chassroc
Cave Dweller
Rocks are abundant when you have rocktumblinghobby pals
Member since January 2005
Posts: 3,586
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Post by chassroc on Nov 15, 2011 9:26:05 GMT -5
They focused on one of my favorite peeves. The lack of control on influential members of Congress. If you are working on Energy Legislation, you are allowed to trade in Energy stocks. If you work on Healthcare legislation, you can trade heathcare stocks. If you are on the Banking comittee you can trade in Financial stocks. Is it any wonder that members of Congress can make money in the Stock Market while the rest of us languish.
If you are dealing with Lobbyists for Chase Manhattan, you may take a job with them next year. If you are on the Armed Services Comittee you can work for a Gun Company when your term is up. If you influence which company gets a trillion dollar contract to make stealth bombers or aircraft carriers, you guessed it....
It is no wonder we have the best Government money can buy or that most Companies complain about the High Corporate Tax Rates in this Country, while they are paying NO taxes, while they are getting Tax breaks for shipping jobs to other Countries, etc.
And the nerve of these weasels, When Nancy Pelosi or John Boehnner is asked to explain why they made lucrative stock trades while working on impending legislation, they appear all huffy and want to turn the tables. How dare you accuse me. What are you implying?, Me take advantage of my position.
If we continue to permit our lawmakers to profit from their positions, if we allow them to attend events that the rest of of have to pay thousands of dollars for, if we can even get the tickets...all I can say is you get what you deserve. Change the rules and you can get some semblance of fairness and decency back into America.
charlie
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Post by jakesrocks on Nov 15, 2011 10:00:08 GMT -5
Charlie, we here in South Dakota don't put up with it. In the last 2 election cycles we've fired 2 of our law makers. A senator and a congresswoman. Both were married to lobbyists, and both worked on bills that benefited their spouses. Both worked on bills for their rich friends to the detriment of the folks of this state who put them in office.
Oh, and I might add, both were Democrats. # 3, also a Democrat will probably be getting his walking papers soon. He's too much of a yes man for Obama, and ignores the wishes of the people he's supposed to represent.
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chassroc
Cave Dweller
Rocks are abundant when you have rocktumblinghobby pals
Member since January 2005
Posts: 3,586
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Post by chassroc on Nov 15, 2011 13:16:40 GMT -5
Don, You act like this is a democrat problem. When you start to give "Your" side a pass and just deflect the blame to one side you are perpetuating the problem.
Charlie
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Post by jakesrocks on Nov 15, 2011 13:30:22 GMT -5
Never said it was just a Democrat problem. Just saying that the ones who refuse to listen to their people in their home state seem to be Democrats around here. We even got rid of an ex governor and short term congressman, and yep, you guessed it. He was a Democrat. He refused to take responsibility for speeding through a stop sign and killing a guy on a motor cycle. Wasn't his first time in trouble with the law, but he used his power as governor to get out of them. He lost after killing the guy on the motorcycle, and had to resign from congress to serve time in jail. Now he has a brain tumor and is facing the best judge of all.
Don
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Simon
spending too much on rocks
Member since March 2009
Posts: 352
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Post by Simon on Nov 15, 2011 14:02:48 GMT -5
I've never seen and never will see a poor politician, they don't care about the people they represent, or the countries they're supposed to be running, to them the dollar/pound/euro is king, followed closely by how much power they can wield.
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Post by texaswoodie on Nov 15, 2011 14:35:51 GMT -5
Yup, Congress is immune to the insider trading law...........imagine that.
Curt
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Post by jakesrocks on Nov 15, 2011 14:57:50 GMT -5
Time to trade them all, until they get the message and start playing by the same set of rules that we have to play by.
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Post by parfive on Nov 15, 2011 15:27:29 GMT -5
The insider stock trading and the smelly land deals are bad enough, but the best one was Spencer Bachus shorting the market the day after a secret congressional briefing on the financial crisis. Way to go, you f**cking turd.
Darrell Issa: “We don’t need laws for the powerful.”
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Post by Toad on Nov 15, 2011 16:40:59 GMT -5
Yes - something we can all vagree on.
