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One in a series that takes a look at the unexpected and certainly the absurd.
Something that jumped out at us on the San Franciso Chronicle's summation of 60 Minutes piece on Congress profitting from the legislation they write:
Laws against insider trading - making stock bets based on information the public doesn't have - do not apply to Congress. Studies have shown that stock portfolios on Capitol Hill outperform the market. Legislation that would ban insider trading by members and staffers has languished.
[...]
Several studies have shown that members of Congress and their staffs do better in the stock market than the public. A 2011 study by four university researchers found that a portfolio that mirrored stock purchases by House members from 1985 to 2001 beat the market by 6 percent a year. The same authors found that senators beat the market by 12.3 percent from 1993 to 1998.
Wait, what?
These guys write the legislation, they make the rules... and they're completely immune from taking advantage of gaming the situation in any manner they feel... and they still can't make out any better than 6 and 12 percent above the market average?
U.S. Congress: where corruption meets complete incompetence.
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3 comments:
I was thinking the SAME THING! But I'm sure they can fix the economy.
ok i laughed. never thought about it that way.
To be frank, the highest paid investment advisor in the world cannot beat the market by 1% over 10 years. Beating the market by 12% is basically redistributing income from investors to politicians through criminality.
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