Forum Post: Congress' Privileges of Insider Trading May Soon be Over! STOCK Act passes in the Senate
Posted 12 years ago on Feb. 2, 2012, 8:37 p.m. EST by economicallydiscardedcitizen
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It still hasn't passed the house, but this is a great start; no doubt due to the attention of OWS supporters protesting!
http://occupywallst.org/forum/alan-greenspan-from-his-1966-essay/#comment-619813
STOCK Act passes in the Senate
By Brian Montopoli Topics Campaign 2012
(Credit: CBS/AP)
The STOCK Act - legislation to bar members of Congress from trading stocks based on nonpublic information they have obtained in the course of their congressional work - passed the Senate Thursday in a 96 to 3 vote.
The legislation still needs to pass the House. President Obama has vowed to quickly sign the bill if it reaches his desk.
Members of Congress are already subject to insider trading laws. But it is currently within the law for a lawmaker to buy a company's stock after learning, for example, that an upcoming bill will grant that company a large government contract.
The ultimate fate of the STOCK (Stop Trading On Congressional Knowledge) Act, which comes in the wake of a "60 Minutes" story on potential congressional insider trading, remains unclear - though its prospects are relatively good. Passage in the Senate was complicated by a flurry of amendments added to the legislation, including a proposal that senators be prevented from owning individual stocks unless they are in a blind trust, and another that senators who become lobbyists lose their pensions. Some lawmakers expressed skittishness at the efforts to broaden the scope of the legislation.
Senate Democrats and Republicans began voting on 20 amendments, one by one, early Thursday afternoon, after an agreement was worked out between Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell following contentious negotiations. The amendment barring lawmakers from directly holding individual stocks failed Thursday 26 - 73; the amendment mandating that lawmakers lose their pensions for lobbying was not among those brought to a vote.
One criticism of the original legislation - raised by House Majority Leader Eric Cantor - was that the original bill did not also focus on the executive branch. That issue seems to have been addressed: An amendment to extend the new rules to cover the executive branch passed on Thursday 58-41.
It is not yet known if the change is enough to satisfy Cantor and the House GOP leadership, who suggested before the vote they would bring forth their own, stronger version of the legislation by the end of the month. Some House Democrats have suggested that Cantor is trying to play politics with the issue, and they are pushing for an up-or-down vote on the Senate version.
• Brian Montopoli Brian Montopoli is the senior political reporter at CBSNews.com.
After being bogged down and criticized by individuals with much to gain from insider trading, STOCK Act is long overdue. Taking money out of politics is the way to go.
Cantor, might be the biggest POS lier in Congress
Transparency and accountability does not exist in a so called blind trust. About one hour and eight minutes into the Senate hearing on insider trading http://goo.gl/0aaBd. I think it might have been Robert Walker who told congress why blind trusts are not a workable solution to insider trading. These kinds of trusts cost a lot of money. “They are only blind is so far as .. they are not blind what you put into them initially, they are only blind if you put in cash, or after a period of time the assets are sold down to a particular level, then you are notified that you do not have those any more.”
The first blind trust used in modern times was that of President Lyndon B. Johnson. He knew what was in the trust and it was managed as he wanted. It would have been public information had the assets been sold. Anyone with half a brain can get around a blind trust. The way to catch these people is to have real time disclosures.
See: The problem with blind trusts. http://goo.gl/iuCkO
Thanks for sharing. I'm beginning to think the word 'Trust' in legalese is just another word for more opportunity to hide corruption and legally condoned theft.
Digressing, myself and a friend had parents die who both had wills and a 'living trust' without going into lengthy detail :The trust in each case allowed the named executor to effect changes prior to the death of parents while the parents were too weak to disagree effectively nixing prior wills. A warning to anyone who has parents with a will and trust setup: you can kiss any chance of a fair inheritance good bye if one of your siblings is the executor and if the parent/s fail to disclose each time changes are made prior to passing. In my friend's case the sister effectively cashed in a cool million plus in stocks with dying dad's consent and holds over 70 % of the liquidated value of the estate at just under $800K which originally was to be divided equally among the kids.
Sometimes the law really sucks because I don't know of any pro-Bono attorney in the Seattle/Vancouver, WA area who would be willing to 'take all' in exchange for running that one into the ground so that nobody gets anything.
SGK restores PP funding !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
WE WON !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This is a good start. I don't think it would've happened had the topic not surfaced here late last year.
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Senate passes insider trading ban, but it's clearly being written by the Big Cheeses and full of holes like Swiss Cheese..
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/08/us/politics/ban-on-insider-trading-by-congress-faces-gop-revisions-in-house.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1328868151-dcKEkIAL+3oV85DEqV0rPA
"Representative Tim Walz, Democrat of Minnesota, said the bill, to ban insider trading by members of Congress, was being rewritten behind closed doors by House Republican leaders.
“How ironic,” Mr. Walz said. “Insiders now appear to be writing a bill meant to ban insider trading.”
The bill is intended to restore trust in Congress, but Mr. Walz said the revisions could “make the cynicism that’s rampant in America even greater.”
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/story/2012-02-02/congress-insider-trading/52939302/1 Senate passes insider trading ban
it doesn't pertain to their families. And nothing stops obama from giving info to his friends.