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Silly Burrito posted:You just reminded me to go check the new I bonds interest rates, and they’re at 4.3 for bonds issued between May-October. I’m guessing they’re not reaching anywhere near as high as they have been for the last couple of years. Nope, that brief period where you could get a 9.6% guaranteed return from the federal government is over. That is "good" because it means inflation is down, but it is also a little sad that such a crazy return that was 100% guaranteed is no more.
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# ? May 3, 2023 19:53 |
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# ? May 25, 2024 14:17 |
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Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:The Fed raised interest rates again today. However, they raised it by a smaller amount than previously (0.25%). The fed has been hiking 0.25% per meeting for the past few meetings. The last 50 bps hike was in December i think.
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# ? May 3, 2023 19:55 |
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plogo posted:The fed has been hiking 0.25% per meeting for the past few meetings. The last 50 bps hike was in December i think. Edit: Yeah, I forgot that the February meeting also raised it by only .25%
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# ? May 3, 2023 19:57 |
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Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:It's a market that is: This speaks to there being a speculative bubble somewhere
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# ? May 3, 2023 19:58 |
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Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:It's a market that is: I think the rate hike today was bullshit. Bullet point one can pretty much be read as “everything about the economy is improved,” with the trade off being what currently looks like 4-5% inflation. That is about where it was when people were so happy with the economy that the incumbent president won 49 states. And if inflation expectations didn’t become “baked in” and cause accelerating inflation when the rate was 8%, by what mechanism exactly would that happen at 5%? It’s a little hard to say at this point whether the obsession with 2% is just because “that’s what the book says it should be” or if there is a consensus among the finance crowd that the current level of inflation is advantageous to workers. Because they are pretty clearly trying to gently caress us over. I think part of what happened is that there is a certain group of powerful economists who are absolutely obsessed with inflation and always have been (think Larry Summers.) When the supply shock hit at the same time as inflationary fiscal policy they figured they had finally been vindicated. But the economy remaining hot while inflation drifts downward shows that they have probably been as full of poo poo as they were when they said Obama’s stimulus would cause huge inflation.
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# ? May 3, 2023 20:06 |
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Mellow Seas posted:
Yeah, for majority of monetary/macroeconomists/central bankers in prominent positions the 70s inflation and then volker shock to kill inflation is one of the pivotal moments of central banking history and volker is a great hero. Here's a recent article describing powell's relationship to volker https://www.forbes.com/sites/jonath...sh=c97e9284e14f for example.
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# ? May 3, 2023 20:14 |
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Name Change posted:This speaks to there being a speculative bubble somewhere Mellow Seas posted:I think the rate hike today was bullshit. Bullet point one can pretty much be read as “everything about the economy is improved,” with the trade off being what currently looks like 4-5% inflation. That is about where it was when people were so happy with the economy that the incumbent president won 49 states. And if inflation expectations didn’t become “baked in” and cause accelerating inflation when the rate was 8%, by what mechanism exactly would that happen at 5%? These two posts are sort of related, but it doesn't necessarily mean that there is a speculative bubble or that "everything about the economy improved." There are cross-affecting factors that hit people differently. Overall, incomes and corporate profits are higher on average. But, people and businesses don't exist as an average. If you were a mid-sized financial or tech company, then your profits are likely not way up. Non-corporate business profits are also fluctuating. Corporate income and employment makes up most of the economy, but there are still large chunks made up by small businesses that may not have had record profits. If you had a relatively fixed housing cost (either through a mortgage or less than ~7% increase in rent), then you are likely doing much better now. But, if you were on the other end and experienced rapidly rising housing costs, then you may have "real wage" gains where your wage increases outpaced inflation overall, but the costs of your housing may have significantly outpaced your wage gains and overall inflation. Which kind of fits in to the whole "very uneven" thing where some aspects of the economy are much better than expected, but others are much worse at the same time. And those factors were usually linked, but they aren't right now. Some people have careers/finances that are much more exposed to the bad areas than the average person. I agree with your last paragraph about the obsession with inflation some economists have. They have been predicting it since the dotcom crash and finally had it come to fruition after 23 years of predicting it and now are trying to explain how they were actually always right. Leon Trotsky 2012 fucked around with this message at 20:16 on May 3, 2023 |
# ? May 3, 2023 20:14 |
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Mellow Seas posted:
I think the other way of looking at this as the Fed as an institution and the trauma it has taken on in the past. Not many if any people alive from the Great Depression era but the stagflation generation of the 70s are still around and still worry that's in the background. They'd rather cut it off at the past that let that happen again. Now the flip side as people who lived through the great recession is that we were in the lowest inflationary period in the United States in a lifetime, so a little inflation isn't a bad thing. plogo posted:Yeah, for majority of monetary/macroeconomists/central bankers in prominent positions the 70s inflation and then volker shock to kill inflation is one of the pivotal moments of central banking history and volker is a great hero. Here's a recent article describing powell's relationship to volker https://www.forbes.com/sites/jonath...sh=c97e9284e14f for example. Or this. drat you for being more eloquent.
