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Comment by IIAOPSW | Hacker News Reader

>Congresspeople regularly outperform the market with their investment which is called "insider trading"

Have you considered the selection bias going on as an alternative explanation. Maybe the people with the competence and skills to get to Congress are just smarter than the average person with an investment account.

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It’s a fair theory but given the long track record of proven insider trading, their connections to people with insider information, and their repeated refusal to enact prohibitions on insider trading (it is in fact perfectly legal, despite efforts to apply the same rules that everyone else plays by), I think there is a lot of evidence for systemic corruption and against “they’re just better investors”.

By your theory, auditors should be put into jail on a much higher rate as they have WAY MORE insider information, yet they don’t.

Also, there is a law prohibiting senators from trading on insider information, which kinda goes against your whole point.

https://www.congress.gov/112/plaws/publ105/PLAW-112publ105.h...

There are also laws against rape, murder, and jaywalking, yet they happen daily.

At first glance you seem to be comparing events that have to be witnessed vs database entries that are centralized, heavily audited, and very accurate.

It’s a lot easier to match patterns in a db vs. real life crime.

They're pointing out that something being illegal doesn't stop it from happening.

But more to the point, you're wrong here and we know you to be wrong because otherwise white collar crime wouldn't exist, but it does.

I don’t understand why you have such a stance and how you “know”…SEC publishes their enforcement data on an annual basis, which supports my argument.

https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2022-206

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