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The very people whose job it should be to stop this sort of thing are the ones who are profiting from it. How do you change this? No really, how can we force c

by mabbo 6y ago

The very people whose job it should be to stop this sort of thing are the ones who are profiting from it. How do you change this? No really, how can we force congress to change the rules so that elected officials can't profit from inside information? Why would they ever vote for such a bill?

maxwell 6y ago
Constitutional amendment?
- mabbo 6y ago
  And who would be voting on those? > An amendment may be proposed and sent to the states for ratification by either: > The U.S. Congress, whenever a two-thirds majority in both the Senate and the House of Representatives deem it necessary; or > A national convention, called by Congress for this purpose, on the application of the legislatures of two-thirds of the states (34 since 1959). The convention option has never been used. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_amendments_to_the_United_States_Constitution https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_amendments_to_the_Un...
  - meepmorp 6y ago
    Participants in a constitutional convention?
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - chrisco255 6y ago
    The state national convention route is the most likely route to work if you really want to reign in Congress.
- gumby 6y ago
  That's a very blunt instrument and difficult to get the wording correct.
  - throwaway0a5e 6y ago
    See also: "Infringed" "Papers and effects" "not delegated to the United States by the Constitution" And many others.... No matter how clear you are they just ignore it like it's not there.
- michaelmrose 6y ago
  How about initiative and referendum in the 26 states that have such processes and agitating for such processes in the states that don't.
abfan1127 6y ago
trying to stop the trades is the wrong fix. The right fix is remove their ability to affect markets. Getting to choose winners and losers will always create opportunity to abuse this privilege.
- jrockway 6y ago
  I disagree with this. The people we elect to govern have to be able to govern. But, they maybe don't need to have any business holdings / stock while they're in office.
  - abfan1127 6y ago
    again, the government's role should be protection of protection of person and property. You're conflating "govern" and "control". There are other means to control. In reality, your goal will never be met because no one is going to openly step into that scenario and be altruistic, certainly not all 536 people.
    - bcrosby95 6y ago
      The protection of person and property oftentimes runs counter to the benefit of a subset of corporations. Given this, government has to do a balancing act. It's in that balancing act that lets them enrich themselves - either through happenstance or on purpose.
    - c22 6y ago
      That's a pretty pessimistic view. Perhaps the individuals currently filling those roles wouldn't go for it, but it seems like we might be able to find 536 altruistic idealists somewhere in America.
      - jrockway 6y ago
        I didn't dive deeply into this data, but it doesn't sound like we even need to find 536 idealists. If you sort by number of trades descending, it becomes less than mine very quickly (I buy 4 mutual funds once a month, automatically). If you sort by value of trades descending, it looks like there are only a handful of officials with any meaningful amount of money in the stock market. (For some value of meaningful; there is an example in there about a $50,000 trade, and it just doesn't seem like very much money to me. 50 million dollars, get out that microscope. $50,000? Doesn't change anyone's life, so not really worth being corrupt for.)
toomuchtodo 6y ago
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/12/18/elizabeth-warren-stock-trading-ban-448390 https://www.politico.com/news/2020/12/18/elizabeth-warren-st... https://www.warren.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Anti-Corruption%20and%20Public%20Integrity%20Act%20of%202020.pdf https://www.warren.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Anti-Corruption%...
- mabbo 6y ago
  Great. Now you just need the majority of elected officials to get behind the bill. Note that the house majority leader is also one of the biggest winner of these rules not existing.
  - toomuchtodo 6y ago
    Politics/people is the top of the OSI stack, hence why the problem must be solved there. If you're more comfortable behind an IDE, gotta get comfortable calling representatives and pounding the pavement. That leads to where the decisions are made.
slibhb 6y ago
Is this not already illegal? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STOCK_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STOCK_Act
- ihsw 6y ago
  Is it worthwhile to call it illegal when it's not enforced?
- adolph 6y ago
  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...
  - slibhb 6y ago
    > Still, two major elements of the law remain. Insider trading is illegal, even for members of Congress and the executive branch. And for those who are covered by the now-narrower law, disclosures of large stock trades are required within 45 days. It will just be harder to get to them.
aaomidi 6y ago
If this starts making a stink, they're going to create the ability to not report your stock purchases.
- throwaway1777 6y ago
  I think opposite is more likely. After the GameStop fiasco there is a push for more transparency, not less.
- Scoundreller 6y ago
  That’s what’s happening with flight tracking info. It got too easy to see who’s flying their private jets and where. Meanwhile if you travel by car, get bent.
aaomidi 6y ago
