The final collapse of ethics and rationality in government

I can see clearly and I like what I see!

Neoliberalism: a political approach that favors free-market capitalism, deregulation, and reduction in government spending; neoliberalism is a political development of capitalism and a political and economic ideology that seeks to (i) maximize the freedom of the market by removing barriers to the private accumulation of wealth, and (ii) become a power over and above the state directed to the ends of profit without government interference; neoliberalism opposes regulation over which it has no control; the controlling ethic of capitalism is prudence which leads to wealth, but the ethic of neoliberalism is the accumulation of wealth for its own sake which leads to political power; neoliberalism, as the de facto only available political and economic option has had catastrophic effects on society and the environment 

People who do not believe in ethics in government finally got almost everything they wanted. The complete withdrawal of restraints on insider stock trading by politicians and government employees is on the horizon. In this case, the Democratic Party is squarely on the side of corruption. About all that's left of government ethics, now an oxymoron, is legalization of federal employees and politicians to have the right to shoot people dead in broad daylight for any or no reason. And even that restraint questionable. The ex-president never tested it. Maybe it's just a mirage.

Rich people in the Democratic Party leadership sure do seem to be hard core neoliberals. A Washington Post opinion piece comments on the attack on a feeble (now apparently mostly ignored) law that bans insider trading law by federal employees and elected politicians:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) stunned a lot of Americans this past week when she ardently defended the right of lawmakers — and their spouses — to buy and sell stocks while they serve in Congress.

“We’re a free-market economy. They should be able to participate in that,” Ms. Pelosi told reporters.

She should have advocated for tighter scrutiny on congressional trading. Even better would be a full ban on individual stock trades for members of Congress.

There’s a big catch to Ms. Pelosi’s “free-market economy” claim: U.S. representatives and senators have access to a lot of confidential, nonpublic information. That gives them an unfair advantage in trading.

Walter Shaub, former director of the U.S. Office of Government Ethics, put it this way in a tweet: “It’s a ridiculous comment! She might as well have said ‘let them eat cake.’ Sure, it’s a free-market economy. But your average schmuck doesn’t get confidential briefings from government experts chock full of nonpublic information directly related to the price of stocks.”

When members of the general public trade on nonpublic information, they go to jail for it (just ask Martha Stewart). It’s theoretically possible to go after members of Congress for trading on insider information as well, but that has proved extremely difficult.  

In 2012, lawmakers passed the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act, or “Stock Act.” It forbids members of Congress and staffers from trading on confidential information they learn on the job. It also requires them to report all trades within 45 days. The hope was that shining light on trades would be enough to prevent questionable — or outright wrong — trading. So far, the track record is thin.

Lawmakers from both parties made hundreds of stock trades in the early months of 2020 as they were receiving closed-door briefings about the coronavirus. While most of these lawmakers were not accused of doing anything wrong, it certainly gives a poor impression of where their priorities were during a massive crisis.

Furthermore, an investigation by Insider found that at least 49 members of Congress and 182 staff members were late in filing their stock trade reports in the past two years. Both Democrats and Republicans are on the naughty list.[1] There is no public record of whether they paid fines for filing late.

The irrationality of Pelosi’s argument is stunning: “We’re a free-market economy. They should be able to participate in that.” 

Oops, is this over the top?

She sounds like a blithering Republican politician telling us that no one can look at the ex-president’s tax returns or investigate the 1/6 coup attempt. In this matter, Pelosi is not on the side of the American people or honest governance. She’s on the side of rich people, government corruption and making rich people richer via government corruption.

If people in congress can do insider trading, why can’t the rest of us? We would be prosecuted for insider trading if we got caught. Unfortunately, most of the rest of us, maybe about 75%, do not have significant insider information worth trading on. It would not help most of us. Just the insiders would have a shot at making money in insider-informed trades where the insider gains and the outsider on the other side of the trade loses. That is what asymmetry in information can do for a person. Maybe that is why someone once said, I think, ‘knowledge is power and wealth.’[2] That looks, quacks and walks like neoliberalism.

Questions:

1. Is Pelosi just a rich neoliberal looking out for her class, i.e., rich people, and/or is she something else, e.g., irrational, senile and/or confused?

2. Since tax cheats make off with about ~$1.2 trillion annually, should Pelosi argue that paying federal taxes is optional for just federal employees and politicians, or for everyone? 

3. Is what’s good for the goose (rich people), also good for the gander (the rest of us), or, as Joe Manchin believes, the gander cannot be trusted to spend money wisely so the less of it they have, the better it is for the goose, specifically the goose named Joe Manchin?

Footnote: 

1. This is an instance of unwarranted opacity in government. We do not know if anyone on the naughty list paid the fine for not reporting their trades. Of course, the fine for a first violation is a piddly $200. It makes one wonder what congress thinks, if anything, when it passes laws. A $200 fine is not a real penalty, it is an undersized fig leaf and an insult to honest Americans who actually still believe in the rule of law, feeble as it now is.

2. If someone didn’t say it, then I just did. Come to think of it, the big three are generally interchangeable. The mathematics of it, derived according to the logic by my illegal, unpaid minions is this:

knowledge ≈ power ≈ wealth

The ≈ symbol means about the same as, or “generally interchangeable.” 

Sorry for the deep mathematics here, but sometimes one just has to get their hands dirty because even though the job is dirty, it needs to be done.

The big three tend to go hand in hand. An increase in one tends to increase the other two. At least, that’s what the math says and math doesn’t lie or make mistakes.