Thread: Congress Refuses to Outlaw Insider Trading For Lawmakers

Congress Refuses to Outlaw Insider Trading For Lawmakers

Posted May 05, 2010 01:04pm EDT
by Peter Gorenstein
Comments 368

Even a cynic can find Washington's hypocrisy shocking at times. The Wall Street Journal reports today a House bill that would force lawmakers to make greater disclosures on financial transactions and disallow them from trading on nonpublic information is going nowhere fast.

That's right. Members of Congress are currently allowed to profit on insider trading!

The bill, which has been languishing in the House for four years, would require elected officials "to make their financial transactions public within 90 days of a purchase or sale" and "prohibit lawmakers from trading in financial markets based on nonpublic information they learn on the job," the WSJ reports.

It seems they're above the transparency they've been calling for on Wall Street.

This comes a day after the same newspaper reported several lawmakers profited by betting against the housing and stock market in 2008. And some did it using derivatives they've recently been railing against.

As our colleague Henry Blodget wrote Tuesday, "If you're going to complain about how awful short-selling is and how evil and venal people are for doing it, you should probably abstain from the practice yourself."

http://tinyurl.com/28vjwxk

MAY 5, 2010 For Bill on Lawmaker Trading, Delay Is Long and Short of It

Comments 8
BY BRODY MULLINS AND JASON ZWEIG

A bill that would require speedier disclosure of stock trades by lawmakers has languished for years on Capitol Hill, suggesting Congress has little appetite for new rules on how its members manage their money.

The legislation, by Democratic Reps. Brian Baird of Washington and Louise Slaughter of New York, would prohibit lawmakers from trading in financial markets based on nonpublic information they learn on the job. It would also require them to make their financial transactions public within 90 days of a purchase or sale.

Currently, those disclosures are filed once a year, and insider-trading laws generally do not apply ...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... 27058.html

they dont want to do it?? now where is the real corruption