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# ? May 3, 2023 20:19 |
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Mooseontheloose posted:I think the other way of looking at this as the Fed as an institution and the trauma it has taken on in the past. Not many if any people alive from the Great Depression era but the stagflation generation of the 70s are still around and still worry that's in the background. They'd rather cut it off at the past that let that happen again. Now the flip side as people who lived through the great recession is that we were in the lowest inflationary period in the United States in a lifetime, so a little inflation isn't a bad thing. I think this is a real factor, but you don't even need to look that far back. The Fed kept rates at effectively negative for several years and waited a year to raise them because they thought the inflation was going to be transitory. They got savaged by the same inflation hawks (who have historically been wrong, but their prediction that this time it would stick happened to be correct) for waiting so long and have been trying to lean towards being more aggressive with rate hikes now as a response to that criticism.
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# ? May 3, 2023 20:23 |
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Remember that millions will face massive medical premiums starting six to twelve months from now as they get kicked out of Covid-era Medicaid. That’s spending money gone and it’s gonna get hard to make ends meet, especially for those that were only making enough to get by because of being on Medicaid. I wonder if perhaps housing rents were able to go up in part because of medical savings people were experiencing.
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# ? May 3, 2023 20:27 |
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What if we didn't kick people out of medicaid and even expanded it to cover everybody?
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# ? May 3, 2023 20:32 |
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Most goons are too young to remember George Schultz's glory days but those of us ancient enough to have listened to the Iran-Contra hearings will never forget the earth-shaking disclosure that Schultz had a tiger tattooed on his rear end in honor of his alma mater. Anyway, there's a new bio of him by Philip Taubman, and the Guardian review has some good bits about it: quote:
That one wasn't on my bingo card.
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# ? May 3, 2023 20:34 |
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Byzantine posted:What if we didn't kick people out of medicaid and even expanded it to cover everybody? Sounds like communism
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# ? May 3, 2023 20:35 |
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Willa Rogers posted:Most goons are too young to remember George Schultz's glory days but those of us ancient enough to have listened to the Iran-Contra hearings will never forget the earth-shaking disclosure that Schultz had a tiger tattooed on his rear end in honor of his alma mater. Secret Empire was a great read and this sounds pretty interesting, so I will probably check to see if this is on audible. Thanks for the recommendation.
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# ? May 3, 2023 20:38 |
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Willa Rogers posted:Most goons are too young to remember George Schultz's glory days but those of us ancient enough to have listened to the Iran-Contra hearings will never forget the earth-shaking disclosure that Schultz had a tiger tattooed on his rear end in honor of his alma mater. I imagine most people nowadays that do know of him know him as Jack McCoy's character
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# ? May 3, 2023 20:40 |
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Byzantine posted:What if we didn't kick people out of medicaid and even expanded it to cover everybody? None of the people are technically being kicked off by a change in eligibility, but the states are getting control back and allowed to require new paperwork and reverification of income. The assumption is that many states are going to do what they did before and make it a pain in the rear end to re-register and some people won't bother or will have higher incomes than they did in 2020. You need to fully federalize Medicaid to actually fix that permanently. The split control and responsibility was one of the compromises LBJ made to get it passed.
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# ? May 3, 2023 20:41 |
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haveblue posted:You could always... not be into crypto. Then everyone wins including you "Don't do that" is a mental command I wish I possessed. Unfortunately, the nature of most of my work right now is "ok, tell me what the gently caress you did last year... really? Wow, (to myself: that was really loving dumb) ok well here's the tax consequences of that dumbass decision you made last year, etc" At least most dumbass decisions are easy to figure out, but crypto is a bit of a headache right now.
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# ? May 3, 2023 20:49 |
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Byzantine posted:What if we didn't kick people out of medicaid and even expanded it to cover everybody? Counterproposal, kick everyone off Medicaid and then expand Medicare to cover everybody. Sadly, nobody is ever going to stand up for Medicaid, which is for the poors, but there is hope for Medicare, which is for grandma.
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# ? May 3, 2023 21:02 |
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The United Autoworkers Union is witholding their endorsement of Biden's re-election campaign due to concerns over the newly released aggressive fuel economy standards that would effectively ban about 2/3 of existing car models with internal combustion engines by 2032 will hurt the auto industry. https://twitter.com/ShaneGoldmacher/status/1653806755237748737 quote:The United Auto Workers, a politically potent labor union, is planning to withhold its endorsement of President Biden in the early stages of the 2024 race, according to an internal memo from its president to members on Tuesday.