> No really, how can we force congress to change the rules so that elected officials can't profit from inside information? Why would they ever vote for such a bill? The recent Black Lives Matter protests have taken a far more aggressive turn against systemic issues. Systemic issues such as the economy, the stock market, policing as a whole, and capitalism in its essence. Donating to bail-out funds, joining the protests, increasing awareness in the problems our economic system has created for us without proper good-faith regulations is all helpful. You can't reform corruption to this level. You need to cut it out and start over.
giantg2 6y ago
"The very people whose job it should be to stop this sort of thing are the ones who are profiting from it." Welcome to the system. This is pervasive in many other aspects as well (court, police, DA, etc).
- skohan 6y ago
  Checks and balances are supposed to address this issue. I think the only one which really does the job here would be the right to initiative/referendum. That or an electoral solution, but that one's really hard since new legislators will be incentivized to maintain the status quo. You would almost need a new party defined around that one issue, which is hard to imagine in the US. Maybe an executive order could also prohibit this? I'm not sure.
  - giantg2 6y ago
    "Maybe an executive order could also prohibit this?" I don't think this will help. I feel that executive orders are misused and abused today. They are really only only supposed to be executive guidance on how to enforce or implement a law. Instead they are being used as redefining law or even ignoring them.
seph-reed 6y ago
The only reasonable way out is to create our own systems. You have to stop thinking top-down. Liquid democracy is something that can be built from the ground up, and has the potential to deprecate our modern system.
- ek750 6y ago
  I think I agree in theory, but I think we've seen in practice that people are easily controlled by mass media. Wouldn't we just be moving the locus of control?
  - seph-reed 6y ago
    Do you know what liquid democracy is? It's a form of representative democracy, so it should be able to avoid the issues of oligarchy (being centralized and easy to corrupt) as well as the issues of full democracy (where every idiot has a say worth any experts)
    - cubano 6y ago
      Why would you believe that both the individual voters and their delegates wouldn't be susceptible to almost all the same corrupting and manipulative factors that plague voting systems today? The OP is correct...spending in mass media on the various issues would almost surely allow the purchasing of voter mindshare just exactly as advertising today drives sales of almost identical branded products for inflated prices. Don't get me wrong...in general I like the idea of "liquid democracy" (I remember it being called "Superdemocracy" back in the 80's when MajorBBS creator Tim Striker very much lobbied for its creation)...but it would be foolish to believe that the same forces that corrupt modern politics wouldn't be able to corrupt it as well.
      - seph-reed 6y ago
        Corruption is still possible, but the real trick to liquid democracy is that every stage is a form of escalation with the potential for correction. Let's take two scenarios: 1. a vote is being passed "up" and crosses an extremist channel, it'll likely get locked in and come out even more extreme than it started. extremists tend to look up to people who are even more extreme. when this happens, there's a good chance the person who's vote it originally was will be upset with where it ends up 2. a vote is being passed "up" and crosses an intellectual/thoughtful person, it'll likely get locked into the academic/altruist channel and come out with an extreme subject expert. this is the ideal outcome. Basically, at any point where the vote is being passed up it can hit one of these channels and get locked in. There's massive (and immediate) drawbacks to letting your vote hit an extremist, and massive gains to passing to someone who's more intelligent and thoughtful. While you're totally right about peoples first vote being super manipulable, each successive pass off has an opportunity for escaping that mind control. And once it does, it'll stay out.
sethammons 6y ago
my naive solution: politicians become monks. They go without. They are provided modest housing and budgets. I'm sure there are zounds of issues with it, but I like to imagine servant leaders who go without to do more for the communities they serve.
- slaymaker1907 6y ago
  That doesn't really solve the problem because how do we make them become monks? We already have a blueprint on how to hold them accountable: hold them to the same standard as those working in financial services with access to PII. Essentially make it impossible for them to be active traders; they can even still invest in ETFs and hands off advisors/roboadvisors like Betterment.
  - pishpash 6y ago
    Even then, do you want people who are incentivized to pump-and-dump the macro market during their term? You'd almost need to enforce this for 10 years or more, even if it goes beyond their term.
- skapadia 6y ago
  I've had a similar thought on many occasions, but even then, they will find alternative ways to acquire wealth and power. The clergy of many religions, in aggregate, have a lot of wealth and power, even if the wealth is not directly in their name. No system can prevent humans from exercising their basic instincts, emotions, urges, needs, and wants.
  - passerby1 6y ago
    In my opinion the only thing stops that is the fear of punishment. But then the initial question arises: how to prove that there was a broken law in gaining more wealth/power (by chance vs intentionally). It feels like this question was asked for thousands of years.
- wpietri 6y ago
  I'd be happy with that, but perhaps an easier solution is to make them moderately wealthy. Pay them a top 5% salary with a guaranteed pension for life, plus mandatory open finances for life. Then there's much less incentive to resort to graft.
anonymouswacker 6y ago
