How is it acceptable for them to engage in these activities while on the job? It should be illegal based upon their job duties. During office hours, and while at the office, like everyone else, they should be required to carry out their job duties and not engage in personal or outside activities. Trading stocks and the like has nothing to do with their job and should not be done while at your job.
If a congress person is caught doing anything else besides their job, they should be fired immediately for cause. We need to put the public service back in public service.
Are you 100% focused all the time when you're at work? I think it's a bit unrealistic to expect that kind of focus from anyone at any job. If they're getting their work done, I don't see the harm in trading stocks ASSUMING they are playing by the rules, i.e., not insider trading.
I think there’s a difference between reading the news or social media occasionally at work and doing something like trading stocks. It falls into the realm of work. I know some people trade stocks for leisure but the vast majority do it to make money.
Is it right to work another job for profit at your employer or while your employer is expecting you to be doing work on behalf of them? According to my moral compass, that’s a no. I would be pretty upset if I found one of my employees trading stocks while they were supposed to be working. Especially if my approval of them was low, which is the current situation with many government officials right now. If there was agreement on both sides before taking a job, that would be different but I find that hard to believe before taking a job someone would admit to that, and that’s a sign they know it’s wrong.
They have a lot of nerve thinking this is acceptable behavior when the country is in the middle of a crisis and has a lot of problems to solve.
The problem isn't that they're doing something other than their job, it's that they have insider information, and they're using that insider information to buy and sell stocks.
Their insider trading a very small problem compared to the problem of the perverted incentive to steer legislation in a direction that helps their portfolio.
based on what metric? Do we know have evidence of them voting for their own portfolio vs trading their info? Based on data i've seen, it seems more likely that they're insider trading. (Except for republicans trying to support fossil fuel legislation...)
It is far more likely that they're insider trading, but the point is that the magnitude of the negative consequence is vastly different. If they insider trade and make $5 million, that's money stolen from other market participants. Bad, for sure, but the scope of the damage is limited to that stolen $5 million. If it corrupts policymaking by creating a conflict of interest, the scope of damage is uncapped.
I agree with what you said, except the part about stealing from "wall street". Most of that money is stolen from regular people's investments and pension funds.
Most markets are not 0-sum, and taking a "long" position (congresswomen buying low, and selling high) won't cause anyone harm unless they took a short position on the asset - which hopefully most people's regular investments don't do.
I absolutely think this should be banned but they (and their staffers) don't have real workplaces. Sure, there's the office but a ton of their work is meetings, talking to constituents, travel between their district and DC, etc. and many of them put in 80+ hour workweeks. Trying to put them in the bucket of an average 9-5 person with a set workspace doesn't work.
They aren't necessarily trading on the clock. Just making trades based on information nobody else has that they only have access to because of their job.
If a congress person is caught doing anything else besides their job, they should be fired immediately for cause. We need to put the public service back in public service.