Trading - The Congress Critter Way

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THE REAL REASON AMERICAN POLITICIANS ARE SO WEALTHY

Kickbacks. Book deals. Speaking engagements. Base salaries. Clever stock deals. Insider info. Financially favorable legislation. Could wealth amongst United States' politicians — a kind of Romanesque neo-patrician class – have such obvious causes? Or, are such reasons only the bitterness of the American public spun into slander? Or, is it the case that certain offices all but require immense wealth even to run, thereby limiting top contenders to those who already have money? Historical Index, for instance, cites $50 to $100 million needed just for a modern presidential candidate to win in the primaries. Open Secrets cites a ludicrous figure of $14.4 billion spent during the 2020 presidential election.

Read More: https://www.grunge.com/1416640/real-reason-american-politicians-wealthy/
 
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Kickbacks. Book deals. Speaking engagements. Base salaries. [Clever stock deals. Insider info.] Financially favorable legislation. ...

No (small potatos). No. No. No. ["Clever"? lulz It's insider trading - Yes]. Yes (aka sweetheart deals, influence peddling and graft).

$.02
 


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Members of Congress are required to disclose their personal finances through financial disclosure procedures. Financial disclosure forms are filed annually and every time they or their families make a trade. These forms are made available to the public through the Office of the Clerk of the House of Representatives and the Office of the Secretary of the Senate. These forms are a key tool for promoting ethical conduct in Congress and are an important part of efforts to promote integrity and transparency in the legislative process.

This report analyzes data obtained from publicly accessible financial disclosure forms. We tried to compile all transactions published from 2020 to December 31, 2023. Politicians have up to 45 days to disclose transactions, though there are cases where transactions are filed years later with seemingly no penalty. This delay means that at the time of compiling this report, not all disclosures for 2023 may have been published.

We’ve been doing this report for four years now and we’ve accumulated a lot of data. This year, we’ll comment on trading trends over the last couple years. ...

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Ten percent for "the big guy" adds up after a while. ;)



Absolutely zero reason for China, Russia, and Ukraine to have been showering Hunter with tens of millions. He's a washed up crack addict with no perceptible skills.

It was influence peddling, pure and simple. That's the only thing he had to offer. If our disgraced Justice Department weren't in on it, they would have no problem locking them both up for the rest of their lives.
 
Congress uses the financial markets to directly supplement their salaries and information to get votes.
 

The Morbidly Rich Have a Vision for the U.S.? A Blueprint Exists!​

Jan 8, 2024


10:46
 

Nancy Pelosi Made $500,000 From Her Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) Bet, Doubling Her Annual Government Salary In Just 2 Months​


U.S. Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-California, has achieved significant financial gains from her recent investment in Nvidia Corp. (NASDAQ:NVDA), a prominent company in artificial intelligence (AI) and semiconductors. On Nov. 22, Pelosi acquired 50 call options for Nvidia with a strike price of $120, expiring on Dec. 20, 2024. The transaction value ranged between $1 million and $5 million.

As of early 2024, Pelosi has reportedly made nearly $500,000 from this investment, surpassing her annual government salary of approximately $223,500. This gain is attributed to Nvidia’s stock performance, which has seen an increase of over 21% in value since Pelosi’s acquisition, according to Finbold.

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Congresswoman Discloses Purchase Of Defense Stock Lockheed Martin Before 'We Must Hold Iran Accountable' Comment: Is There A Potential Conflict Of Interest?​


  • Defense stocks could benefit due to increased tensions in the Middle East, heightened by a drone attack on US troops in Jordan.
  • A Congresswoman disclosed buying shares of a defense stock before saying the US should hold Iran accountable for the attack.
The act of buying and selling stocks and options by members of Congress has become a hotly debated item across social media and in the news due to potential conflicts of interest.

A member of Congress recently disclosed a purchase of a defense stock, which could point to another conflict of interest.

What Happened: A drone attack on a U.S. outpost in the country of Jordan killed three American soldiers was suspected to have been done by militants in Syria that were backed by Iran. The incident came during the current Middle East conflict and could lead to increased action in the region.

With tensions rising in the Middle East, defense stocks could benefit from additional purchases of weapons and defense systems.

One member of Congress bought shares of a leading defense stock days before the drone strike in Jordan.

Rep. Kathy Manning (D-N.C.) disclosed the purchase of two separate orders of Lockheed Martin Corp shares. Each transaction was valued at between $1,000 and $15,000.

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The buy is one side, but when do they sell?
 
Foreign Aid. Money goes overseas and comes back through shell corporations owned by friends and family members. Money then gets funneled into political campaigns and any "extra" left afterwards can be legally put into their retirement funds.
The most blatant examples were The Clinton foundation that funneled up to 2 billion through their foundation and now Obama who goes into office with a combined net worth of a little over a million and 8 years later has the Obama foundation worth 300 million plus with several donations over 25 million but no one is allowed to know who the anonymous donors were.
Remember Solyndra? Over 500 million of taxpayer money just lit on fire in a years time. 1100 employees at lets say 50k each for a period of 1 year totals 55 million. I think the company got like 550 million so where is the other 500 million. No charges for anyone and no real facts released from a 4 year investigation. FBI went in and grabbed everything as soon as bankruptcy was announced so probably no way to find out how much went to kickbacks to politicians.

