Paul Ryan traded on insider information to avoid 2008 crash

Looks like it's getting deeper;

Revealed: Romney Campaign’s Attempts to Deny Paul Ryan’s Insider Trading Don't Add Up

First of all, the Romney campaign’s claim that the transactions were index trades is not consistent with what’s in the original disclosure reports. AlterNet discussed the controversy with money and politics expert Thomas Ferguson, who has written extensively on the bailout. He explained, “Ryan did own some index-based securities, but they stand out in the summaries. They are different from the many trades Ryan was making in individual stocks. It is perfectly obvious that he sold shares in Wachovia, Citigroup and J. P. Morgan on September 18 and he bought shares in Paulson’s old firm, Goldman Sachs, on the same day. If these were index trades, what’s on the form is nonsense.”

Citing accounts from congressional circles , Ferguson explains that Paulson had been told by the White House not to discuss the darkening situation with Congress. But sometime between 2:30 and 3pm on September 18, Paulson finally spoke with then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. He told her that a very bad situation had developed, and that it could involve something much worse than the failure of a giant bank, possibly even a broad collapse of the whole economy. Pelosi immediately demanded that Paulson come over and brief congressional leaders. He agreed. Ferguson reports that his sources say the meeting did indeed begin after markets closed. But he also notes that word of the meeting circulated to the leaders well before markets closed at 4pm.

Ryan dumped the bad banks stock and shifted into Goldman Sachs, and this was an individual trade, which had nothing to do with "Russell 1000" or any other index fund.


BTW love these statistics (I'll paraphrase here):

• Congress, from 1993-1998, US senators were beating the market by 12 percentage points a year on average.
• Corporate insiders only beat the market by a measly 5 percent.
• Typical households, in contrast, underperformed by 1.4 percent.

Isn't that how Las Vegas casinos know you are cheating - when you win too much?

reply to post by jibeho


ATS does not have a leftist bend. Most of the people on here are all conservative...look at the political threads

reply to post by charles1952


PR dumped his holdings in bad investment companies and put his money in good companies the day he was meeting with people about bailing out those same companies, that's a good reason why he should be
Investigated. It is like he was caught standing over the victim with a bloody knife in his hand.

www.washingtonpost.com... V_story.html?hpid=z1]Members of Congress trade in companies while making laws that affect those same firms

Congress Riddled With Insider Trading
Study find 1-in-8 Congress trades pose potential conflict of interest


The Washington Post has pored over the 45,000 stock transactions made by members of Congress between 2007 and 2010, in a mammoth investigation into just how bad the government's insider trading problem is. The result—130 members of Congress or their families bought and sold up to $218 million in 323 companies registered to lobby on legislation that comes before their committees. That amounts to 5,531 trades, or nearly one in eight (although the Post notes that not all these trades are insider trading, only that the trades represent potential conflicts of interest).

It is also a problem split fairly evenly between the parties, with 68 Democrats and 62 Republicans. Sen. John Kerry had the highest value of stocks that overlap with companies that appeared before him, between $42 million and $86 million, while Texas Rep. Michael McCaul had the highest number of overlapping trades. Only six senators use ethics-committee approved blind trusts, and the House does not even keep track. "Members need to bend over backwards to show people they are there for the good of the country," said former Rep. Brian Baird, who co-authored a failed bill to stop insider trading in Congress in 2006, adding "if there is an appearance of an impropriety, there just might be an impropriety.

Something I found quirky with the trading times, is that these forms are filled out by the members of Congress, they aren't generated based on actual trading dates/times, we just have their word for when a trade takes place. If Ryan engaged in after hours trading on the 18th, we he have left the date as the 18th? For all we know, those trades he listed as the 18th didn't take place until the 19th. Even so, with insider trading rampant in Congress, and all the loose talk in those inner circles, we can be certain Ryan or anyone one of his colleagues had all the info they needed to do a little insider trading.

Since we only have Ryan's word on when those transactions took place it's not "speculation" to point that out. The disclosure forms are filled out personally by the member and dates/amounts are purely for show -they are on the honor system.

