[Infowarrior] - Congress: Trading stock on inside information?

[Richard Forno]

(not exactly new information but good to see the practice put into the public eye. -- rick)

Congress: Trading stock on inside information?
November 13, 2011 7:06 PM

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18560_162-57323527/congress-trading-stock-on-inside-information/

Steve Kroft reports that members of Congress can legally trade stock based on non-public information from Capitol Hill.

Washington, D.C. is a town that runs on inside information - but should our elected officials be able to use that information to pad their own pockets? As Steve Kroft reports, members of Congress and their aides have regular access to powerful political intelligence, and many have made well-timed stock market trades in the very industries they regulate. For now, the practice is perfectly legal, but some say it's time for the law to change.

The following is a script of "Insiders" which aired on Nov. 13, 2011. Steve Kroft is correspondent, Ira Rosen and Gabrielle Schonder, producers.

The next national election is now less than a year away and congressmen and senators are expending much of their time and their energy raising the millions of dollars in campaign funds they'll need just to hold onto a job that pays $174,000 a year.

Few of them are doing it for the salary and all of them will say they are doing it to serve the public. But there are other benefits: Power, prestige, and the opportunity to become a Washington insider with access to information and connections that no one else has, in an environment of privilege where rules that govern the rest of the country, don't always apply to them.

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Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it.