All of this should be illegal. In the old days we were never giving money to corporations to start up a company. A loan to bail out a company here and there but even when Chrysler needed a bailout it was very controversial. Probably illegal but we did get paid back. Now there isn't even a hint of controversy and DOE just hands out money like candy.
Next up is over 6 billion to build chip plants in Texas. For Samsung. If it's such a great idea to invest in this then why aren't banks making that investment? Why didn't banks make the loan to Solyndra?

This is normalcy creep. 1st it's controversial to loan money to Chrysler. Then years later money is just given away like it's a normal thing. All of this is tax dollars being funneled into companies that will funnel a lot of it back via no show jobs for politicians families and friends and also political contributions.

Planned parenthood and NPR are 2 other organizations being used to funnel political contributions. Money gets allocated to both of these organizations and both make massive contributions to political campaigns.
 
*Moved this thread into the Trading Bug section. While there isn't anything that'll be done about insider trading by the critters, maybe someone could benefit by following some of their moves. Here's hoping I'm one of them. 🍺
 

Investors, worried they can’t beat lawmakers in stock market, copy them instead​

Members of Congress hear a lot of secrets: classified briefings, confidential previews of pending legislation and the private opinions of constituents, regulators, corporate executives and world leaders.

Watchdog groups have long believed that some lawmakers use that information to make money in the stock market. Now a loose alliance of traders, analysts and advocates is trying to let Americans mimic the trades elected officials make, offering tongue-in-cheek financial products — including one named for former House speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and another that refers to Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) — that track purchases and sales after lawmakers disclose them.

Collectively, these investment vehicles have attracted hundreds of millions of dollars. At times, congressional investigators have used them to keep tabs on suspicious trading activity, according to people familiar with these investigations who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak to the media.

“Our mission isn’t to make everyone millionaires — it’s actually to highlight the hypocrisy of congressional trading in an effort to bring more transparency and trust back into our government,” said Christopher Josephs, the founder of Autopilot, an app that allows ordinary investors to mimic the trades of leading politicians, top hedge funders and other famous traders. “Hopefully it’s helping, but our slogan is, if you can’t beat them, join them.”

Members of Congress are permitted to trade on the markets, but a 2012 law, the Stock Act, clarified insider trading restrictions for lawmakers and ramped up reporting requirements. Lawmakers are banned from trading based on material and nonpublic information they learn through their jobs and have 45 days to disclose any trades they or their immediate family members make.

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Congress Trading Dashboard​

The Stock Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act requires U.S. Senators and U.S. Representatives to publicly file and disclose any financial transaction within 45 days of its occurrence. We download those disclosures, parse them for stock trades, fetch the stock's performance in the time following the transaction, and calculate each politician's cumulative return from their trades.

 

Lawmakers caught in controversy as congressional stock trading debate rages on​

Members of Congress are on a summer stock shopping spree — and still violating financial disclosure law — amid a reinvigorated movement to ban congressional stock trading.

Three members of the House of Representatives appear to have violated the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act this week by filing required reports late — some as much as two years past a federally mandated deadline.

From Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) to Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), more than a dozen other members of Congress continue trading stocks and securities, even in the immediate two weeks after the Ending Trading and Holdings in Congressional Stocks (ETHICS) Act passed out of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security.

The bill has yet to be voted on by either the House or Senate in order to be sent to President Joe Biden’s desk to be signed into law, but its bipartisan co-sponsors call the committee vote “strong bipartisan momentum” toward a stock trading ban.

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This is just one moar aspect of Regulatory Capture.

Putting Congress within the Constitution, and gutting the regulatory agencies, would mean: Congress could no longer craft laws that affect businesses - beneficially or otherwise. Market forces and economic laws would rule.

So businesses would no more care for what Congress does than Henry Ford did in the 1920s. So there would be no benefit to co-opting (bribing) CON gress cretins.

And CON gress would lose the ability to benefit and punish - pick winners and losers. No more pre-running regulatory changes. No more passing insider tips back and forth.

You can see the income-gusher lost to the "public servants"...so, any changes will have to come from outside the CON gress. Constitutional amendments, involving Term Limits and clarification of rights of business persons...done through an Article V Convention.
 
Let's ask Nancy and the gang.............

Should Insider Trading Be Legal?​

Insider trading is the purchase or sale of securities—typically stocks or bonds—by someone with material non-public information (MNPI) about these companies. MNPI is corporate news or information that has not yet been made public and could impact security prices. Some critics of insider trading argue that it violates the principle of equal opportunity because actors are trading on information available only to them, while others claim it creates inefficiencies by discouraging investment.

Neither argument is convincing. Every security transaction has a willing buyer and a willing seller. Moreover, much “insider” trading is legal, such as hedge funds trading on their own research. Insider trading is likely to make markets more efficient by incorporating MNPI into stock prices faster. According to a 1992 study, on both insider trading days and those leading up to the eventual announcement of information, pre-announcement price drift occurs. Were the market to remain static, investors would face greater risks as security prices would not reflect the true value informed by insider knowledge.

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Funny how it didn't bother them that Vodka Nan was doing the same thing, her whole career.
 


Senator Josh Hawley says the quiet part out loud, “Members of Congress are TRADING DAILY based on information that the public doesn't have”

“Congress is a rich man's club. That's the problem”

“I would suspect that I probably have the fewest assets of anybody sitting on this dais. I am not a rich man, unlike those to my left. (Senator Rick Scott, net worth $327 million dollars)

“Let's be honest. Members of Congress get information that is technically not insider information as defined by the securities laws. That is nevertheless extremely beneficial to know, and often we get it earlier than other people.”
 
Tiktok has lots of people offering to help you mirror congressional stock trading, I wonder if I should do some...
 
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