4 ms·

Congress had an exemption up until recently on all insider trading so it wasn't illegal for her. It's good to write the rules. Looking at the starting and ret

Congress had an exemption up until recently on all insider trading so it wasn't illegal for her. It's good to write the rules. Looking at the starting and retiring net worth of a Congress person is a bit painful.

josho 6y ago
What makes me ill is that the insider trading rule makes sense. It protects congress from lawsuits when their mutual fund or ETF owns Tesla and they benefit by enacting laws that benefit their constituents, but that have downsides for others. The rule however assumes that congress conducts themselves ethically, and evidently that is clearly not the case.
- nradov 6y ago
  Allowing insider trading by politicians makes no sense. Ethical politicians place their assets into blind trusts. Unfortunately that isn't mandatory.
- toast0 6y ago
  My spouse was an elected official in California, and we had to fill out Form 700; diversified mutual funds didn't need to be disclosed as long as they met the definitions (at least 100 investors, at least 15 issuers, not a sector fund). Of course, Form 700 doesn't apply to federal officials elected to represent California; but a similar disclosure requirement / duty to avoid apparent conflict of interest would be nice at the federal level. It should be pretty simple for most elected officials to dump their publicly traded stock and get into a diversified mutual fund before they start campaigning and while they hold office. For those who have concentrated holdings that are hard to dump, they could put it into a blind trust or whatever. Office holders really shouldn't be making a lot of trades; equity based compensation aside (either of their spouse or if they're a part time officer where those still exist, and have a part time job with equity based compensation)
- kevinventullo 6y ago
  There are ways to deal with that. For example, I’m not allowed to buy or sell my own company’s shares outside of specific trading windows, but index funds are fine as long as the company represents less than 10% of the fund.
- llampx 6y ago
  There's a WORLD of a difference between a mutual fund or ETF that owns Tesla, and buying call options on the stock, that make money only if the stock moves in a definite time-frame. We have other examples too, for example Kelly Loeffler, whose husband is head honcho of the NYSE, sold a lot of stocks just before the Feb/March crash in 2020, based on insider information that she got from attending the Congress briefings that showed it was not just a flu.
joseph_grobbles 6y ago
EDIT: LOL, the WSB sort are here downvoting everything that doesn't parrot their embarrassing horseshit. YEAH, TAKE DOWN THE BIG WIGS! That isn't remotely insider trading, and the slur is farcical. Ignoring that Tesla is one of the largest publicly traded companies in the world (it's what, 5th largest in the world now?), anyone on the planet knew that the Biden admin was going to push low emissions, green energy, etc. This was all public plans. There is positively nothing "insider" about that. And buying some call options when it's at some all-time highs is about the shittiest way to exercise "insider" info.
- boogies 6y ago
  > EDIT: LOL, the WSB sort are here downvoting everything that doesn't parrot their embarrassing [expletive]. YEAH, TAKE DOWN THE BIG WIGS! Chillax, you’re breaking at least one of the site guidelines https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html#comments https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html#comments. Edit: specifically “Please don't use uppercase for emphasis. If you want to emphasize a word or phrase, put *asterisks* around it and it will get italicized.” Would appreciate if I could get similar clarification on exactly why my comment has lost karma.
  - nefitty 6y ago
    There’s already ways to give negative feedback on a comment. You can downvote or flag, or even just collapse a comment so it doesn’t bother you. It comes off as presumptuous when people point at rules, thereby pulling the thread into a tangential meta conversation.
    - kbenson 6y ago
      Then all you get is people asking why they were downvoted. IMO downvoting should include a comment if one doesn't already exist sufficiently explaining your reason for downvoting. That doesn't mean it needs to turn into a discussion if they defend themselves, but I think some indication of why is almost always warranted.
handedness 6y ago
Common misconception, as most didn't hear much about it beyond its initial signing. Congress still has that exemption. I believe you're referring to the STOCK Act, of 2012, which cramped their style for a little over a year. In 2013, Senator Harry Reid introduced S.716, which after 14 seconds of discussion was passed by unanimous consent. Its net effect was to make the rest of STOCKS untrackable, and therefore unreportable and unenforceable. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STOCK_Act#Amendment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STOCK_Act#Amendment https://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2013/04/16/177496734/how-congress-quietly-overhauled-its-insider-trading-law https://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2013/04/16/17749...

