http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-04-13/congress-exempts-most-federal-workers-key-insider-trading-reporting-requirement
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 04/13/2013 13:02 -0400
Congress Exempts Most Federal Workers From Key Insider Trading Reporting Requirement
Back in 2012, amid "intense pressure from Obama" including an appeal for its passage in his 2012 State of the Union address, Congress passed the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act (with 96-3 theatrical votes in the Senate, and 417-2 even more theatrical votes in the House) - a bill prohibiting the use of non-public information for private profit, including insider trading by members of Congress and other government employees. It is unclear why until 2012 it was perfectly legal for congress to trade on inside information, something we pointed out in May 2011 when we wrote that a "A Hedge Fund Comprised Of Junior Congressional Democrats Should Outperform The Market By 9%" as it turned out flagrant insider trading abuse occurred mostly within the democrat ranks of the House (compared to a mere 2%+ outperformance by Congressional stock trading republicans).
It turns out that any cynical skepticism regarding Congress' ability and willingness to police itself was well founded, as last night the House eliminated a "key requirement of the insider trading law for most federal employees, passing legislation exempting these workers, including congressional staff, from a rule scheduled to take effect next week that mandated online posting of financial transactions."
The reason why one will have to take Congress at its word that it is not breaking the law? Because apparently posting Congress' financial dealings online would be pose a "national risk" according to the National Academy of Public Administration.
Surely this explains why the bill was rushed and voted in the matter of hours: one can't have a debate over matters of "national security" especially if the financial well-being of Congress is at risk. As Washington Timesrecaps, "Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat, introduced the bill on Thursday and had the chamber vote on it late that evening. The House took the bill up on Friday afternoon and passed it by unanimous consent, with no members objecting. Republican leaders did not give lawmakers the traditional three days to read the bill before holding a vote. One GOP aide told The Washington Times the three-day rule did not apply to Friday’s action because the bill came from the Senate, while another said the House moved quickly because of a Monday deadline for the new disclosure mandates to take effect."
In other words, while the STOCK Act passed nearly unanimously in 2012 just to show how "honest" congress is, the follow up legislation that effectively undoes the key reporting requirement of said anti-inside trading law passed just as unanimously, allowing congress to have its shady dealings cake, and eat its non-inside trading reputation too.
That both democrats and republicans rushed to pass this provision shows just how truly engrained the unwillingness for true transparency in Congress is.
Obviously, the justification spin for eliminating the key STOCK act provision was ready and just waiting to be unleashed:
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor's spokesman Rory Cooper told CNN the decision to enact new legislation now was in direct response to the study."In December when we extended the STOCK Act deadline for public disclosure of Financial Disclosures, we required a study by the non-partisan and independent National Academy of Public Administration. This was their recommendation, and the House and Senate agreed it was the best course of action for the time being," Cooper told CNN in a written statement.
In other words, according to the "nonpartisan and independent" NAPA, having Congressional financial documents online represents a national security risk. Because somehow terrorists will terrorize the US even more when they know on what days Nancy Pelosi bought and sold the S&P 500.
Federal employees began expressing concerns about the national security risks of posting personal financial information online soon after government agencies moved to implement the STOCK Act last year.Online posting was supposed to begin August 31, 2012, but Congress passed extensions three separate times pushing off the compliance date.In December, the last time the House and Senate approved another extension signed by the president, they also directed the National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA), a non-profit group of public management experts chartered by Congress, to study whether there were real security risks associated with putting this kind of financial information on the Internet....Part of the law required that senior government officials’ financial disclosure reports — which they are already required to submit in paper — be made available online in a searchable, sortable format. The belief was that publishing them online would make it easier for reporters and the public to try to spot illicit dealings.The online disclosure provisions had not yet taken effect, and Congress asked NAPA to review the law.In a report release last month a five-member NAPA panel said online posting would mean more sensitive information about high-level government employees would be easily available, which would make identify theft easier.“An open, online, searchable and exploitable database of personal financial information about senior federal employees will provide easy access to ‘high quality’ personal information on ‘high value’ targets,” NAPA officials said in their report.The Defense Department told NAPA that online disclosure would mean hostile nations would have easy access to sensitive personal information about top national security officials.
