60 Minutes did a good report last night drawing attention to cronyism in Congress when it comes to insider trading with non-public information. Insider trading, while illegal in the private sector, is not illegal for those in Congress who have access to quite a bit of non-public information. While Newsbusters accurately points out that they made it seem like mostly GOP cronyism by using four Republicans and one Democrat as examples in the report, it’s still a good report nonetheless on the issue. And one of their biggest targets in the report was Nancy Pelosi for purchasing 5,000 shares of IPO stock (at $44/share) from VISA in 2008 while there was legislation sitting in the House that was opposed by the credit card companies. The legislation never saw the light of day in 2008 but Pelosi’s newly purchased IPO stock was trading at $64 per share the next day. Of course Pelosi denies any wrongdoing whatsoever.
Here’s the report:
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