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# ? May 3, 2023 21:04 |
Gyges posted:Counterproposal, kick everyone off Medicaid and then expand Medicare to cover everybody. Medicaid is much broader coverage. There are a lot of things Medicaid covers that Medicare doesn't.
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# ? May 3, 2023 21:10 |
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Medicaid actually gets overwhelming support from voters, even among Republicans. I remember posting polling results that had more Republicans calling it an insurance program vs. those calling it a welfare program. Medicare has been slowly & bipartisanly eroded over the last several decades, and especially warped by incentivizing recipients into "Medicare" "Advantage" plans, which are neither Medicare nor an advantage over Medicare, while Medicaid has been farmed out to private insurers who are paid flat rates (as they are for MA plans). It isn't voters who are resistant to Medicare or Medicaid; it's the politicians of both parties who are beholden to the private insurance industry. Obama's focus-tested promise that the ACA was "the first step to single-payer" has been turned on its head: Medicare & Medicaid are becoming more like the ACA's private insurance & the feds are subsidizing them so that their losses are socialized while their profits are privatized.
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# ? May 3, 2023 21:13 |
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Medicaid is much broader coverage. There are a lot of things Medicaid covers that Medicare doesn't. otoh, traditional Medicare allows you to see any provider who accepts Medicare assignment (about 98 percent of them) while Medicaid (and Medicare Advantage) now buckets you into a private narrow network.
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# ? May 3, 2023 21:14 |
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To me, the Fed is ignoring the fact that they don't have control over the parts of the global economy anymore that are causing these inflationary issues. Those at this point seem to be things like the global supply chain mess, Covid, the Ukrainian War, and housing/apartment prices. If anything they are going to make things worse regarding new home construction by raising rates. When I hear about the biggest issues with people in the US's financial issues, in general the biggest problem is that it's not affordable for most people to pay the rent or mortgage prices that are being demanded. I do think there is some slowdown in the rising rent rates in some areas, but it's going to take awhile and there's no guarantee that they go back to being affordable again.
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# ? May 3, 2023 21:56 |
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Mizaq posted:I wonder if perhaps housing rents were able to go up in part because of medical savings people were experiencing. my unfounded guess is that rents went up because people wanted more money and, what are you gonna do, go homeless? most people would likely cut their spending everywhere else to make rent first. what I'd like to see wrt housing prices is how much of the housing supply was bought up by and currently owned by corporations and banks, and vacancy rates.
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# ? May 3, 2023 22:48 |
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Zamujasa posted:my unfounded guess is that rents went up because people wanted more money and, what are you gonna do, go homeless? That pressure is always there, though, but its usually countered by the pressure of "poo poo I need to fill this room with a decent tenant and the decent tenants have cheaper options elsewhere, I gotta keep the prices low enough to get them to stay here or they'll rent somewhere else or just get a mortgage and buy a place". Unfortunately, tightly coupled in with the housing market changes, that second concern is no longer much of a concern.
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# ? May 3, 2023 23:00 |
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GlyphGryph posted:That pressure is always there, though, but its usually countered by the pressure of "poo poo I need to fill this room with a decent tenant and the decent tenants have cheaper options elsewhere, I gotta keep the prices low enough to get them to stay here or they'll rent somewhere else or just get a mortgage and buy a place". And all commercially owned rentals setting prices via algorithms is essentially price fixing. Everything that's available raised the prices, because if they hadn't they wouldn't still be available.
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# ? May 3, 2023 23:19 |
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I don't see how this is even remotely legal. It's the practical definition of insider trading and I think a politician could make some inroads campaigning against it https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/02/poli...rst%20Republic. Democratic congresswoman sold First Republic stock and bought JPMorgan just before bank sale, financial disclosures show quote:Members of Congress are facing renewed scrutiny after a new disclosure report filed by Florida Democrat Lois Frankel revealed that she dumped First Republic Bank stock prior to its collapse and purchased JPMorgan stock before JPMorgan purchased First Republic.
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# ? May 4, 2023 00:23 |
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Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:The United Autoworkers Union is witholding their endorsement of Biden's re-election campaign due to concerns over the newly released aggressive fuel economy standards that would effectively ban about 2/3 of existing car models with internal combustion engines by 2032 will hurt the auto industry. This is quite an annoying article, because the NYT says they've seen a list of reasons the UAW leadership sent out, but apparently doesn't feel like describing why the union is doing this, allowing the narrative to fall into vague and unspecified "concerns" about EVs. CNBC's article is far better about providing the workers' position and perspective: quote:DETROIT – Leaders of the United Auto Workers are withholding a reelection endorsement for President Joe Biden until the union's concerns about the auto industry's transition to all-electric vehicles are addressed, according to a Tuesday letter sent by UAW President Shawn Fain to union staff. Note that the unions don't actually oppose EV manufacturing - they suspect that automakers will use EVs as an excuse to shed jobs, cut salaries, and move production to less-unionized states.