It is speculation to say "The point is that Ryan had access to information that others did not and traded on that information to make excess profits at the expense of others who lost the same amount because they lacked access to that privileged level of information."

Ryan is accused of insider trading, based on the suspicious timing and direction of stock trades he made on a day when he had access to information that others in the market did not.

That's why I'm calling for the appointment of a special prosecutor. We now need someone with subpoena power and power to indict to look into these allegations, at least if we care that markets remain free of even the appearance of insider trading.

Paul Ryan Involved in Insider Trading of Contested Legality


--Lynn Parramore, Contributing Editor at AlterNet, explains why the defenses we've heard so far about Paul Ryan's alleged insider trading simply don't hold up.

reply to post by RancorXXX

Dear RancorXXX,

I think we have pretty much disposed of Blackmarketeer's objections. I'm curious about your plan, however.

It is speculation to say "The point is that Ryan had access to information that others did not and traded on that information to make excess profits at the expense of others who lost the same amount because they lacked access to that privileged level of information."

You're right. That whole sentence is speculation, a guess.

Ryan is accused of insider trading, based on the suspicious timing and direction of stock trades he made on a day when he had access to information that others in the market did not.

As I pointed out, the timing of that day's trades, and his other trades for the year, have been dealt with.

That's why I'm calling for the appointment of a special prosecutor. We now need someone with subpoena power and power to indict to look into these allegations, at least if we care that markets remain free of even the appearance of insider trading.

Here is where I become confused. Are you suggesting the appointment of a special prosecutor whenever an allegation or guess is made about a politician? Remembering that they are appointed by Holder's DOJ? My goodness, where will we ever get them all? Besides, you want him to have the power to indict. Indict for what? Even if, and I stress the "if," everything that everybody in alternet and ATS, and The Huffington Post can imagine is true, what law has been broken?

Perhaps you can straighten me out here.

With respect,
charles1952

reply to post by charles1952


You are absolutely right Charles. No laws have been broken. Just because Americans are held to certain laws and standards why should we expect the same from our elected representatives? I mean are they not supposed to be our leaders. Are they not the ones to set examples for the rest of us to follow?

Just because something is "legal" does not make it right or moral.

reply to post by TRGreer

Dear TRGreer,

Good to see you again. You raise a good point. While there should be some tie between immoral and illegal, it's not always there. Actually, the only reason I stressed the legality was because a poster wanted a special prosecutor appointed with the power to indict. No crime, no indictment.

But I don't have to make those distinctions with you. I agree that anything bad (or good, you want them to set an example) done by an official should be made public. I feel as though we're brothers on this issue.

In the case of the "insider trading," we've got some questions about Ryan's trades, but there seems to be disagreement over how many of the questions are based on guessing and unsupported assumptions. Some say there's enough proof to convict (or, at least, charge), others say there isn't anything.

Another question is, is this whole thing de minimus? All of the trades were in the $1-15,000 range, and for Goldman Sachs, he had more "sells" than "buys" in those three months. Some will say the amounts are pennies, others will say one illegal dime requires condemnation.

What should our standard be? How does the treatment of Obama, Reid, Holder, Napolitano, and Pelosi affect how we deal with this case?

My own thoughts on this particular episode? Not enough here to go on, either in evidence or amount. But a concern has been raised and new rules should be put in place.

With respect,
Charles1952

P.s. I kind of miss you over at the Muslim tolerance thread. But there's a new wall o' text that is pretty daunting.

reply to post by charles1952


What do you mean, you have "disposed of" anyone's objections? All you did was put your fingers in your ears and "NA NA I can't hear you!".

What is so funny, is that had Ryan done this TODAY, he would be charged with a crime.

The claim however isn't whether he technically broke the law in 2008 or not - as we know he technically did not - it's whether he traded on insider information. From the evidence, that's a foregone conclusion. On the VERY day that Berkshire was set to announce a major stock purchase of Goldman Sachs, where the treasury secretary was set to announce how it would be the single biggest recipient of bailout funds, that is the day that Ryan dumps all his failing bank stocks and buys into Goldman Sachs. Too bad for us, that in 2008, what Ryan did (insider trading) wasn't a crime for members of Congress like himself.