Because "hostile nations" have nothing better to do than trade alongside Congressmen with the usual 13F, 45-day delay. In the meantime, those who truly would benefit from this transparency: the media, or least those very few in the media who have not been bought by Congress just yet, and are willing to check which members of Congress are now actively breaking the STOCK law, will have their work cut out for them.
At least someone spoke up, although their objection will be promptly ignored and forgotten.
One advocacy group pushing for greater government transparency blasted the move, saying it “guts" the law."Not only does the change undermine the intent of the original bill to ensure government insiders are not profiting from non-public information, it sets an extraordinarily dangerous precedent suggesting that any risks stem not from information being public but from public information being online,” Lisa Rosenberg of the Sunlight Foundation wrote in a statement.
Yet, fundamentally all last night's accelerate revision to the STOCK act does is pray on the laziness of "terrorist" and, of course, reporters:
With this change those federal workers would still have to report any securities trades over the law's $1,000 threshold within 45 days. While these reports would be publicly available, they would no longer be posted online in a format that anyone can search or download.
So basically "hostile nations" can still access all the data, however it will be in paper format.And this avoids national security risks just how?
Of course, if indeed this is merely a bet on the laziness of the financial media, it is probably safe one. After all it appears that said financial media would rather spend hours discussing and lamenting the sad future of the financial media, especially how slideshows of kittens are part of the great profitability strategy...
... than actually doing any financial media stuff,like reporting. After all why bother: one can always pray someone else will do the actual work, and everyone else can just do what modern "financial media" is so truly good at: CTRL-C and CTRL-V.
Another bipartisan disaster......
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-04-13/guest-post-great-postal-fraud
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 04/13/2013 13:48 -0400
Another bipartisan disaster......
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-04-13/guest-post-great-postal-fraud
Guest Post: The Great Postal Fraud
Submitted by Jim Quinn of The Burning Platform
The Great Postal Fraud
“One of the things the government can’t do is run anything. The only things our government runs are the post office and the railroads, and both of them are bankrupt.” – Lee Iaccoca
You may have heard that the U.S. Post Office lost $16 BILLION last year. You may also have heard that Congress snuck a requirement into a bill that had nothing to do with the Post Office, mandating that they must deliver on Saturdays, even though eliminating Saturday delivery would save the Post Office $2 BILLION per year. Congress evidently can’t read a financial statement or interpret a chart. I’m sure the trends detailed on this chart will reverse themselves shortly.
While reading an editorial today supporting the Post Office in its efforts to save money by eliminating Saturday delivery I saw another MASSIVE LIE perpetuated by the MSM and the government.
Here is the Orwellian statement:
“The U.S. Postal Service is an independent governmental agency that doesn’t take taxpayer funds.”
This is complete and utter bullshit. This statement also described Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac until 2008. They were just little old independent government agencies helping out the housing market – until the shit hit the fan!!! Then they became albatrosses around the necks of the American taxpayer. You own them now. They have lost $200 billion of your tax dollars, and will lose billions more before all is said and done.
You can access the U.S. Post Office financial statements online. Here is their December 2012 report:
The honesty of the people writing this report is refreshing. They essentially admit they are BANKRUPT and unable to meet their financial obligations. In other words, a truly INDEPENDENT entity admitting they can no longer operate. How is this for honesty:
“The Postal Service continues to suffer from a severe lack of liquidity. The Postal Service held total cash of $2.9 billion and $2.3 billion as of December 31, and September 30, 2012, respectively, and had no remaining borrowing capacity on its $15 billion debt facility (See Note 3, Debt, for additional information). The increase in cash balances for the quarter is largely attributable to the seasonal impact of holiday mailings, along with additional revenue resulting from this year’s political campaign and elections. Cash balances generally decline during the remainder of the fiscal year, as revenue is not as strong in the remaining quarters. By the end of this fiscal year, the Postal Service projects it will have a liquidity balance that will be less than its average weekly expenses of $1.3 billion. This low level of available cash means that the Postal Service will be unable to make the $5.6 billion legally-mandated prefunding of retiree health benefits due by September 30, 2013. Further, this level of cash could be insufficient to support operations in the event of another significant downturn in the U.S. economy.