josho 6y ago

What makes me ill is that the insider trading rule makes sense. It protects congress from lawsuits when their mutual fund or ETF owns Tesla and they benefit by enacting laws that benefit their constituents, but that have downsides for others. The rule however assumes that congress conducts themselves ethically, and evidently that is clearly not the case.

nradov 6y ago
Allowing insider trading by politicians makes no sense. Ethical politicians place their assets into blind trusts. Unfortunately that isn't mandatory.
toast0 6y ago
My spouse was an elected official in California, and we had to fill out Form 700; diversified mutual funds didn't need to be disclosed as long as they met the definitions (at least 100 investors, at least 15 issuers, not a sector fund). Of course, Form 700 doesn't apply to federal officials elected to represent California; but a similar disclosure requirement / duty to avoid apparent conflict of interest would be nice at the federal level. It should be pretty simple for most elected officials to dump their publicly traded stock and get into a diversified mutual fund before they start campaigning and while they hold office. For those who have concentrated holdings that are hard to dump, they could put it into a blind trust or whatever. Office holders really shouldn't be making a lot of trades; equity based compensation aside (either of their spouse or if they're a part time officer where those still exist, and have a part time job with equity based compensation)
kevinventullo 6y ago
There are ways to deal with that. For example, I’m not allowed to buy or sell my own company’s shares outside of specific trading windows, but index funds are fine as long as the company represents less than 10% of the fund.
llampx 6y ago
There's a WORLD of a difference between a mutual fund or ETF that owns Tesla, and buying call options on the stock, that make money only if the stock moves in a definite time-frame. We have other examples too, for example Kelly Loeffler, whose husband is head honcho of the NYSE, sold a lot of stocks just before the Feb/March crash in 2020, based on insider information that she got from attending the Congress briefings that showed it was not just a flu.

joseph_grobbles 6y ago

EDIT: LOL, the WSB sort are here downvoting everything that doesn't parrot their embarrassing horseshit. YEAH, TAKE DOWN THE BIG WIGS! That isn't remotely insider trading, and the slur is farcical. Ignoring that Tesla is one of the largest publicly traded companies in the world (it's what, 5th largest in the world now?), anyone on the planet knew that the Biden admin was going to push low emissions, green energy, etc. This was all public plans. There is positively nothing "insider" about that. And buying some call options when it's at some all-time highs is about the shittiest way to exercise "insider" info.

boogies 6y ago
> EDIT: LOL, the WSB sort are here downvoting everything that doesn't parrot their embarrassing [expletive]. YEAH, TAKE DOWN THE BIG WIGS! Chillax, you’re breaking at least one of the site guidelines https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html#comments https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html#comments. Edit: specifically “Please don't use uppercase for emphasis. If you want to emphasize a word or phrase, put *asterisks* around it and it will get italicized.” Would appreciate if I could get similar clarification on exactly why my comment has lost karma.
- nefitty 6y ago
  There’s already ways to give negative feedback on a comment. You can downvote or flag, or even just collapse a comment so it doesn’t bother you. It comes off as presumptuous when people point at rules, thereby pulling the thread into a tangential meta conversation.
  - kbenson 6y ago
    Then all you get is people asking why they were downvoted. IMO downvoting should include a comment if one doesn't already exist sufficiently explaining your reason for downvoting. That doesn't mean it needs to turn into a discussion if they defend themselves, but I think some indication of why is almost always warranted.

handedness 6y ago

Common misconception, as most didn't hear much about it beyond its initial signing. Congress still has that exemption. I believe you're referring to the STOCK Act, of 2012, which cramped their style for a little over a year. In 2013, Senator Harry Reid introduced S.716, which after 14 seconds of discussion was passed by unanimous consent. Its net effect was to make the rest of STOCKS untrackable, and therefore unreportable and unenforceable. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STOCK_Act#Amendment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STOCK_Act#Amendment https://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2013/04/16/177496734/how-congress-quietly-overhauled-its-insider-trading-law https://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2013/04/16/17749...