I have no problem with lawmakers making stock trades, but you can certainly argue that it is immediately made public. To be fair, there are probably edge condi

I have no problem with lawmakers making stock trades, but you can certainly argue that it is immediately made public. To be fair, there are probably edge conditions where a congressman has direct control over the financial realities of a publicly related company. I think the more heinous cases are lawmakers becoming lobbyists and (worse) lawmakers making huge bucks on public speaking which is a very thinly veiled bit of influence peddling. Believe me, the Clintons didn't get paid $153M to give short speeches. (https://www.cnn.com/2016/02/05/politics/hillary-clinton-bill-clinton-paid-speeches/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2016/02/05/politics/hillary-clinton-bill... ) I suppose when you get down to it, as government becomes more powerful it becomes more gameable.