Yes, we are a free-market. But there are people, like company executives (and high-ranking politicians) who have non-public information that does not belong to them. When congress uses insider knowledge, they are stealing from the ameria, and undermining any semblance of policy integrity.

And for that reason, the SEC has 10b-5 plans, which can certainly be critiqued, but at least removes the low-hanging fruit like "we are getting acquired so I'll buy as many shares and out of the money options as I can".

Iirc her husband was basically buying fairly far-out (~16-18 months) calls at the onset of the pandemic, and they were expiring around the time of, was it an antitrust hearing? The timing itself was poor, but the expiration didn't seem diabolical.

But it was just like, c'mon, I don't even like the anti-trust bent congress is on, but how are you thinking people are taking your goals in good faith when you have any explicit (and intrinsically timed) personal interest in not harming the businesses you are looking into anti-trust action against?

The Fed trading ethics thing with Kaplan and Rosengren was also pretty bad. But imo, they made real changes. They restricted a lot of individual trading, and anything they can still trade in, has to be requested 45 days in advance. I think they understood the gravity of what that said about them, and took real steps to remedy.

The STOCK Act otoh says Congress and employees have to report within 45 days...