Party of the rich: Democrats in Congress score ‘abnormal’ stock profits

posted at 8:54 pm on May 26, 2011 by directorblue
[ Congress ]   

Corporate executives are banned from trading stocks based on inside knowledge, but apparently Democrats in Congress operate under no such restriction.

An extensive study released Wednesday in the journal Business and Politics found that the investments of members of the House of Representatives outperformed those of the average investor by 55 basis points per month, or 6 percent annually, suggesting that lawmakers are taking advantage of inside information to fatten their stock portfolios.

…Despite the GOP’s reputation as the party of the rich, House Republicans fared worse than their Democratic colleagues when it comes to investing, according to the study. The Democratic subsample of lawmakers beat the market by 73 basis points per month, or 9 percent annually, versus 18 basis points per month, or 2 percent annually, for the Republican sample…

…Strict laws ban corporate executives from trading on their insider knowledge, but no restrictions exist for members of Congress. Lawmakers are permitted to keep their holdings and trade shares on the market, as well as vote on legislation that could affect their portfolio values…

Government is the most powerful, unaccountable and monopolistic “corporation” of all. Which is why the Framers created the Constitution the way they did: to constrain government, not us.

Consider the Democrat swamp un-drained.

 
Related: The Secret Garden (and Mansion) of Christopher Dodd

 
Cross-posted at: Doug Ross @ Journal.

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