this post was submitted on 23 Jul 2024

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Nancy Pelosi did what she’s always done (www.motherjones.com)

submitted 4 months ago by jeffw to c/politics

42 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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[–] [email protected] 73 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Insider trading?

[+] Pronell -48 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (7 children)

Negative shit thrown at Pelosi in recent years:

She got a haircut during COVID.

She has a separate freezer for her ice cream.

She profits greatly from stock trades.

Two are non issues, and one is an issue that a great deal of congress members are guilty of.

Knock it off.

It's petty, it reduces her accomplishments to a meme, and it ignores the true scale of the problem that neither party wants to stop.

I agree it's a problem but it isn't solely a Pelosi issue. This is misogyny on full display. She isn't the Speaker. She's in the minority party and not even the minority leader.

[–] [email protected] 95 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Shutting down legitimate criticism of leadership is MAGA type thinking. Knock THAT off. Pretending the politicians you support are flawless or deflecting valid grievances with whataboutisms is not how you hold your party accountable for its shortcomings.

[–] Pronell 43 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

Fair. I didn't, and acknowledged she is part of the problem, but I take that hit for the tone I took.

And thanks for the civil reply, that was more civil than mine.

[–] rigatti 18 points 4 months ago (3 children)

This is the internet, aren't we supposed to continue the cycle of toxicity...?

[–] Pronell 24 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I may be an angry guy but I also want to help Lemmy be a better place.

So I try to both speak my mind and take my licks when I overstep.

[–] BangelaQuirkel 7 points 4 months ago

A healthy balance. I applaud you.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago

angry toxic noises

There balance restored

[–] ProvableGecko -2 points 4 months ago

Hey, I still hate him and all the libs like him

[–] Xanis 2 points 4 months ago

But like...the haircut, man! That's almost as bad as that time Obama wore that one suit!

SCANDALOUS.

sigh

[–] [email protected] 37 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (3 children)

So ~~last year~~ earlier this year when this issue was getting a lot of attention, this chart produced by unusualwhales.com was spread around:

Looks kind of bad, right? SPY is being used for comparison, and it's near the bottom of that chart. Look at all those congress critters playing the market and winning! They must be corrupt.

Except that this is a small fraction of the total membership of the US Congress. Out of 435 Representatives and 100 Senators, the 32 members shown here represent 6% of congress, and they have been specifically selected as the top performers. There's nothing exactly wrong with showing them in a chart this way, but it's very important to understand that this means 94% of congress members did not beat SPY. If you have the idea that congress members in general are substantially profiteering from stock trading, that is directly contradicted by the evidence.

OK, so what about these top performers? Are they individually corrupt? How could we know?

If certain members of congress were regularly using their legislative access to earn profit on the stock market, well that should show up in long-term statistics. If they do this a lot, they should be beating SPY consistently, right?

So we can look at the larger chart from the 2023 report:

And then we can compare it with the one from 2022:

And so do we see any correlations? Well, no not really. The names at the top of 2023 are completely different from 2022. Nancy Pelosi actually lost about 20% of her portfololio value in 2022. There are a couple names that appear on both lists but their performance varies wildly from one year to the next.

Obviously 2 years isn't enough data to identify real trends, but at least in this context we can see that you can't really justify the idea that stock trading corruption is common in congress. Only a small fraction of congress members do better than SPY in either 2022 or 2023, and they aren't the same people year to year.

The vast majority of congress members have lower returns than SPY, and that is the only actual trend supported by the data.

[–] Pronell 17 points 4 months ago

I greatly appreciate this data!

And appreciate being corrected on my overstatements.

[–] BrianTheeBiscuiteer 12 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I get it but beating the market by whatever percentage is not the deciding factor in whether or not you're making an insider trade. I expect lawmakers to follow the same laws as the rest of us.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Statistically, as a group, congress members are doing no better in the market than any average trader, and many of them are in fact doing worse. If you have some evidence that actually shows there is some broad corruption involved (not with one or two, but like with a statistically significant number of them, say >10%) I would be very interested to see it.

Otherwise, you're just making vague implications based on assumptions.

[–] BrianTheeBiscuiteer 5 points 4 months ago

The number of people trading with insider information also isn't a deciding factor in whether it's illegal.

