MarketWatch writes: “While millions of Americans saw their incomes decrease, their job opportunities dissipate and their home values drop as the economy dipped,” reports ABC News, “the 535 men and women they elected to represent them in the U.S. Congress were not only shielded from the economic downturn but gained during it.”
Yes folks, more evidence of the growing class warfare between the Super Rich 1% and the other 99% of Americans: “The average American’s net worth has dropped 8% during the past six years, while members of Congress got, on average, 15% richer, according to a New York Times analysis of financial disclosure. The median net worth of members of Congress is about $913,000, compared with about $100,000 for the country at large.”
Why? Simple, Congress trades on “insider information.” Seriously, Integrity Research Associates tracked stock trading by members of Congress for years and while the vast majority of America’s 99% have lost money on an inflation-adjusted basis since 2001, our elected officials are enjoying a perennial bull market “using their official positions for private profit” generating “abnormal returns.”
How bad is it? House Representatives beat the market by 6 percentage points. But Senators are beating the market by 12 percentage points, every year, prompting one commentator to call it the US Senate Insiders Trading Hedge Fund. Yes, they love trading: In a Wall Street Journal article we learned that “some members of Congress aren’t good at it.” Like Senator Bob Corker who “earned more than $1 million on short-term trades in a real estate investment trust, but would have doubled that total if he simply bought and held.”
Yes folks, even richer on buy‘ and hold….
Wait, wait....there's more at http://www.marketwatch.com/story/lazy-portfolios-lose-to-senators-hedge-fund-2012-01-03?reflink=MW_news_stmp
No comments:
Post a Comment