American Samizdat

Monday, August 16, 2010. *


Both Alexander and Gregg said that the Senate had been further polarized by the rising number of senators—now nearly fifty—who come from the House, rather than from governorships or other positions where bipartisan cooperation is still permissible.

It is astonishing to me how many Americans subscribe to the bullshit notion that if there was simply more "bipartisan" cooperation, things would be better. The most destructive, anti-democratic, and asinine laws and policies of the past few years have all enjoyed broad bipartisan support. Financial deregulation, the Patriot Act, disastrous perpetual war, our overseas empire of bases, the continuation of the failed War on Drugs - to name but a few - are all "bipartisan" in nature.

And people want MORE of this shit?

The schadenfreude

A 2004 study of the results of stock trading by United States Senators during the 1990s found that that Senators on average beat the market by 12% a year. In sharp contrast, U.S. households on average underperformed the market by 1.4% a year and even corporate insiders on average beat the market by only about 6% a year during that period. A reasonable inference is that some Senators had access to – and were using – material nonpublic information about the companies in whose stock they trade.

Under current law, it is unlikely that Members of Congress can be held liable for insider trading. The proposed Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act addresses that problem by instructing the Securities and Exchange Commission to adopt rules intended to prohibit such trading.


posted by Uncle $cam at 6:43 AM
2 Comments:
Anonymous DaveS said...
I hear ya
Another way to look at this is compare what politicians are worth pre-office, in-office and after they leave office, and you'll see why something stinks in D.C. besides the old fish.
Peace
DaveS
8:24 PM  
Blogger Uncle $cam said...
Indeed...
4:07 AM  
Post a Comment





Site Meter



Creative Commons License