Citing ‘free market,’ Pelosi is defending her own unethical behavior by David Freddoso, Online Opinion Editor for Washington Examiner
GNN Note – Funny how these communist scream “free market” when it benefits them. But when it benefits you and me, well, that’s a different story, that’s criminal. Remember these people when things fall apart later this year. / END
The Washington Examiner reported Friday that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her husband Paul had bought “millions of dollars in call options for stocks including Disney, Google, and Salesforce.” This came only days after she had angrily pushed back against those asserting that membership in Congress is perhaps incompatible with such transactions.
Her excuse was that “we’re a free market economy, and [lawmakers] should be able to participate in that.”
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This is nonsense. Public service is a choice. It is very reasonable to expect those who choose it to give up some freedoms. For one thing, they have to “settle” for a roughly $174,000 salary, whereas a successful business or professional career could be much more lucrative.
But more to the point, investments in individual stocks should be viewed with skepticism. Smart, regular people investing in the United States, especially for retirement, don’t trade individual stocks. They buy diversified mutual funds (ideally index funds or target-date retirement funds), they keep buying on a regular basis, and they hold these funds for decades.
Why? Because unless you have special insider knowledge that is unethical and perhaps even illegal, it is impossible to beat the market in the long run. A 2020 study found that over 15 years, nearly 90% of actively managed funds failed to beat the S&P 500.
So if you insist on conducting peculiar transactions like the ones that Pelosi is engaged in, you are probably either a fool, or you have inside knowledge and you are doing something unethical.