Since the media and intelligence agencies are great at vilifying any dissent (see "Capitol Riot" and how difficult it is for them to even get representation), there is no hope. The US is not going to get better as corruption is rampant and most are in the dark or powerless. Politicians like Bernie Sanders give hope, but they are few and far between, and muzzled. Perhaps the migration away from centralized news sources that are filtered by advertisers & intelligence agencies (see Manufacture of Consent) could help move us towards actually having information in the mainstream so that we can have a say, since our election system is rigged by the two right-wing parties, but there are too many decision makers still reading NYT and WSJ. Social media is clamping down on "fake news". The majority in the House/Senate are trying to push censorship for this reason, and now they are even trying to change the judicial branch to suit their whims.
- chrisco255 6y ago
  > the two right-wing parties They are neither left nor right. There is a middle elite group that exploits politics on either side of the aisle to maintain power. And that's all it is. And they get filthy rich, but so too does the CCP which is left-wing. Taking advantage of power for personal gain is not an exclusive domain of one wing or the other. At any rate these oversimplified analogies break down among many lines upon closer inspection. There are elite insiders and then there's the rest of us.
- cassepipe 6y ago
  Well the Capitol riots were not just any dissent. They were the gathering of a mob of people with crazy conspiracy theories (that very probably would not even agree with each other) as part of mediatic stunt (just not "the media") to give legitimacy to the claim the election had been stolen so the Republican party could suck up more money from its base for "the cause". I have myself much respect for Bernie Sanders and people fighting for more democracy and more equality please, please don't put them in the same bag than people being manipulated into giving time and money for imaginary causes.
intrepidhero 6y ago
If you think insider trading occurred, its already illegal and should be reported to the Office of Congressional Ethics. (https://oce.house.gov/learn/citizen-s-guide https://oce.house.gov/learn/citizen-s-guide) I'm frankly disturbed that this kind of specific trading by people in power is going on at all. Salaried federal employees above a certain level are strongly encouraged to invest only in generic mutual funds to avoid even the appearance of conflict of interest. When I look at the above trades I'm not sure whether anything technically illegal occurred but I'd support making all specific trading illegal to avoid even the appearance of unethical behavior. Higher powers deserve to be held higher standards.
- dmoy 6y ago
  > When I look at the above trades I'm not sure whether anything technically illegal occurred but I'd support making all specific trading illegal to avoid even the appearance of unethical behavior. That sounds like an excellent idea to me. While in office, can only trade TSP funds, or their rough equivalents outside of TSP. If you wanna sell something that isn't a giant index fund? Do it before you take office. Then I'd further support that all trading would have to be done via a 10b5-1 plan, with a blackout window of at least 6 months.
munk-a 6y ago
We elect people who actually believe in governance instead of people out to make a buck. I know that everyone's going to act in their own interest (that's sorta how interests are defined) but some people feel a legitimate duty and loyalty to country and welfare above their own personal comfort - these people tend to be torpedoed very early on in US politics because they refuse to cozy up to special interests to play the campaign finance game but they do exist. It's easy to be a thorough cynic in the modern world, but most people aren't out to con everyone else when they get the chance and, if a spotlight is shone on the problem, will respond that actions should be taken to make things more just. Here's an article calling out the stock trading specifically around Covid treatment drugs with some congressmen and politicians calling out the behavior: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/aoc-calls-senate-intel-chair-richard-burr-resign-stock-selloff-n1164401 https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/aoc-calls-senate-i...
- Kranar 6y ago
  Meh, a lot of the people you're describing are incredibly incompetent and succumb to simplistic ideologies. Over the long run they end up in the same position that everyone we're complaining about ends up in. While not entirely related, I remember a study by the U.S. military during the Vietnam war that said the worst performing soldiers were the ones who were patriotic and served due to a sense of duty. I'm simplifying here but the idea was that those were often the first people to feel a sense of entitlement and feel as if because they had good intentions that they were "owed" something. Belief in governance is cheap and doesn't do much to solve anything. Competency, skills, leadership, those are qualities that result in change... having a good heart and believing in or trying to execute various altruistic ideologies is basically a loser's game.
  - danans 6y ago
    > Competency, skills, leadership, those are qualities that result in change... having a good heart and believing in or trying to execute various altruistic ideologies is basically a loser's game. We should expect elected officials to have both. It's not like it's impossible.
  - 6y ago
jackdeansmith 6y ago
I feel like a good first step would be requiring that any assets over some small cutoff be held in a blind trust. It wouldn't solve all problems, but it sure would solve a lot.
kiliantics 6y ago
