Blanket banning stock trading has a lot of downsides. Its an important part of everyone's financial wellbeing - esp if you are wealthy or powerful. I left my job in financial industry primarily because of this.
Saying a congressperson or a judge should be allowed to trade stocks simply because it affects their well being is an argument that appears rather frail. I would be surprised if there is anyone in those positions of power either elected or appointed who would be considered to be even slightly financially disadvantaged. If they want to be wealthy, let them go back to work as attorneys or whatever profession they came from.
I don't agree with that in all cases. I have a friend who is a teacher and admits teaching is a great job for him (2nd grade) and he doesn't know what he would do otherwise. Probably some type of physical work. He is a great guy, but just isn't that sharp. He is punctual and dependable, but not real good at thinking on his feet. He makes about $82k teaching (20+ years experience in a reasonably affordable area) and I can't think of another job that would pay him that well, give him the summer off, great healthcare and a pension.
I know a few more teachers and perhaps it is the group of people I hang out with, but they all are closer to him than to some person making a sacrifice for the good of society.
But FWIW my experience is not like yours. I am a college professor and have seen many students over the years go into teaching, either at the secondary or elementary level (specifically, math teaching). When I meet with them to discuss what they want to do, almost all express that when they think about careers, their interest in teaching is because it is a reasonable career with reasonable pay, yes, but just as important to them is the sense of doing good, of directly helping people. (I have less experience with people in the services but what experience I do have is in the same direction.)
Doesn’t this describe most people that do well in large organizations?
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
From the article, judges aren't even properly recusing themselves.
But should it be?
It seems to me this is part of the problem: the outsized role the stock market plays in our financial system today.
The wishful image of financial autonomy and chances of personal and business development through a public market seems to provide too much cognitive dissonance when confronted with the realities of how bloated, speculative, manipulated, and self-fulfilling stock markets have become.
It's like telling someone who's put their entire live saving into bitcoin that it's a pyramid scheme. I mean any other idea would probably die on here, once it's been shown that it's success is coupled to NP=P being true.(https://arxiv.org/abs/1002.2284)