'60 Minutes' on 'honest graft'

We just watched the segment. I imagine that the clip is avalable but this is the closest I got on little effort.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18560_162-5 ... formation/

It was well done but nothing I and everyone else paying attention didn't know. It was 20-30 years ago that I read a piece in Barron's on congress getting generous IPO allotments and flipping them for a profit.

Yes, I saw it tonight.

And I was surprised about the details. But I have seen how people in Congress seem to end up much richer when they leave than when they began.

The report is very disturbing. And good for 60 Minutes to look into a Hoover Institution report.

Basically, you can do major jail time for insider trading in the real world. But people in Congress can do it all they want, and they can feed inside info to others like hedge fund managers. There is a bill in Congress to make this illegal, but it's being pushed aside every year and ignored.

Here is the link to the 60 Minutes video. They went after both Dems and Repubs ...

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7388130n&tag=contentMain;contentBody

pineinthegrass wrote: There is a bill in Congress to make this illegal, but it's being pushed aside every year and ignored.

If there is enough public pressure to pass it, do you think anything will change? How many times have they reformed since abscam(?), since teapot dome?

As long as the pols have the power to legislate economic success and failure we will continue to circle the drain, until we go down it.

I was shocked when i saw 60mins last night and quite ANGRY over what I was hearing... Somewhere this CRAP in Congress has got to STOP..

We are ALREADY down the drain,just need some Drano to truly terminate the sludge....I'm waiting,looks like "PIGS" in Europe will be the
"drainmaster".....

I can't remember the last time I watch that leftist bullsh*t show, think I was still living at home, (moved out at 17) that would make it what 38, 39+ years, ago.

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi bought stock in initial public offerings (IPOs) that earned hefty returns while she had access to insider information that would have been illegal for an average citizen to trade with – even though it’s perfectly legal for elected officials, CBS’s "60 Minutes" reported Sunday night.

In a piece relying on data collected from the conservative Hoover Institution, "60 Minutes" revealed that elected officials like Pelosi are exempt from insider trading laws – regulations that carry hefty prison sentences and fines for any other citizen who trades stocks with private information on companies that can affect their stock price.

In the case of elected officials – this secret information ranges from timely details on lucrative federal contracts to legislation that can cause companies’ stocks to rise and fall dramatically.

How do they get away with it? Lawmakers have exempted themselves from the laws that govern every other citizen.

Pelosi, D-Calif., and her husband have participated in at least eight IPOs while having access to information directly relating to the companies involved. One of those came in 2008, from Visa, just as a troublesome piece of legislation that would have hurt credit card companies, began making its way through the House.

“Undisturbed by a potential conflict of interest the Pelosis purchased 5,000 shares of Visa at the initial price of $44 dollars. Two days later it was trading at $64. The credit card legislation never made it to the floor of the House,” Steve Kroft of "60 Minutes" reported.


Read more on Newsmax.com: '60 Minutes' Uncovers Pelosi's Insider Stock Trades
Important: Do You Support Pres. Obama's Re-Election? Vote Here Now!
http://www.newsmax.com/InsideCover/pelo ... ode=D800-1

this is not limited to Pelosi but a "standard practice" in our Congress. This was a great piece on 60 minutes and the part I loved the best was the Congressman who has tried to change the law for years and cannot get any support. WoW!! we really need to wake up.

Well TPP, why would you call it leftists? Over the course of those years, they have uncovered the sordid details of much corruption. Am I fooling myself when I think this is true? There is far too much circumstantial evidence that keeps pointing back to our lawmakers making exceptions to the very rules they invoke to persecute others by.

Not that this doesn't go on on BOTH sides, and the Stock Act shouldn't be passed ASAP; but apparently the CBS story got it wrong on BOTH Boehner AND Pelosi:

'60 Minutes' Hit On Boehner, Pelosi Falls Short

WASHINGTON -- A "60 Minutes" investigation of stock trading by members of Congress singled out House Speaker John Boehner and former Speaker Nancy Pelosi as having personally profited from investments into companies whose interests were before Congress. The investigation makes a strong case that members of Congress have the ability to profit in the market from non-public information, but in the cases of Boehner and Pelosi the claims made by "60 Minutes" fall short under scrutiny.

The CBS News program flagged Boehner (R-Ohio) for buying health insurance stocks shortly before the public health insurance option was killed as part of health care reform. The public option wasn't killed by Boehner, who had no real power in the previous Congress; it was done in by Blue Dog Democrats and a White House that didn't push for it. The public option returned from the dead repeatedly before finally being laid to rest -- and there's no reason to think that Boehner had any better insight into what was happening within the House Democratic caucus than anybody else reading news reports at the time. And as Boehner says in the "60 Minutes" segment, the trade was decided upon and carried out by Boehner's longtime broker without any input from him.

Similarly, the knock on Pelosi (D-Calif.) leaves out critical details. "60 Minutes" charges Pelosi with purchasing 5,000 shares of Visa stock as part of an exclusive initial public offering and implies that her financial connection to the credit card industry had something to do with the halting of credit card industry reform. But CBS leaves out that fact that the bill passed out of committee at the very end of the legislative session, as Congress was dealing with the Wall Street implosion and bailout, and that the chamber then adjourned until the election.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/1 ... 91656.html

But the problem isn't about "Leftists" or "Righties".... It's about "Greed-ists"...i.e., the "1-percenters"....