In the past, the things that ultimately worked were collective revolts, strikes, sabotage, assassinations. I think we need to acknowledge that, in the same way that the people with the power to stop this are profiting, they are also the people with the power to change who is in power or how they get in power. Elections are not effective ways of changing systemic power structures anymore. Society pretty much needs an overhaul, especially in the face of serious existential risks like climate change or looming military conflicts.
nickthemagicman 6y ago
It's impossible. Who watches the watchmen? And Democratic party believes that bigger gov't is the solution to many of our problems.
- dlp211 6y ago
  Show me a country with little government that is successful.
  - partiallypro 6y ago
    Comparatively speaking, most Western countries.
    - dlp211 6y ago
      This is a joke right? Based on what measurement do most Western countries have little government?
      - NoImmatureAdHom 6y ago
        Many people constantly deride them for lack of regulation of X, where X is something the speaker believes has huge negative externalities. Also, I'd point to a place like India for "big" government: the government tries to run too many things and does a bad job on average.
    - michaelmrose 6y ago
      Start with the 3 best examples you can name and we can go over how regulated various industries are, what percentage of income is paid in taxes, and what percentage of their GPD is non military government spending.
      - partiallypro 6y ago
        There is a lot more to governance than expenditures and safety nets. I'm starting to think we've been in a free society in the west so long that people have simply overlooked the history of large governments stifling industry and life. Limited government is a very big thing in the West, even in countries with very generous social programs.
AtlasBarfed 6y ago
"No really, how can we force congress to change the rules so that elected officials can't profit from inside information? Why would they ever vote for such a bill?" Well, those people profiting off of it would have to vote against each other's interests. Money wins elections. Not issues, which are just window dressing. The media cartels own your attention for all your waking ours and, as MiB said, while individuals are rational and sensible, people (that is, the voting electorate) are easily scared, easily duped, and increasingly easily controlled. So it's not just "vote against being rich", it's also "vote to lose the next election".
michaelmrose 6y ago
In some states the people can literally make the law via public initiatives. If you don't have that process at home push for THAT. Looking at this map there are a lot of states that need to work on step 1. https://ballotpedia.org/Initiative_and_referendum https://ballotpedia.org/Initiative_and_referendum
WhompingWindows 6y ago
We have to educate the broader populace about the issue, then politicians will use the issue to gain political capital, win elections, and maybe change legislation and practices.
alexfromapex 6y ago
To start with, there needs to be lots of advocacy for insider trading investigations
Zelphyr 6y ago
We have to do the work. We have to educate ourselves on the issues which means reading bills as they are going through the process and being voted on, calling and writing our representatives to tell them how we want them to vote on those bills. I have family who just love to complain about what legislators are doing and how they're voting but have not once, ever, actually contacted their representative about these issues. Not once have they actually read the bills and tried to understand them. It's all based purely on whatever news channel they're watching. Yet, they somehow think that through all that complaining they're actually accomplishing something. I know my family isn't unique in this. I was just talking to a contractor who is doing work on my house that started in on this nonsense.
gnopgnip 6y ago
Congress already passed the STOCK act, that is why these disclosures are required, and partially why this kind of securities fraud is illegal. It is the job of the SEC, and the justice dept to enforce this
gowld 6y ago
Use the 4 boxes of Liberty https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_boxes_of_liberty https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_boxes_of_liberty
SavantIdiot 6y ago
You cannot. As long as there are rigged markets and cadres of elites, we can truly do nothing. Sad, really. Not helping the matter is half of the US is below average intelligence and will elect crooks because they say the right things. If only there were more Ron Wydens and AOCs. But you see red states electing nutjobs who barely have high school degrees (Boeber) because they shout the loudest.
- jimbob45 6y ago
  Wyden and AOC enjoy the luxury of not having to worry about re-election due to residing on extremely blue states. They would not be so bold if they represented Texas or Florida, for example. The same goes for Republican representatives in highly red states.
  - SavantIdiot 6y ago
    Ah ah, but that is completely circular logic. AOC would not represent Texas or Florida because they are not progressive enough to support her in a landslide, twice, the way her district did. Manchin mealy-mouthed his way into a slight win and has to be a slimy politician with no backbone because he craves power. The funniest part of your post is that you claim AOC "would not be bold." Do you even know who she is? She's the definition of bold. She is doing what she said she would do and pissing off centrist dems all over the place every day. But call me when AOC & Wyden are involved in a scandal, which is what this entire thread is about. If so, I'll change my tune, but until then, my original point stands.
- mLuby 6y ago
  > half of the US is below average intelligence That is what average means. (Looks like we two are keeping it balanced!)
  - SavantIdiot 6y ago
    /woosh/
  - float4 6y ago
jimbob45 6y ago
Pragmatically? Make such a proposal go viral and delay its enforcement for 6 years so that current senators don’t feel the heat until it’s too late.
jxramos 6y ago
Someone should turn it into comedy, make a parody of it.

