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Comment by NikxDa | Hacker News Reader

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Corruption is worsening and never attenuates on its own. We need a third party devoted to indiscriminately tackling the problem. Problem is, the people who pick and choose which politicians win will never allow it, because they are significant benefactors and fostered this duopoly to begin with.

Voters?

The "this isn't new it's always been happening" talk is disingenuous and incorrect. Yes, there has been some evidence of insider trading over the previous years. However, the scope and frequency of evidence pointing to insider trading since the Trump administration took power is orders of magnitude larger than was happening previously.

The 2020 insider trading scandal dealt with amounts in the hundreds of thousands and low millions. The sudden trading happening right before Trump makes announcements that majorly affect the stock market is in the hundreds of millions.

This isn't business as usual.

Yeah, you're right. Guess we shouldn't talk about what's happening now or do anything to address it.

Or just legalize it across the board recognizing that when only the powerful can make use of it. and we're not going to do anything about the powerful, we might as well let everyone else in on the game.

That is truly my cynical mindset at this point. The degree to which my trading is regulated is beyond absurd in a market and society where things like this are allowed to happen.

Reminds me of a debate in college. I was in college during the baseball doping days in early/mid 2000s and gave a debate presentation that the only way to make it a fair sport is to allow it for everyone; basically there should be no rules. The class vehemently disagreed but purely on emotion, no solid defenses were made that I couldn’t counter with a simple logic rebuttal. In any case, I tend to agree with you. The laws are only on the books to make naive people feel like there money is being looked after and the asset values aren’t manipulated. Remove the laws and the layman is a skeptic by default as he should be.

How exactly would someone with no special access, knowledge or power get in on the game? Legalizing it across the board would just make things worse.

They would be smart enough to know/assume it’s a rigged game they are playing and stay away from it. The veil of laws and regulations is a lie when they’re not enforced

The biggest issue here is not insider trading itself, but the fact that (foreign) policy is being used for insider trading.

Think of the tariff madness of last year. The biggest issue wasn't that insider billionaires were robbing outsider billionaires. The bigger issue was the massive stress small businesses had to endure, who didn't know how they were going to survive.

I am of the mind that legalization of this practice would decrease trust in the marketplace to an extent that I think is necessary at this point. Of course, the better alternative would be to actually enforce these laws and increase confidence in the marketplace but how will the inside track billionaires make their money if we do?

That isn't very nice. OP never suggested we shouldn't talk about this topic, only that we all know this has been happening for a century.

Legislation has been introduced to address this exact problem. Edit: Polymarkets should be hevialy regulated or made illegal. In fact, they were illegal, until someone found a loophole.

Stop Insider Trading Act (House): Introduced by Rep. Bryan Steil, this bill aims to prohibit purchasing publicly traded stocks, requires 7-day notice for sales, and imposes penalties for violations. It is supported by GOP leadership.

Restore Trust in Congress Act (Senate): Introduced by Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand and Ashley Moody, this bill bans trading/ownership of individual stocks and requires divestment within 180 days of enactment.

Sorry for not being nice and for reading between the lines.

Since Polymarket accepts crypto, there's likely foreign governments getting in on the grift too, which the proposed domestic regulations won't solve and likely won't be accepted by the domestic grifters.

Not what I'm saying, but this has happened _so many times_ and nothing has come of talking about it so far. I would love to see things change, but in this specific instance I'm not holding my breath

When the foxes are running the hen houses, this is what you expect.

Worse is there has emerged a dominant ideology and ruling party which enshrines this as morality and the law of the land. Rule of the strong, and the weak must submit.

(To be clear, the foxes have always been running the hen house, they just usually at least tried to be discrete about it. Now they don't care.)

Have you tried just becoming strong and connected? Try harder. (/s)

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