Here's at least one case that's pretty clear cut I feel, so it does happen - https://www.politico.com/news/2024/07/10/democrats-mike-garcia-boeing-stock-00167225

If they're going to say this is a tough rule to follow they're already too far gone and as you said most would do better just buying SPY anyway.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago

I replied in a different thread but breaking it down YoY is deeply dishonest especially when we had a devastating market performance year. It's also important to remember that stock trading is (mostly) a zero sum game where some cohort of traders having insider information means that everyone else has less potential to make money. It's one of the reasons why insider trading is so illegal... an information cartel would be highly profitable while accelerating wealth inequality.

[–] Etterra 13 points 4 months ago

I'm cool with throwing them all in prison for it.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Two are non issues, and one is an issue that a great deal of congress members are guilty of.

Nope! She's not alone in the practice but as the speaker she greatly normalized the corruption and made incredible money at the cost of her constituents.

She did a fair amount of good but her deserved legacy is someone who ripped off those she represented for her personal gain.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

as the speaker she greatly normalized the corruption and made incredible money at the cost of her constituents

So, what evidence do you have to support this conclusion? Because this sounds an awful lot like the narrative that gets pushed by Fox and Trump about "corrupt Democrats".

[–] [email protected] -4 points 4 months ago (1 children)

The evidence is how incredibly well her portfolio has out performed index funds. She just happens to be one of the luckiest investors and coincidentally was a house rep.

Please don't defend someone "on our team" when they do shitty stuff. We're better than the Republicans.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

Couple points:

Asking for evidence for your claim is not equivalent to defending Nancy Pelosi's stock trading habits, and it's a dirty little trick for you to try to equate them.
Nancy Pelosi's stock portfolio outperformed the SPY trust fund in 2023, but underperformed it in 2022. She has not "out performed index funds" on a regular basis, which could be evidence of corruption - if it had happened. Please read my other post where I discuss the actual data.
Still waiting on that evidence.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

Oh sorry, you wanted evidence for her normalizing it?

She's the boss. If the boss does it, it's okay. That may not sound complicated enough to you but that's absolutely enough to normalize behavior in a workplace - if the person with the power to set rules does a thing than that thing is alright. She is the first speaker to be called out for her behavior and she refused to change.

That wasn't a dishonest debate topic you were just vague with your question, and I misunderstood you.

Oh and in case I doubt misunderstood your question (it was just highlighting my statement and asking "Why?"). If you were asking how she's taking money from her constituents then it's also pretty simple. Ignoring dividend focused investment, which she minimally engages in, the stock market is a zero sum game - if you make money in it, it's at the expense of someone else... the value of the market may traditionally be going up but that isn't a guarantee and, arguably, it has been growing at a deeply unhealthy rate since the 80s.

Did I get your question? If not then that's on you. Me writing up this wall of text to your vague gotcha question is an underhanded tactic on your part - you left your question extremely vague so I'm not certain what to answer... I've answered every interpretation I could think of so most people will just skip my response.

Also, regarding the index fund, she absolutely has out performed the market just not over each YoY period. You shifted the goal posts and that's absolutely an underhanded gotcha response.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

I didn't ask any "extremely vague" questions, I asked you for evidence that supports your opinion. There's nothing remotely vague about that.

Oh sorry, you wanted evidence for her normalizing it?

She's the boss. If the boss does it, it's okay.

This is not evidence, it is conjecture. Evidence requires you to present some corroborating information which substantiates your opinion. You still haven't presented any. Everything you have said is still just your opinion - that is, a load of hot air.

That may not sound complicated enough to you

Being complicated or not has nothing to do with it. You need to present information that backs up your claims, otherwise they're not worth the time you spent typing them.

Did I get your question? If not then that's on you.

There is no question to "get". There is simply a request for evidence. Sources. News articles. Stock value tracking. Data analyses. Anything.

To put it bluntly: [citations needed]

[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I can't help you if you reject evidence.

We have one government and we can't gather data on how it responds to different stimuli... unless, that is, you look at the thousands of workplaces we have with similar power dynamics (and general sociology studies) where people set social contracts by observing seniority and leadership.

If you want a discussion of how social norms emerge in most settings, see Section 4 in

https://www.annualreviews.org/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-economics-080614-115322

But if you work in an office this should be pretty self-evident.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I can't help you if you reject evidence.

What evidence? You haven't provided any. You need to substantiate this claim:

as the speaker she greatly normalized the corruption and made incredible money at the cost of her constituents.

with some directly relevant corroborating information.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Points at link.