Through the three months ended December 31, 2012, the Postal Service has suffered 5 quarters of consecutive net losses and net losses in 14 of the last 16 quarters. The net loss of $1.3 billion for the first quarter of the year included $1.4 billion of expense accrued for the legally-mandated prefunding payment for retiree health benefits. The requirement of the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act, Public Law 109-435 (P.L. 109-435) to prefund its retiree health benefit obligations, a requirement not shared by other federal agencies or private sector businesses, plus the precipitous drop in mail volume caused by changes in consumers’ uses of mail, have been the two major factors contributing to Postal Service losses since the recession ended in 2009. Without structural change to the Postal Service’s business model, it will continue to be negatively impacted by these factors and, absent legislative change, it anticipates continuing quarterly losses for the remainder of 2013.”
The politicians that are mismanaging this country use governmental accounting fraud to cover-up the fact that the obligations of this bloated pig of an operation are going to be paid by YOU, the taxpayers of the United States. Today, none of the past, current, or future liabilities of this INDEPENDENT GOVERNMENT AGENCY are reflected in the Federal budget projections or the National Debt calculation.
Do YOU want to know how much YOU really owe? Brace yourself.
- In the past six years they have lost $41 BILLION and they have a cumulative deficit of $36 billion. How many INDEPENDENT organizations can run up deficits of $36 billion without going out of business? YOU are on the hook for these accumulated deficits, just like you were on the hook for all of the Fannie and Freddie backed toxic mortgages.
- The Post Office will lose another $10 to $15 billion this fiscal year. You will be on the hook for that too.
- They have $15 billion of debt on their balance sheet, with $9.5 billion payable in the next 9 months. How will this INDEPENDENT government agency that is losing $16 billion per year pay off $9.5 billion? They won’t. The government drones will pass a bill in the middle of the night extending the terms with no cash flow requirements or expectation of repayment. I wonder if I can get a loan like that?
- The really interesting stuff is buried on page 42 of their report. I wonder why it is all the way back there? In addition to their $15 billion of debt, they have another $70.5 BILLION of unfunded future obligations. The two biggest are:
- $33.9 Billion of payments for pension and health benefits for retirees, all due within the next 5 years. It’s not cheap providing gold plated benefits to government workers.
- $25 billion for workers compensation and sick leave payments. Yikes!!! It must be all that stress, because the mail never stops. It keeps coming and coming. It’s almost enough to make someone go postal, or at least file a stress related workers comp claim.
This really sounds like a promising story. Mail volumes continue to plummet. Someone should tell Congress the internet age has arrived. The Post Office has thousands of money losing, unneeded outlets. It has 637,000 employees when it only needs 300,000. Over 70% of Americans favor ending Saturday delivery, so Congress passes a law making that impossible to implement, ensuring $2 billion more losses per year. That’s par for the course. Over 70% of Americans were against passing TARP too. And according to your leaders in Washington, and parroted by the MSM, you are not on the hook for their losses.
It’s beyond laughable, but so is most of what is going on in this tragedy of a country, disguised as a comedy. The truth is that you are on the hook for the $36 billion of accumulated deficits, the $85 billion of debt and contractual obligations, and the annual $16 billion losses they continue to pile up. But what’s $120 to $150 billion among friends? Bennie can print that out of thin air in a few days. Why run an operation efficiently at a surplus, when you can keep hundreds of thousands of union government drones employed (until they go on workers comp) by sticking it to the working American taxpayer. I sure hope I don’t get a visit from the Postmaster General because of this article.
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