http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/congress-insider-trading-scandal-outrageous-122321428.html

You cannot read the description of the personal stock trading allegedly conducted by Rep. Spencer Bachus and other members of Congress during the financial crisis and conclude anything other than the following:

Our government is completely corrupt.

Yes, this behavior may be technically legal, because of an absurd loophole that makes insider-trading rules not apply to Congress.

Yes, this behavior may be widespread on Capitol Hill.

But there is no universe in which a reasonable person would consider this behavior ethical or okay. And for the 300+ million Americans who aren't members of Congress, it would be just plain illegal

Many members of Congress seem guilty here, including John Kerry, Dick Durbin, and Jim Moran. But Spencer Bachus takes the cake.

According to a new book called Throw Them All Out by Peter Schweizer, as relayed by Dave Weigel at Slate, Rep. Bachus made more than 40 trades in his personal account in the summer and fall of 2008, in the early months of the financial crisis.

The fact that Bachus personally traded on private information he received as a result of his job is bad enough. The fact that he was the ranking member of the House Financial Services Committee at the time is simply outrageous.

In one case, the day after getting a private briefing on the collapsing economy and financial system from Ben Bernanke and Hank Paulson, Rep. Bachus effectively shorted the market (by buying options that would rise if the market tanked.)

A few days later, after the market tanked, Bachus sold his position and nearly doubled his money.

If a corporate executive or Wall Street trader did this--cashed in personally after getting private, non-public information from his work--Rep. Bachus and every other member of Congress would be screaming from the rooftops about how the financial system is deeply corrupt and how the executive should be charged with insider trading.

And they would be right.

Rep. Bachus should return whatever money he made by betting on the direction of the markets (or anything else) in the fall of 2008. He should apologize for his behavior and jaw-dropping lack of judgement. He should urge his fellow members of Congress to immediately enact legislation that defends the fairness of the markets by holding Congress to the same insider trading laws as everyone else. He should then resign in disgrace.

Here's the passage from Throw Them All Out, as relayed by Slate's Dave Weigel. According to Weigel, it is only one of many examples of Bachus's insider trading:

On the evening of September 18, at 7 p.m., Bachus received [a] private briefing for congressional leaders by Hank Paulson and Federal Reserve Bank Chairman Ben Bernanke about the current state of the economy. They sat around a long table in the office of Nancy Pelosi, then the Speaker of the House. These briefings were secretive. Often, cell phones and Blackberrys had to be surrendered outside the room to avoid leaks.

What Bachus and his colleagues heard behind closed doors was stunning. As Paulson recounts, "Ben [Bernanke] emphasized how the financial crisis could spill into the real economy. As stocks dropped perhaps a further 20 percent, General Motors would go bankrupt, and unemployment would rise . . . if we did nothing." The members of Congress around the table were, in Paulson's words, "ashen-faced."

Bernanke continued, "It is a matter of days before there is a meltdown in the global financial system." Bachus was among those who spoke. According to Paulson, he suggested recapitalizing the banks by buying shares.

The meeting broke up. The next day, September 19, Congressman Bachus bought contract options on Proshares Ultra-Short QQQ, an index fund that seeks results that are 200% of the inverse of the Nasdaq 100 index. In other words, he was shorting the market. It was an inexpensive way to bet that the market would fall. He bought options for $7,846 on a day when the Dow Jones Industrial Average opened at 8,604. A few days later, on September 23, after the market had indeed fallen, he sold the options for over $13,000 and nearly doubled his money.

I knew as soon as the republicans gained seats in the house this was gona happen.

I'd bet that 90% of all of congress does these things and informed voters keep on reelecting them, congress BTW is both the house and senate.

Did you realy think it is something new.

What is new is the number of 'ghost' trades (by computer proxy) coming out of the White House.

dobut if the President is doing it.

But I bet you the staff is.

The freshest information (for a future 'inside' buy) is right at the horses mouth.

'60 Minutes' Blows The Lid Off Congressional Insider Trading

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x95uC_wzUX4

sure is a good thing that only just started in 2010!

Now the Problem arises,how to make a Law to stop this,when the Lawmakers themselves take advantage for apparently being more equal than the rest of the public!
It's hard as hell to drag Pigs away from their Trough!

When it's the lawmakers breaking......writing.... the laws, that's a sticky wicket! They do however, work for us (supposedly).

The problem is, in our zanax induced euphoria that government IS working for us like Faux News and the rest of the MSM says they are, too many believe the lie and refuse to take the red pill.

Only voting (if we can trust that anymore) can make a difference to change the playing field.

OWS is a GREAT idea, but as we have talked on before, and I agree with you, the focus needs to be more on government and the real power brokers who lobby them.

Wall Street is the cause, not the cancer! The central banks are the sugar they feed on!

Hedge-fund mogul Raj Rajaratnam drew 11 years in lockup last month for insider trading. Martha Stewart got five months just for lying about it to federal agents.

Members of Congress? Ha.

For them, you see, trading on nonpublic information is perfectly legal.

And, as a recent “60 Minutes” report — based on a new book, “Throw Them All Out,” by Peter Schweitzer — makes clear, lawmakers of both political parties partake of the practice with abandon.

That’s right. It turns out that using information available to only a privileged few to profit on personal investments is strictly illegal — for everyone except congressmen.

Why? Because Congress makes the laws.

Thus, if Congress is about to pass a bill that will help a firm boost its stock, lawmakers are free to buy shares in that firm before most folks even know the legislation exists. After the bill passes, they sit back and watch their investments grow. Sweet.

But the need to regulate securities trading by congressmen is as plain as rain:

* Basic fairness: After Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke briefed lawmakers on the looming financial collapse in 2008, some of them rushed out and bought or sold assets accordingly, profiting nicely when markets tanked — and average folks lost their shirts.

* Conflicts of interests and outright bribes: In 2008, then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her husband were “lucky” enough to buy 5,000 low-priced IPO shares of Visa, just as a bill that would have hurt credit-card firms bubbled through the House. Within two days, the share value climbed 45%. (Oh, yeah: The bill died.)

In 2009, House Minority Leader John Boehner bought health-care stocks just days before the proposed public-option provision for ObamaCare — which could have hurt his holdings — was defeated. His stocks, needless to say, rose.

All of these acts are perfectly legal.

But they undermine confidence in government. They can skew markets — and lead to lousy laws. (Where has the Occupy Wall Street crowd been on this?)

All this has stirred up new support for laws to curb the abuse — such as barring lawmakers from using “nonpublic information” for personal financial gain.

Good. It’s long past time to end the double standard.

Read more:

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/editorials/congressional_payday_EdykaqPjdRboZlQRfC7b2I#ixzz1eXuCv4g2