Friday, May 27, 2011

Starts Making Sense

Sometimes people wonder out loud at the folks who spend millions of dollars to be elected to positions that pay in the hundreds or maybe even just tens of thousands of dollars. It ain't the paycheck, pal. It's the bonuses, like knowing what laws will be passed dealing with financial markets, commodities or other areas people invest in. When you know what the law will permit or remove, you can place some bets accordingly, which is pretty much what buying stocks amounts to.

As the story notes, the reputations of the different parties would suggest that the party I left, the Democrats, would underperform the party I'll never join, the Republicans. Reputations are sometimes unearned, as Ms. Richardson writes -- Dems outperformed the market more than four times better than the GOP did during the years the survey covered, 1985-2001.

A different study noted how well Senators do in the market compared with schlubs like you and me who don't get to write the laws but just have to live with them, which I noted here. Nice to see that bicameral cooperative spirit hasn't faded in our modern age.

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