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Post by Donnie's Rocky Treasures on Nov 15, 2011 16:58:25 GMT -5
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Post by parfive on Nov 15, 2011 17:29:53 GMT -5
ps – Bachus is now chairman of the House Committee on Financial Services. Issa is chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. ;D Please don't get the impression that Rep. Spencer Baucus was the only member of Congress who attended closed-door sessions about the 2008 economic crisis, then called his broker. In another part of Peter Schweizer's book, he checks the schedules of other attendees at a September 16, 2008 meeting with Hank Paulson and Ben Bernanke. It's a pure mixture of Democrats and Republicans.
"September 17, 2008, was by far [Rep. Jim] Moran’s most active trading day of the year," writes Schweitzer. "He dumped shares in Goldman Sachs, General Dynamics, Franklin Resources, Flowserve Corporation, Ecolabs, Edison International, Electronic Arts, DirecTV, Conoco, Procter & Gamble, AT&T, Apple, CVS, Cisco, Chubb, and a dozen more companies." Schweitzer actually counts ninety companies that Moran dumped, helping him avoid big losses.
Also at the meeting: Rep. Shelley Capito. "She and her husband dumped between $100,000 and $250,000 in Citigroup stock the day after the briefing," reports Schweitzer. And then there was Dick Durbin, then and now the assistant majority leader of the Senate. "He sold off $73,715 in stock funds" after the September 16 briefing. "Following the next terrifying closed-door briefing, on September 18, he dumped another $42,000 in stock."
www.slate.com/blogs/weigel/2011/11/14/democrats_benefited_from_2008_trades_too.html
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Sabre52
Cave Dweller
Me and my gal, Rosie
Member since August 2005
Posts: 20,466
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Post by Sabre52 on Nov 15, 2011 18:09:48 GMT -5
Yep, I think we can all agree on this one. Instead of fairly playing the market like the rest of us, these crooks ( and crooks they are. despite the loophole they squeak through) only play the game when they can stack the deck so they can't lose. Anyone from either party caught doing this should be in jail or worse. Lets bring back the hanging tree *L*....Mel
PS: It don't take a genius to figure out this is why these aholes spend millions getting themselves elected. If the job was not a cash cow for the elected officials, they would not want the job.
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Post by Rockoonz on Nov 17, 2011 1:35:54 GMT -5
Kind of like AlGore out there promoting global warming legislation then selling carbon offsets. When Martha Stewart did it she went to prison. It's high time the rest of them got the jail time they deserve.
Lee
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Simon
spending too much on rocks
Member since March 2009
Posts: 352
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Post by Simon on Nov 17, 2011 21:03:19 GMT -5
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Sabre52
Cave Dweller
Me and my gal, Rosie
Member since August 2005
Posts: 20,466
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Post by Sabre52 on Nov 17, 2011 23:04:07 GMT -5
Yeah, imagine that, them what makes the laws to determine what is legal and what is not makes the illegal legal when the law is applied to their behavior. Did you see Pelosi when questioned by 60 Minutes? She looked like a deer caught in the headlights. They take the same attitude when dealing with "their medical coverage", "their retirements", and "their pay raisies and other benefits". Aren't they just soooo special? These folks have less moral fiber than horse thieves. No wonder their approval rating is so fantastically high, sarcastically speaking....Mel
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Deleted
Deleted Member
Member since January 1970
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Post by Deleted on Nov 18, 2011 20:12:03 GMT -5
If we do not figure out a way to set term limits on those people we are going down the crapper and we are not too many flushes away now. Jim
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chassroc
Cave Dweller
Rocks are abundant when you have rocktumblinghobby pals
Member since January 2005
Posts: 3,586
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Post by chassroc on Nov 19, 2011 12:02:30 GMT -5
Term Limits...don't get me started. Wasn't that the cornerstone of the "Contract with America"...Once elected, that wasn't such a great idea was it? The incumbent gets to build up a war chest and even in those rare cases when they lose, they hold onto the cash.
charlie
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Sabre52
Cave Dweller
Me and my gal, Rosie
Member since August 2005
Posts: 20,466
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Post by Sabre52 on Nov 19, 2011 15:50:12 GMT -5
Shoot, I think we should vote out all the old set of crooks every election cycle. Or barring that, fire and throw all the corrupt politicians in jail and keep only the honest ones. Oops, I guess the requirement for a honest politician means we start all over again with everyone every election cycle anyway *L*. Maybe all lawyers should be banned from political office because of conflict of interest. We should not have folks who make their living off laws and figuring out ways around laws, be creating new laws. They're a shifty bunch of owlhoots anyway!...Mel
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