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myrmidon a day ago

I'll turn this around: Do you think it is acceptable for policymakers, lawmakers or people involved in such a process to reap profits more or less directly with (partially non-public) knowledge they've acquired?

Because I think not. And I feel pretty strongly about this. The conflict of interest is so glaringly obvious that it should be completely self-evident why every voter should want to prevent, ban and punish any such action.

I feel that anyone involved in this tariff insurance business should be able to prove without a shadow of doubt that they had no political insider knowledge about the whole thing, and I'm extremely skeptical that this is the case (just from the pople involved alone!).

irishcoffee a day ago | parent | next [-]

You mean these policymakers?

“ House kills effort to release all congressional sexual misconduct and harassment reports”

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/house-kills-effort...

myrmidon a day ago | parent [-]

Yes?

I frankly do not understand your argument: "Some policymakers are sleazy (yes?), so it should be fine for all of them to leverage influence/access into personal gain" (?!)

This does not make sense to me.

NetMageSCW a day ago | parent | prev [-]

>with (partially non-public) knowledge they've acquired

What partially non-public information did he have? Be specific.

myrmidon a day ago | parent [-]

> What partially non-public information did he have? Be specific.

How would I know? I'm neither Lutnick nor his son.

My point is that there is an extremely obvious conflict of interest here. If your family business is directly affected by decisions and information of the public office that you hold, then the very obvious risk is that you are going favor official decisions that help your business (possibly to the detriment of the majority), and that you leverage non-public information for personal gain.

For this specific case, insider knowledge could be a precise understanding on the "shakiness" of the initial tariffs combined with an insider picture of ongoing legal cases against them (progress and expected success rate).

I'm not saying that Lutnick & sons comitted some kind of crime, but if you let your family business overlap with your public office this much, then the resulting scrutiny is more than justified, and you could make a strong point that such a situation should be avoided in the first place.