by mabbo 6y ago

maxwell 6y ago

Constitutional amendment?

mabbo 6y ago
And who would be voting on those? > An amendment may be proposed and sent to the states for ratification by either: > The U.S. Congress, whenever a two-thirds majority in both the Senate and the House of Representatives deem it necessary; or > A national convention, called by Congress for this purpose, on the application of the legislatures of two-thirds of the states (34 since 1959). The convention option has never been used. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_amendments_to_the_United_States_Constitution https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_amendments_to_the_Un...
- meepmorp 6y ago
  Participants in a constitutional convention?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- chrisco255 6y ago
  The state national convention route is the most likely route to work if you really want to reign in Congress.
gumby 6y ago
That's a very blunt instrument and difficult to get the wording correct.
- throwaway0a5e 6y ago
  See also: "Infringed" "Papers and effects" "not delegated to the United States by the Constitution" And many others.... No matter how clear you are they just ignore it like it's not there.
michaelmrose 6y ago
How about initiative and referendum in the 26 states that have such processes and agitating for such processes in the states that don't.

abfan1127 6y ago

trying to stop the trades is the wrong fix. The right fix is remove their ability to affect markets. Getting to choose winners and losers will always create opportunity to abuse this privilege.

jrockway 6y ago
I disagree with this. The people we elect to govern have to be able to govern. But, they maybe don't need to have any business holdings / stock while they're in office.
- abfan1127 6y ago
  again, the government's role should be protection of protection of person and property. You're conflating "govern" and "control". There are other means to control. In reality, your goal will never be met because no one is going to openly step into that scenario and be altruistic, certainly not all 536 people.
  - bcrosby95 6y ago
    The protection of person and property oftentimes runs counter to the benefit of a subset of corporations. Given this, government has to do a balancing act. It's in that balancing act that lets them enrich themselves - either through happenstance or on purpose.
  - c22 6y ago
    That's a pretty pessimistic view. Perhaps the individuals currently filling those roles wouldn't go for it, but it seems like we might be able to find 536 altruistic idealists somewhere in America.
    - jrockway 6y ago
      I didn't dive deeply into this data, but it doesn't sound like we even need to find 536 idealists. If you sort by number of trades descending, it becomes less than mine very quickly (I buy 4 mutual funds once a month, automatically). If you sort by value of trades descending, it looks like there are only a handful of officials with any meaningful amount of money in the stock market. (For some value of meaningful; there is an example in there about a $50,000 trade, and it just doesn't seem like very much money to me. 50 million dollars, get out that microscope. $50,000? Doesn't change anyone's life, so not really worth being corrupt for.)

toomuchtodo 6y ago

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/12/18/elizabeth-warren-stock-trading-ban-448390 https://www.politico.com/news/2020/12/18/elizabeth-warren-st... https://www.warren.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Anti-Corruption%20and%20Public%20Integrity%20Act%20of%202020.pdf https://www.warren.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Anti-Corruption%...

mabbo 6y ago
Great. Now you just need the majority of elected officials to get behind the bill. Note that the house majority leader is also one of the biggest winner of these rules not existing.
- toomuchtodo 6y ago
  Politics/people is the top of the OSI stack, hence why the problem must be solved there. If you're more comfortable behind an IDE, gotta get comfortable calling representatives and pounding the pavement. That leads to where the decisions are made.

slibhb 6y ago

Is this not already illegal? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STOCK_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STOCK_Act

ihsw 6y ago
Is it worthwhile to call it illegal when it's not enforced?
adolph 6y ago
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...
- slibhb 6y ago
  > Still, two major elements of the law remain. Insider trading is illegal, even for members of Congress and the executive branch. And for those who are covered by the now-narrower law, disclosures of large stock trades are required within 45 days. It will just be harder to get to them.

aaomidi 6y ago

If this starts making a stink, they're going to create the ability to not report your stock purchases.

throwaway1777 6y ago
I think opposite is more likely. After the GameStop fiasco there is a push for more transparency, not less.
Scoundreller 6y ago
That’s what’s happening with flight tracking info. It got too easy to see who’s flying their private jets and where. Meanwhile if you travel by car, get bent.

aaomidi 6y ago

> No really, how can we force congress to change the rules so that elected officials can't profit from inside information? Why would they ever vote for such a bill? The recent Black Lives Matter protests have taken a far more aggressive turn against systemic issues. Systemic issues such as the economy, the stock market, policing as a whole, and capitalism in its essence. Donating to bail-out funds, joining the protests, increasing awareness in the problems our economic system has created for us without proper good-faith regulations is all helpful. You can't reform corruption to this level. You need to cut it out and start over.

