[boc]

Hot take but I'd much rather politicians make their money via open, fully-disclosed investments in public companies vs shady backroom deals where their kids or shell companies get untracked kickbacks.

Pelosi represents SF. It's her congressional district. Her investing in the top SF companies (many of which include tech companies which have performed really well) is a rare case of supporting her constituent businesses. Sure it's horrible optics and politics and yada yada but people should consider that the alternative (banning all trading as a member of congress) is potentially worse for open democracy.

[dvt]

> Sure it's horrible optics and politics and yada yada but people should consider that the alternative (banning all trading as a member of congress) is potentially worse for open democracy.

"Murder is OK as long as it's committed in the town square" is a terrible policy. Lawmakers taking advantage of insider info, let alone upcoming regulatory changes, to make huge amounts of money while holding public office is straight-up antithetical to the purpose of being in Congress (the people). Want to make tons of money? Great, become a banker or a C-level or a lawyer in private practice, not a congresswoman.

[ketzo]

That’s a genuinely hot take, and I do think there’s some merit.

That said: I think your hypothetical is better than our current, objectively ridiculous situation. “Everyone’s doing it in the open” is a pretty lame excuse, and definitely doesn’t preclude the possibility of kids + shell companies anyway.

[jimbob45]

The talk was of a bill to bring congressional trading in line with executive trading (I.e. totally transparent with 6-12 irreversible lead times on any trades). I don’t know that anyone was pushing for an outright ban.

[sokoloff]

10b5 plans can be cancelled, with the penalty of a short waiting period before re-adopting a new 10b5 plan. (It’s obviously difficult to prove an improper insider trade happened if no trade happened.)

[wildrhythms]

Your 'hot take' is that politicians should continue making money on investments like they've been doing for decades?

[rsfern]

I think they’re just pointing out that there could be unintended consequences to just simply barring Congress members from trading - maybe it just increases incentives for back room deals and the like? Transparency in this case is a much higher bar than just banning stock trades

[maerF0x0]

I'd rather they instead be given a binary choice between not making investments or making investments in the general good of the American economy (eg something like the Wilshire 5000) ... And while we're at it lets tie their pay to the median income so they only get a raise if we do.

[stickyricky]

What do you mean "horrible optics"? It's outright corrupt. The issue here isn't "Nancy Pelosi supporting local businesses". The issue is her husband acting on private information to reap enormous profits.

[randomopining]

What private information?

[kshacker]

Before I start, I lean Dem and I like Nancy. However ...

she has famously said that "you have to pass the bill before you see it" - not an hyperbole, the obamacare bill was being negotiated forever and changing but at one point of time they had to force the vote first even if the version was not read by everyone.

that kind of story applies to a lot of bills. I may be able to sneak in a paragraph just before the vote that says "3 billion dollars of government subsidies for drought stricken cashew farmers in California" and if someone can find that out before it is published on their websites, would you not think it is a private information?

[mythrwy]

We do have to credit Nancy for bringing so much attention to this issue through her flagrant actions. Probably not intentional, but credit where credit is due.

I'd guess there are other members of congress who did/do exactly the same thing (but much more low key and out of sight) who are not very happy about it being potentially ruined for everyone else.

[throwaway6734]

>(but much more low key and out of sight)

What does this mean? Other reps do exactly the same thing as Pelosi and are required to report their trades in the same way. Pelosi is the target of attention due to reporting about exclusively Pelosi's actions

[spaetzleesser]

Don’t you think that they are getting a lot of information before you get it or can influence certain decisions in their favor?

In my view they need to out their money into a blind trust. If they don’t want to do that they shouldn’t run for office and a nice side effect would be that congress isn’t full of millionaires.

[randomopining]

I agree that they should have more simple investment limits. Like index fund or whatever.

But even your first sentence is some hypothesis, not based on any facts or timeline of events. Looks like her husband who has his own investment firm was writing some clever option contracts and such on big name companies like Roblox.

Everybody in the market is risking it on these types of companies these days.

[stickyricky]

What bills will be brought to the floor. What bills have the votes to pass. What bills do not. Access to confidential information which has not been released to the public. Etc. etc.

I'm honestly not sure what you want me to say. You're welcome to Google the issue for yourself and make a determination.

[randomopining]

I'm just saying if you levy a huge accusation like "she gets private insider information" then you need to back it up with factual evidence.

Passing bills, sure. But most of these impactful bills are like months in the making and everybody knows which way they are heading.

Her husband is an investor, so no doubt he writes all these options and such.

[stickyricky]

> I'm just saying if you levy a huge accusation like "she gets private insider information" then you need to back it up with factual evidence.

Nancy Pelosi's husband regularly beats the market by large margins. You can find it suspicious or not. I've given my opinion. She knows her own mind, she has access to market-moving-information prior to the public, and she likes to buy stock.

She doesn't need to receive information (though she can). She just needs to generate it (which is her job). When you are in a position to move the market, you should not be buying options.

[randomopining]

Getting huge gains the past 2 years has not been hard. Everybody is making 20% or more a year easily.

Plus they're already rich, which means they can invest a good chunk in higher risk. Higher risk has paid dividends bigly in the past decade and especially last 2 years.

Anyway, need some proof. But I 100% agree that senators should be held to a very high standard, and would welcome strict laws that allow them only general investments in the US economy.

[emerged]

This is why murder should be legal. Because otherwise murderers might do even worse things.

[Spooky23]

Government ethics are all about optics. Pelosi’s personal situation when looked at among others (ie Sen Feinstein, whose husband is one of the largest commercial realty managers) creates a perception of corruption.

That perception fuels whataboutism and facilitates graft. Nobody is going to investigate Senator X and trigger a counter-investigation of Representative Y.

[sumedh]

> is potentially worse for open democracy.

Why is it worse?