Inside Information

Did you ever wonder why go-getters go into government?  It generally isn’t to “serve the public” as they often profess.  Plain and simple, it is to get wealthy.  And the way that they get wealthy is most often with inside information.  Yes, yes I know that private-sector people go to jail or pay big fines for trading in tidbits of data that the rest of us don’t have access to (see: Bloomberg Story ), but just look at the number of millionaires who are in Congress ... many of whom were relative paupers before they went to Washington.  As a perfect example of such unfair leverage, just recently the President of Cyprus transferred millions of Euros out of his country right before the banks were shut down and depositors lost large chunks of their savings … see: Intellihub Story

Remember John F. Kennedy buying a lifetime’s worth of Cuban cigars just before he imposed an embargo on that country?  This vignette is chuckled about now but it is representative of the type of advantage insiders in government have.  It was just last summer that Congress passed a revised law that forbade its membership from trading on privileged information that they picked up during their closed-door sessions … see: CNN Story.  However, the ACLU and this country’s judiciary seems to be rolling back even this sensible law … see: Jurist Story .

When I was a callow youth I was a investment analyst on Wall Street and, thus, I have seen from the inside what being in the catbird seat can do for one’s bank account.  I had to live under very strict guidelines vis-à-vis insider trading, yet learned that there was quite a bit of slew still in these restrictions.  I also quickly learned to ignore whispered tips that I often received ... for they often were given to benefit the tipster and not myself.  But what I did learn was to pay attention to was that flash of fear that crossed the eyes of a CEO when I asked about his company’s outlook … or the overcrowded parking lot of a company which was expecting a current boom to continue indefinitely.  Insider information very often is an elusive concept.

I still remember one of my fellow analysts asking if another analyst thought that XYZ company was a good buy.  The reply he got was, “Well if Arnie Mankowitz’s (our economist) GNP forecast is correct …”  To which he got this terse reply, “Forget Arnie Mankowitz’s forecast, this is real money!”

Afterward: See how the insider trading law has been eviscerated here: Breitbart Story