giantg2 6y ago

"The very people whose job it should be to stop this sort of thing are the ones who are profiting from it." Welcome to the system. This is pervasive in many other aspects as well (court, police, DA, etc).

skohan 6y ago
Checks and balances are supposed to address this issue. I think the only one which really does the job here would be the right to initiative/referendum. That or an electoral solution, but that one's really hard since new legislators will be incentivized to maintain the status quo. You would almost need a new party defined around that one issue, which is hard to imagine in the US. Maybe an executive order could also prohibit this? I'm not sure.
- giantg2 6y ago
  "Maybe an executive order could also prohibit this?" I don't think this will help. I feel that executive orders are misused and abused today. They are really only only supposed to be executive guidance on how to enforce or implement a law. Instead they are being used as redefining law or even ignoring them.

seph-reed 6y ago

The only reasonable way out is to create our own systems. You have to stop thinking top-down. Liquid democracy is something that can be built from the ground up, and has the potential to deprecate our modern system.

ek750 6y ago
I think I agree in theory, but I think we've seen in practice that people are easily controlled by mass media. Wouldn't we just be moving the locus of control?
- seph-reed 6y ago
  Do you know what liquid democracy is? It's a form of representative democracy, so it should be able to avoid the issues of oligarchy (being centralized and easy to corrupt) as well as the issues of full democracy (where every idiot has a say worth any experts)
  - cubano 6y ago
    Why would you believe that both the individual voters and their delegates wouldn't be susceptible to almost all the same corrupting and manipulative factors that plague voting systems today? The OP is correct...spending in mass media on the various issues would almost surely allow the purchasing of voter mindshare just exactly as advertising today drives sales of almost identical branded products for inflated prices. Don't get me wrong...in general I like the idea of "liquid democracy" (I remember it being called "Superdemocracy" back in the 80's when MajorBBS creator Tim Striker very much lobbied for its creation)...but it would be foolish to believe that the same forces that corrupt modern politics wouldn't be able to corrupt it as well.
    - seph-reed 6y ago
      Corruption is still possible, but the real trick to liquid democracy is that every stage is a form of escalation with the potential for correction. Let's take two scenarios: 1. a vote is being passed "up" and crosses an extremist channel, it'll likely get locked in and come out even more extreme than it started. extremists tend to look up to people who are even more extreme. when this happens, there's a good chance the person who's vote it originally was will be upset with where it ends up 2. a vote is being passed "up" and crosses an intellectual/thoughtful person, it'll likely get locked into the academic/altruist channel and come out with an extreme subject expert. this is the ideal outcome. Basically, at any point where the vote is being passed up it can hit one of these channels and get locked in. There's massive (and immediate) drawbacks to letting your vote hit an extremist, and massive gains to passing to someone who's more intelligent and thoughtful. While you're totally right about peoples first vote being super manipulable, each successive pass off has an opportunity for escaping that mind control. And once it does, it'll stay out.

sethammons 6y ago

my naive solution: politicians become monks. They go without. They are provided modest housing and budgets. I'm sure there are zounds of issues with it, but I like to imagine servant leaders who go without to do more for the communities they serve.

slaymaker1907 6y ago
That doesn't really solve the problem because how do we make them become monks? We already have a blueprint on how to hold them accountable: hold them to the same standard as those working in financial services with access to PII. Essentially make it impossible for them to be active traders; they can even still invest in ETFs and hands off advisors/roboadvisors like Betterment.
- pishpash 6y ago
  Even then, do you want people who are incentivized to pump-and-dump the macro market during their term? You'd almost need to enforce this for 10 years or more, even if it goes beyond their term.
skapadia 6y ago
I've had a similar thought on many occasions, but even then, they will find alternative ways to acquire wealth and power. The clergy of many religions, in aggregate, have a lot of wealth and power, even if the wealth is not directly in their name. No system can prevent humans from exercising their basic instincts, emotions, urges, needs, and wants.
- passerby1 6y ago
  In my opinion the only thing stops that is the fear of punishment. But then the initial question arises: how to prove that there was a broken law in gaining more wealth/power (by chance vs intentionally). It feels like this question was asked for thousands of years.
wpietri 6y ago
I'd be happy with that, but perhaps an easier solution is to make them moderately wealthy. Pay them a top 5% salary with a guaranteed pension for life, plus mandatory open finances for life. Then there's much less incentive to resort to graft.

