Nancy Pelosi's Recent Stock Purchase Raises Important Ethics Issues For All Of Congress
Now, now, now. Pay attention to the squirrels. It's all Trump's fault. This is just a political witch hunt.
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Nancy Pelosi made some stock purchases last month that are raising eyebrows — and questions — about the ethics of Congresspeople buying and selling stocks. In December, Rep. Pelosi, the Speaker of the House, purchased 25 call options of Tesla stocks, along with a few other stock purchases. Why does this matter? Because under the Biden administration's new agenda, with its focus on environmental protections and combating climate change, Pelosi could benefit financially from those political plans.
President Joe Biden is currently encouraging the purchase of electric vehicles, and that could mean lifting the cap on sales, providing tax credits to buyers, and a potential program incentivizing people to trade in used vehicles to buy an electric one. Biden also announced on Monday that he would be replacing the entire fleet of 645,000 federal vehicles with electric ones. This could create a conflict of interest, as part of Pelosi's job will include working to pass these environmental and clean energy initiatives — initiatives from which her family now stands to profit handsomely.
According to the disclosure, Pelosi (or her husband, Paul, who runs a venture capital firm) purchased call options at a stake price of $500. Since the calls were bought last month, shares of Tesla have risen from $640.34 to over $890. The call options are now valued at $1.12; they were purchased for between $500,000 and $1 million.
Questions of whether it's ethical for members of Congress to buy and sell stock are not new. Last year, former Georgia Senator Kelly Loeffler was accused of insider trading and profiting off the coronavirus pandemic when she sold between $1.275 million and $3.1 million in stocks right after being briefed in January 2020 about the seriousness of the virus. In June of 2020, the investigation was dismissed by a Senate ethics panel. And since then, Loeffler lost her seat in the Senate to Democrat Raphael Warnock.
Another former Georgia Senator, David Perdue, was also criticized for potentially unethical stock purchases during the six years he spent in Congress. The Republican was investigated by the Justice Department for his stock market activity, though no wrongdoing was found (he, too, lost his recent re-election campaign to a Democrat, Jon Ossoff).
In the past, there has been legislation aimed at combating this. The STOCK Act, passed after the 2008 financial crisis, attempted to stop insider trading by making it illegal for government officials to trade stocks after receiving material or nonpublic information "derived" from their jobs, or information that they received while performing their jobs. In light of the Loeffler and Perdue activity, that bill has been re-examined and some people have argued it did not go far enough.
"Given that Congress' first obligation is to the American people and that serving that obligation so often requires having more knowledge than ordinary American investors, why should members of Congress be permitted to trade individual stocks at all?" Tyler Gellasch, a former Senate staffer who helped draft the STOCK Act, wrote last year in a piece for Politico. "Why should we expect them to even be capable when making business decisions of separating what they know as a result of their governmental job and what they might otherwise know as private individuals?"
Other lawmakers agree, including Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Jeff Merkley. Currently, there is proposed legislation that would ban individual stock purchases by members of Congress. "After nearly four years of the most corrupt president in American history and with U.S. senators brazenly trading stocks to profit off a raging pandemic, the Anti-Corruption and Public Integrity Act is more urgent than ever," Warren and other lawmakers said in a joint statement.
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Do what Nancy Pelosi tells you to do. Just don't do what Nancy Pelosi does; that would be unethical.
No kidding .. she seemed to not be very impressed with an investment group putting the screws to the hedge funds .. wonder if she was shorting GameStop?
The SVR appreciates your support.
Da!
Ethical questions about a politician who has questionable ethics to begin with. Well that's a no brainer!😁
Tesla also own the solar cells on my roof, they also make solar roofing tiles and they are involved in my lithium stocks and EV batteries.
They aren't just a car company with potential future government contracts.
I saw a video of the solar roofing tiles on a new house and it was absolutely gorgeous.
Tesla's gigafactory in Nevada.
Do not think that is the point of all this ... besides Tesla did not own their own solar power inverter until in 2016 when Tesla purchased SolarCity .. I know this because I owned SolarCity. Tesla has also been a publicly traded company since 2012 ish .. and at this time stocks are at an all time high .. I know this because I purchased at 33 bucks a share and just a couple months ago there was a 5 way stock split.
Please do not defend the actions of Congress when it comes to the manipulation of the stock market .. her purchase is at best pointed/purposeful in her favor and it has nothing to do with solar panels ..!
Just my opinion of course!
Well, it was a bit more complicated than that. My original contract was with Solar City, but they threw the Tesla name around and showed us where the owners were in fact Elon Musk's cousins and then SpaceX bought $90 mil of Solar City stock to keep them solvent,
and then, well you get the picture, Elon was behind it all moving $$ like it was three card monty at the board walk.
I don't think anyone should benefit from inside information, but people will be people, if I didn't hear from one cousin or another with tips,
I would never talk to family again. Nancy's husband is a stock broker and you cannot deny him the business & income he's done all his life.
Is Feinstein is going to pay a fine for something her husband did? Sorry, I don't agree with that unless they can prove she told him something she should not have and they can prove it.
Of course, always glad to share mine with you also.
This just has to be fake news.
No way Pious Nancy would be caught dead doing anything even remotely unethical.
No, sir-ee.
Enriching oneself while in congress is about the only issue that has bipartisan support. Unfortunately buying and selling stock shares even though you can personally manipulate or are privy to restricted information in regards to said shares is still legal IF you are an elected representative. Total bullshit if you ask me.
I think you're going to have to do something like this because the existing gray areas aren't solving the problem. You give these people a little wiggle room, and they will wiggle, for sure.
It absolutely needs to happen. As it currently stands they are on a totally different playing field that pretty much anyone else. You will have a hard time finding anyone to argue that it is okay for them to be able to buy/sell stocks when in many cases these same people can directly influence share prices to their advantage or are privy to information that few others are.
What about the ethics of the prior administration who made a killing off the Co-Vid pandemic, money wise that is? They knew the crisis was coming and they made a shitload of money off the market.
That has nothing to do with this.
Go after ALL of them doing this type of stuff.
I have been saying for some time that not only do elected officials/political appointees need to seperate themselves with any private business ventures they may have, but they need to be barred from trading on the markets. It isn't exactly fair (or right) that they get to continue with many of these activities when they are the ones directly pulling the strings in many cases that effect the fortunes of said businesses and investments.
If I were to act on inside information when it comes to my investment positions I could go to prison, but when a congressional rep does it, welp that's all just fine. Fucking bullshit.
I'm all good with elected officials being blocked from trading on the markets....... We can go to jail for insider trading, but they can't?
I have no problem with them buying stocks if it is above board. I do however have a problem if it is insider trading.
None of them can be trusted. If they aren't corrupt before they head to DC, they are corrupted in very short time after arriving. The Establishment veteran politicians make sure of that.
Problem is we let them do it, voters need to to vote.