congress can short sell but you can't ???????

[manu1959]

Even a cynic can find Washington's hypocrisy shocking at times. The Wall Street Journal reports today a House bill that would force lawmakers to make greater disclosures on financial transactions and disallow them from trading on nonpublic information is going nowhere fast.

That's right. Members of Congress are currently allowed to profit on insider trading!

This comes a day after the same newspaper reported several lawmakers profited by betting against the housing and stock market in 2008. And some did it using derivatives they've recently been railing against.

As our colleague Henry Blodget wrote Tuesday, "If you're going to complain about how awful short-selling is and how evil and venal people are for doing it, you should probably abstain from the practice yourself."

congress refuses to outlaw insider trading for lawmakers: Tech Ticker, Yahoo! Finance

 

[California Girl]

How anyone - even the most idiotic Obama worshipper - can find the behavior of congress acceptable is beyond me. How anyone could vote for any of them, regardless of the letter after their name, is just incomprehensible.

 

[boedicca]

That provides a bit more context for Congressional Hearings in which corporate executives are publicly vilified. I wonder how much shorting goes on right before the hearings are announced.