anonymouswacker 6y ago

Since the media and intelligence agencies are great at vilifying any dissent (see "Capitol Riot" and how difficult it is for them to even get representation), there is no hope. The US is not going to get better as corruption is rampant and most are in the dark or powerless. Politicians like Bernie Sanders give hope, but they are few and far between, and muzzled. Perhaps the migration away from centralized news sources that are filtered by advertisers & intelligence agencies (see Manufacture of Consent) could help move us towards actually having information in the mainstream so that we can have a say, since our election system is rigged by the two right-wing parties, but there are too many decision makers still reading NYT and WSJ. Social media is clamping down on "fake news". The majority in the House/Senate are trying to push censorship for this reason, and now they are even trying to change the judicial branch to suit their whims.

chrisco255 6y ago
> the two right-wing parties They are neither left nor right. There is a middle elite group that exploits politics on either side of the aisle to maintain power. And that's all it is. And they get filthy rich, but so too does the CCP which is left-wing. Taking advantage of power for personal gain is not an exclusive domain of one wing or the other. At any rate these oversimplified analogies break down among many lines upon closer inspection. There are elite insiders and then there's the rest of us.
cassepipe 6y ago
Well the Capitol riots were not just any dissent. They were the gathering of a mob of people with crazy conspiracy theories (that very probably would not even agree with each other) as part of mediatic stunt (just not "the media") to give legitimacy to the claim the election had been stolen so the Republican party could suck up more money from its base for "the cause". I have myself much respect for Bernie Sanders and people fighting for more democracy and more equality please, please don't put them in the same bag than people being manipulated into giving time and money for imaginary causes.

intrepidhero 6y ago

If you think insider trading occurred, its already illegal and should be reported to the Office of Congressional Ethics. (https://oce.house.gov/learn/citizen-s-guide https://oce.house.gov/learn/citizen-s-guide) I'm frankly disturbed that this kind of specific trading by people in power is going on at all. Salaried federal employees above a certain level are strongly encouraged to invest only in generic mutual funds to avoid even the appearance of conflict of interest. When I look at the above trades I'm not sure whether anything technically illegal occurred but I'd support making all specific trading illegal to avoid even the appearance of unethical behavior. Higher powers deserve to be held higher standards.

dmoy 6y ago
> When I look at the above trades I'm not sure whether anything technically illegal occurred but I'd support making all specific trading illegal to avoid even the appearance of unethical behavior. That sounds like an excellent idea to me. While in office, can only trade TSP funds, or their rough equivalents outside of TSP. If you wanna sell something that isn't a giant index fund? Do it before you take office. Then I'd further support that all trading would have to be done via a 10b5-1 plan, with a blackout window of at least 6 months.

munk-a 6y ago

We elect people who actually believe in governance instead of people out to make a buck. I know that everyone's going to act in their own interest (that's sorta how interests are defined) but some people feel a legitimate duty and loyalty to country and welfare above their own personal comfort - these people tend to be torpedoed very early on in US politics because they refuse to cozy up to special interests to play the campaign finance game but they do exist. It's easy to be a thorough cynic in the modern world, but most people aren't out to con everyone else when they get the chance and, if a spotlight is shone on the problem, will respond that actions should be taken to make things more just. Here's an article calling out the stock trading specifically around Covid treatment drugs with some congressmen and politicians calling out the behavior: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/aoc-calls-senate-intel-chair-richard-burr-resign-stock-selloff-n1164401 https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/aoc-calls-senate-i...

Kranar 6y ago
Meh, a lot of the people you're describing are incredibly incompetent and succumb to simplistic ideologies. Over the long run they end up in the same position that everyone we're complaining about ends up in. While not entirely related, I remember a study by the U.S. military during the Vietnam war that said the worst performing soldiers were the ones who were patriotic and served due to a sense of duty. I'm simplifying here but the idea was that those were often the first people to feel a sense of entitlement and feel as if because they had good intentions that they were "owed" something. Belief in governance is cheap and doesn't do much to solve anything. Competency, skills, leadership, those are qualities that result in change... having a good heart and believing in or trying to execute various altruistic ideologies is basically a loser's game.
- danans 6y ago
  > Competency, skills, leadership, those are qualities that result in change... having a good heart and believing in or trying to execute various altruistic ideologies is basically a loser's game. We should expect elected officials to have both. It's not like it's impossible.
- 6y ago

jackdeansmith 6y ago

I feel like a good first step would be requiring that any assets over some small cutoff be held in a blind trust. It wouldn't solve all problems, but it sure would solve a lot.

kiliantics 6y ago

In the past, the things that ultimately worked were collective revolts, strikes, sabotage, assassinations. I think we need to acknowledge that, in the same way that the people with the power to stop this are profiting, they are also the people with the power to change who is in power or how they get in power. Elections are not effective ways of changing systemic power structures anymore. Society pretty much needs an overhaul, especially in the face of serious existential risks like climate change or looming military conflicts.

