They are elected officials that are supposed to be working in our best interests, or at least the interest of their supporters.
Are they making decisions in our best interests or what makes their pocket book fatter? Poisons the whole system.
This is extremely basic incenive / money-flow tracing and "setting aside corruption" is a premise that has the hairs on the back of my neck standing straight up. It smells like someone looking to force the framing. Everyone before me in this conversation was right to be suspicious of your motives in asking it, and I am suspicious as well.
That's still corruption. Your argument about other participants being "taxed" applies for other sophisticated counterparties as well, eg. hedge funds with armies of analysts and can fly helicopters around to gather intel. Unless you want to say that's bad too, the only difference between the two is that the hedge fund isn't engaging in corruption.
Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?
Again, if you read the TFA, the entire thesis is that the insider trading is extra bad beyond corruption. The corruption itself only gets a passing mention.
I did and that's not at all what TFA argues. It argues that it's the corruption that's the problem, which is exacerbated by the lack of legal enforcement by the current administration -- mostly because many in that administration are either actively involved in said corruption, or happy to cover it up/pooh pooh it.
I suppose you might think that some folks who haven't read TFA might buy your analysis, even though it's pretty much the opposite of what Krugman argues.
You go, girlfriend!