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# ? May 4, 2023 00:25 |
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BonoMan posted:Mississippi's last license plate had "In God We Trust" on it which I thought was obviously not ok. How can it be fine for money, but not license plates? Surely, the treasury has been sued over that before?
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# ? May 4, 2023 00:36 |
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FlamingLiberal posted:To me, the Fed is ignoring the fact that they don't have control over the parts of the global economy anymore that are causing these inflationary issues. Those at this point seem to be things like the global supply chain mess, Covid, the Ukrainian War, and housing/apartment prices. If anything they are going to make things worse regarding new home construction by raising rates. When I hear about the biggest issues with people in the US's financial issues, in general the biggest problem is that it's not affordable for most people to pay the rent or mortgage prices that are being demanded. I do think there is some slowdown in the rising rent rates in some areas, but it's going to take awhile and there's no guarantee that they go back to being affordable again. Honestly as annoying as it is from a short term political perspective as it's just going to undermine Biden's reelection, it's actually a good thing that they are raising rates. The Fed has a very limited tool kit for addressing economic shocks. The biggest one being interest rates. We spent way too long at the 0 bound. This meant that the fed didn't have a way to juice the economy by lowering them. By raising them now while the economy is booming it will reload that quiver for the next economic catastrophe the GOP drops on us.
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# ? May 4, 2023 00:44 |
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BiggerBoat posted:I don't see how this is even remotely legal. It's the practical definition of insider trading and I think a politician could make some inroads campaigning against it I get the sentiment but I'm having trouble giving a poo poo about under $15k in stock. Maybe I should :/
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# ? May 4, 2023 00:46 |
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Tayter Swift posted:I get the sentiment but I'm having trouble giving a poo poo about under $15k in stock. Maybe I should :/ $15k adds up when its happening time and time again, with a whole bunch of people doing it, and this is just the one where its obvious enough to notice.
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# ? May 4, 2023 00:49 |
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Zamujasa posted:my unfounded guess is that rents went up because people wanted more money and, what are you gonna do, go homeless? The rental and homeowner vacancy rates are at or near historic lows, rents are going up because there isn't enough housing in places people want to live and landowners have been pretty successful at organizing against new construction.
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# ? May 4, 2023 01:25 |
Florida keeps getting worse. Just openly going after all trans people, including adults. https://twitter.com/ErinInTheMorn/status/1653874194965467136?s=20 How long until more red states start passing identical bills?
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# ? May 4, 2023 01:29 |
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Queering Wheel posted:Florida keeps getting worse. Just openly going after all trans people, including adults. Dont' worry, at the end of the day they're still all friends https://twitter.com/SPTenantsU/status/1653503532341907467
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# ? May 4, 2023 01:33 |
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Queering Wheel posted:Florida keeps getting worse. Just openly going after all trans people, including adults. JFC don't read the comments. Twitter is a loving cesspit. Kalli posted:Dont' worry, at the end of the day they're still all friends This is darkly funny.
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# ? May 4, 2023 01:41 |
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I mean the FL Dems are like the Washington Generals in this state at this point
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# ? May 4, 2023 01:44 |
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Queering Wheel posted:Florida keeps getting worse. Just openly going after all trans people, including adults. Yay, so how many people are going to straight up die by cop? Maybe we'll get a "good" story where one transphobe calls the cops on another transphobe for their criminal lack of specific femininity. FlamingLiberal posted:I mean the FL Dems are like the Washington Generals in this state at this point No need to slander the Washington Generals. Edit: Looks like Texas is trying to Texas again. Edit: Looks like I also need to look at the time stamp on tweets that pop up in my feed. Gyges fucked around with this message at 02:41 on May 4, 2023 |
# ? May 4, 2023 01:59 |
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That twitter post about the Texas being Texas thing is from 2021.
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# ? May 4, 2023 02:10 |
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# ? May 25, 2024 14:17 |
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BiggerBoat posted:I don't see how this is even remotely legal. It's the practical definition of insider trading and I think a politician could make some inroads campaigning against it "Just before sale" is dishonest. Bank sale happened like... yesterday or something, and it gives dates for stock transactions in March(!), also a few days after failure of SVB, when cryptobros where trying to engineer a run on the bank. So yes, Congresspeople shouldn't trade stocks, but this is just a hitpiece.
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# ? May 4, 2023 02:21 |