Points at the entire field of sociology.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

That link is an academic paper about social norms in general. It has nothing to do with Nancy Pelosi or insider trading or government corruption, which is why I said:

directly relevant corroborating information

You are drawing inferences based on assumptions. You haven't provided anything that constitutes evidence.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

As I said in my comment above. We have one US Government, we cannot run experiments on it. I don't know if you've ever worked in statistics or even just taken uni level statistics, but your desired level of proof is simply ridiculous and unattainable.

Here, I have given you a mountain of data that paints a pretty clear picture but no, I can't "prove" it was Pelosi - just like you can't prove it wasn't ancient aliens.

I really do hope you're trolling because this beyond silly.

[–] RampantParanoia2365 4 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Wait, so how many congress people have an ice cream freezer, then?

[–] Pronell 6 points 4 months ago (1 children)

As many as want them and can afford them. It's a relatively trivial reason to be annoyed at a politician.

[–] RampantParanoia2365 4 points 4 months ago

What if they all horde all the ice cream in their giant mansion-sized confection freezers, leaving no ice cream for the people? Has Nancy been gaining weight? Does she have all the Phish Food?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

She's an influencal member of Congress that was in the leadership postion and holds herself out as a defender of the working class as she blatantly enriched herself. She's fucking married to a investment banker. Responding to calling out a power elite for behavior they 100% engaged in as misogyny is a bit much.

[–] chakan2 1 points 4 months ago

She IS a meme of old money greed. That's all it is.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 4 months ago (2 children)

In the month that followed President Joe Biden’s disastrous debate with Donald Trump, it has sometimes been hard to escape the conclusion that, for all the warnings that the Republican candidate was an existential threat to democratic governance who must be defeated in November, many of the people tasked with stopping him really didn’t seem to feel that way.

…

If there was one Biden comment that stung more than all the others, it was his response to a question from George Stephanopolous during his first post-debate interview about how he’d feel in January if Trump went on to win.

“I’ll feel as long as I gave it my all and I did as good a job as I know I can do,” Biden said, “that’s what this is about.”

That answer. Right fucking there. He said that in the “recovery” interview and I said aloud “oh god we are completely fucked”. I was cautiously optimistic (albeit quite concerned on a lot of fronts) before, but that one limpdick, unenthusiastic, tired comment made me realize that Biden apparently did not seem to fully understand the stakes nor have his head in the game, and it made me absolutely fucking furious. Like, come the fuck on. You cannot do that in the face of a potential fascist takeover of government. That is objectively the wrong strategy. Fucking try harder, because the situation desperately calls for it. And if you can’t try harder, you need to get the fuck out, because you’re not the candidate we need.

So yeah; I’m absolutely fucking stoked that he stepped back from the campaign. But I’m still completely shocked and dismayed that he had to be literally saved by some careful prodding from Pelosi to avoid utterly shredding his political legacy - alongside, you know, democracy in America in general. The hubris in the context of the direness of the situation was quite simply appalling.

All that said, I’m absolutely ready to move on, back Kamala (or whoever gets the nomination, but realistically it’s going to be Kamala) and kick the fucking fascists in the teeth - electorally, for sure, but literally too, if necessary.

[–] Dkarma 5 points 4 months ago (1 children)

This is how I felt in the debate when he called trump a liar and then turned around and was like I'd golf with you any time!

Like wtf dude...trump should be in prison and tried to overthrow your election and you're like let's play the back nine quick?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

I think he was failing to make a quip about beating him at golf

[–] Xanis 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Ssssasooooo...wanna continue to be pissed after Trump is triumphed over? Cause we can all do a lot if we just STOP. FUCKING. NOT CARING. THE INSTANT A PRESIDENT IS ELECTED.

Be like, "We don't like all the things." while also not being even remotely involved if it's not an election year. COME ON NOW.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

What about my comment leads you to believe I’m generally detached from political goings-on, or that I’m being anything but ruthlessly pragmatic in the context of what we need to do to defeat the fascists?

[–] Xanis 1 points 4 months ago

What about my comment makes you certain I'm referring only to you: A single individual part of a larger sociocultural node who I know absolutely nothing about?

Defensive much? Of course I'm talking about how this usually goes: Election happens, people pop out from nowhere, lots of discourse, election ends, all those people disappear.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Great read.

[–] jeffw 7 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I have this little rule of thumb that the best articles I share often get the least upvotes lol. Probably just confirmation bias on my part but a lot of votes just come from how good the headline is

[–] RozhkiNozhki 8 points 4 months ago

It helps to add some quotes from the article into the post, to give your readers an idea of what it is they're about to click.