Congressional Staffers and Inside Trading

[Kathianne]

Great, just great. The government grows in numbers and costs, while the private sector keeps sloughing off jobs. Now some of the insiders are personally benefiting from the harm they cause the rest of us:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703431604575522434188603198.html?m od=WSJ_hps_MIDDLETopStories


OCTOBER 11, 2010

Congressional Staffers Gain From Trading in Stocks

By BRODY MULLINS, TOM MCGINTY and JASON ZWEIG

WASHINGTON—Chris Miller nearly doubled his $3,500 stock investment in a renewable-energy firm in 2008. It was a perfectly legal bet, but he's no ordinary investor.

Mr. Miller is the top energy-policy adviser to Nevada Democrat and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who helped pass legislation that wound up benefiting the firm.

Jim Manley, a spokesman for Mr. Reid's office, initially defended Mr. Miller's purchase of shares in the company, Energy Conversion Devices Inc. He said the aide had no influence over tax incentives for renewable-energy firms, and that other factors boosted the stock.

But on Sunday, Mr. Manley added: "Mr. Miller showed poor judgment and Senator Reid has made it very clear to Chris and all his staff that their actions must not only follow the law, but must meet the higher standards the public has a right to expect from elected officials and their staffs."

Mr. Miller isn't the only Congressional staffer making such stock bets. At least 72 aides on both sides of the aisle traded shares of companies that their bosses help oversee, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of more than 3,000 disclosure forms covering trading activity by Capitol Hill staffers for 2008 and 2009...


and get this nugget:


The aides identified by the Journal say they didn't profit by making trades based on any information gathered in the halls of Congress. Even if they had done so, it would be legal, because insider-trading laws don't apply to Congress...

Devastating.

[Psychoblues]

I find it interesting that the article make a big deal out of Senator Harry Reid and his aides and then much later in the article states that this same practice is done about equally on both sides of the aisle. I think Senator Reid was correct in his admonishment to his aides that not only do they not involve themselves in illegal stock trades but also to avoid even the appearance of impropriety in their financial dealings.

Thank God there wasn't any taxpayer money involved in any of this or we all might be looking at investigation and exposure to legal wranglings and/or jail time!!!!!!!!!!!

Love :laugh2:

Psychoblues

[red states rule]

I find it interesting that the article make a big deal out of Senator Harry Reid and his aides and then much later in the article states that this same practice is done about equally on both sides of the aisle. I think Senator Reid was correct in his admonishment to his aides that not only do they not involve themselves in illegal stock trades but also to avoid even the appearance of impropriety in their financial dealings.

Thank God there wasn't any taxpayer money involved in any of this or we all might be looking at investigation and exposure to legal wranglings and/or jail time!!!!!!!!!!!

Love :laugh2:

Psychoblues

I will buy that PB when Reid has Congressional hearings like Dems did when Wall Street firms were accused of doing the same thing

But of course this is not the first time a Dem has been caught with their hand in the cookie jar




On the day the new Congress convened this year, Sen. Dianne Feinstein introduced legislation to route $25 billion in taxpayer money to a government agency that had just awarded her husband's real estate firm a lucrative contract to sell foreclosed properties at compensation rates higher than the industry norms, the Washington Times reported on Tuesday.

Mrs. Feinstein's intervention on behalf of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. was unusual: the California Democrat isn't a member of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs with jurisdiction over FDIC; and the agency is supposed to operate from money it raises from bank-paid insurance payments - not direct federal dollars.

Documents reviewed by The Washington Times show Mrs. Feinstein first offered Oct. 30 to help the FDIC secure money for its effort to stem the rise of home foreclosures. Her letter was sent just days before the agency determined that CB Richard Ellis Group (CBRE) - the commercial real estate firm that her husband Richard Blum heads as board chairman - had won the competitive bidding for a contract to sell foreclosed properties that FDIC had inherited from failed banks.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/04/21/sen-feinsteins-husband-cashes-crisis/