Thursday, April 5, 2012

President gets to sign a bill!!!! STOCK act

Today, President Obama signed into law the Stock Act. This act means that congress and their staff must now obey the same rules on insider trading as the rest of us do! Well, close to it, anyway.
Now, why is this a big deal? Because there was bi-partisan support for the bill! It got through the do nothing house and there wasn't a filibuster in the senate. It's like the republicans decided to govern instead of act like toddlers that need a nap after too much sugar(and are just yelling, "NONONONONO!")
The STOCK(Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge) Act stops members of Congress, their families,  their staff and executive branch employees from using inside information they garner from their positions to trade stocks and securities and limits them from buying stock in initial public offerings to those that are also open to the general public.
But WAIT, there's more!
The STOCK Act updates the 1978 Ethics in Government Act and improves the transparency of personal financial disclosure statements. Some of the improvements include:


  • By September, Congress is required to make personal financial disclosure reports filed by executive branch hi-level employees,  lawmakers, candidates and congressional employees on the web. 
  • Starting in July, transactions previously reported annually must be reported within 45 days. Prior to this law, a stock purchase/sale might not be made public for up to 18 months, depending on when it was bought/sold.
  • By the end of 9/13, information contained in personal financial disclosures will be made available as a downloadable database.
For more information, please check the fact sheet. It doesn't fix everything, but its a good start.
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Now, when are we gonna get that bill out of committee on the DISCLOSE Act and Citizen's United pimping?

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