books will write the tale all over again. A two volume set..The Congress That Couldn't Say NO. and The Citizens Who Voted for More. We did it... we exhausted the system. What pied piper will come along next that will promise the only thing we will vote for.. a promise for a painless fix with more stuff. In the midst of this looming crisis, Seattle was painting little green bicycle boxes in the street. Our state was trying to raise taxes instead of cutting budgets and reducing compensation, and nationally, we had a three month camp-o-rama called "Occupy" .. and we drained the citizens bone dry. And ya know how bad it really is? Soros and all the major deriviative fund managers had a courtesy meeting at the Treasury last month...ya know what they asked for? US Government to back foreign debt and protect bank investments in European debt. ...and everyone laughed... until today. Wonder what his derivative straddle was? Now that he is done with us... "Move On .org"... ya bother me." Austerity means...the government cuts back when the citizens have no money..not put them in hock for the forseeable future.
kootch...
i have no intention of playing in your alternate reality in which the only thing that matters is the bottom line of America's big business.
We the people Kootch...
Not.. we the business community
OK then....the business community is we the people.. a social construct like any other. Only this particular community creates the common currency we use. It has a limited carrying capacity.
kootch...
you seem to have forgotten what propelled this nation to become different than say.. canada...
it was lack of economic opportunity.. created by governance that was controlled by the interests of global businesses.
yup.. global businesses...
imagine that .. 200+ years ago
local economic opportunity has a limited carrying capacity when the governing agency is global business.
From a historical perspective...
you might want to take a good look at what happened in the country supporting those global businesses following our little social experiment.
there are some real lessons to be learned there.
a rant by Dylan Ratigan...money in politics, etc...
Did ya see it? The Italian Welfare minister literally in tears, when she read the full import of what happens to the safety net when the private sector is overtaxed, the public debt too high, and the house of cards comes crashing down. My liberal friends, tis what happens when largesse exceeds carrying capacity, and capital flees offshore or gets parked in gold or commodity futures. When you have to pay 4 full percentage points over the worlds top tier soverign funds rate cause you are so deep in debt and still can't fund the goodies basket... At 6.4 per cent, investors still preferred German debt at 1.9%.... deficits do hurt.
Elsa Fornero .... meets the word "austerity".....
I do know JoB... the empire came out of the 19th century awash in cash. British capital funded US rails, the canal system, steamship yards, the beef processing industry, Steel.. etc.. it was the finance center of the world until the 50's, insurance giants still.... and we? We cam out of the 20th century a debtor nation.
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