“Congress’ Culture of Wealth: How Insider Information Enriches Members of the House
June 2, 2011 |
We know that members of Congress often stroll right out of their jobs and into lucrative lobbying positions, consulting gigs, or book deals. We know that they enjoy all sorts of perks of their offices, from golf trips with lobbyists to corporate-sponsored air travel.
We even might have guessed that they’ve done some insider trading. After all, these are the people who make decisions about how the economy is going to go. About which mega-defense corporation will get the next juicy contract.
A new study in the journal Business and Politics reports that members of the House saw their investments outperform those of the average investor by 55 basis points per month, or 6 percent annually. A previous study had found Senate investments performed even better, outperforming even House members by 30 points per month.
Democrats managed to do even better than Republicans, perhaps proving once again that unlimited faith in markets doesn’t always lead to great decisions. The Democratic subsample beat the market by a full 9 percent annually, while Republicans did so only by 2 percent.
What might be more surprising is that this is all perfectly legal. The Washington Times notes: ”
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“It’s good to be the King”
– from an old Mel Brooks documentary
ah , who cares
Dems do better for the same reason they do better buying votes. They are corrupt to the core.
(generalization)
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