nickthemagicman 6y ago

It's impossible. Who watches the watchmen? And Democratic party believes that bigger gov't is the solution to many of our problems.

dlp211 6y ago
Show me a country with little government that is successful.
- partiallypro 6y ago
  Comparatively speaking, most Western countries.
  - dlp211 6y ago
    This is a joke right? Based on what measurement do most Western countries have little government?
    - NoImmatureAdHom 6y ago
      Many people constantly deride them for lack of regulation of X, where X is something the speaker believes has huge negative externalities. Also, I'd point to a place like India for "big" government: the government tries to run too many things and does a bad job on average.
  - michaelmrose 6y ago
    Start with the 3 best examples you can name and we can go over how regulated various industries are, what percentage of income is paid in taxes, and what percentage of their GPD is non military government spending.
    - partiallypro 6y ago
      There is a lot more to governance than expenditures and safety nets. I'm starting to think we've been in a free society in the west so long that people have simply overlooked the history of large governments stifling industry and life. Limited government is a very big thing in the West, even in countries with very generous social programs.

AtlasBarfed 6y ago

"No really, how can we force congress to change the rules so that elected officials can't profit from inside information? Why would they ever vote for such a bill?" Well, those people profiting off of it would have to vote against each other's interests. Money wins elections. Not issues, which are just window dressing. The media cartels own your attention for all your waking ours and, as MiB said, while individuals are rational and sensible, people (that is, the voting electorate) are easily scared, easily duped, and increasingly easily controlled. So it's not just "vote against being rich", it's also "vote to lose the next election".

michaelmrose 6y ago

In some states the people can literally make the law via public initiatives. If you don't have that process at home push for THAT. Looking at this map there are a lot of states that need to work on step 1. https://ballotpedia.org/Initiative_and_referendum https://ballotpedia.org/Initiative_and_referendum

WhompingWindows 6y ago

We have to educate the broader populace about the issue, then politicians will use the issue to gain political capital, win elections, and maybe change legislation and practices.

alexfromapex 6y ago

To start with, there needs to be lots of advocacy for insider trading investigations

Zelphyr 6y ago

We have to do the work. We have to educate ourselves on the issues which means reading bills as they are going through the process and being voted on, calling and writing our representatives to tell them how we want them to vote on those bills. I have family who just love to complain about what legislators are doing and how they're voting but have not once, ever, actually contacted their representative about these issues. Not once have they actually read the bills and tried to understand them. It's all based purely on whatever news channel they're watching. Yet, they somehow think that through all that complaining they're actually accomplishing something. I know my family isn't unique in this. I was just talking to a contractor who is doing work on my house that started in on this nonsense.

gnopgnip 6y ago

Congress already passed the STOCK act, that is why these disclosures are required, and partially why this kind of securities fraud is illegal. It is the job of the SEC, and the justice dept to enforce this

gowld 6y ago

Use the 4 boxes of Liberty https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_boxes_of_liberty https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_boxes_of_liberty

SavantIdiot 6y ago

You cannot. As long as there are rigged markets and cadres of elites, we can truly do nothing. Sad, really. Not helping the matter is half of the US is below average intelligence and will elect crooks because they say the right things. If only there were more Ron Wydens and AOCs. But you see red states electing nutjobs who barely have high school degrees (Boeber) because they shout the loudest.

jimbob45 6y ago
Wyden and AOC enjoy the luxury of not having to worry about re-election due to residing on extremely blue states. They would not be so bold if they represented Texas or Florida, for example. The same goes for Republican representatives in highly red states.
- SavantIdiot 6y ago
  Ah ah, but that is completely circular logic. AOC would not represent Texas or Florida because they are not progressive enough to support her in a landslide, twice, the way her district did. Manchin mealy-mouthed his way into a slight win and has to be a slimy politician with no backbone because he craves power. The funniest part of your post is that you claim AOC "would not be bold." Do you even know who she is? She's the definition of bold. She is doing what she said she would do and pissing off centrist dems all over the place every day. But call me when AOC & Wyden are involved in a scandal, which is what this entire thread is about. If so, I'll change my tune, but until then, my original point stands.
mLuby 6y ago
> half of the US is below average intelligence That is what average means. (Looks like we two are keeping it balanced!)
- SavantIdiot 6y ago
  /woosh/
- float4 6y ago

jimbob45 6y ago

Pragmatically? Make such a proposal go viral and delay its enforcement for 6 years so that current senators don’t feel the heat until it’s too late.

jxramos 6y ago

Someone should turn it into comedy, make a parody of it.