. . . for those who haven't checked the facts . . .
(from http://www.factcheck.org/2015/01/obamas-numbers-january-2015-update/)
". . . Jobs, paychecks, corporate profits and stock prices have all improved since our last report on the Obama statistical record. . . The economy has now gained nearly five times more jobs under President Barack Obama than it did during the presidency of George W. Bush, and the unemployment rate has dropped to just below the historical average. Real weekly earnings are up 1.7 percent, thanks in part to a plunge in gasoline prices. Corporate profits have nearly tripled, and stock prices have soared. . . "
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(By binaryloop, at http://libertycrier.com/forum/congress-quietly-repeals-insider-trading-ban/)
While Congress might be stuck in a deadlock on just about every issue imaginable, there’s one piece of legislation that both Democrats and Republicans hate unanimously: the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act, a law passed last year designed to prevent insider trading among lawmakers and government officials by requiring them to post disclosures of their financial transactions online.
Both parties and both houses of Congress hated the disclosure portion of the law so much that it was repealed last Friday (4/12/13) without debate—the measure was sent to the President by unanimous consent. The ordeal took about 10 seconds in the Senate and 14 seconds in the House, according to official records.
The STOCK Act would have required members of Congress, their aides, and other federal employees making more than $119,554 a year to disclose their financial dealings in an online database. It was supposed to prevent government officials from using insider knowledge about policy-making to profit from stock trades and other investments.
Upon the signing of the bill into law last year (pictured above), President Barack Obama said, “The idea that everybody plays by the same rules is one of our most cherished American values. It’s the notion that the powerful shouldn’t get to create one set of rules for themselves and another set of rules for everybody else, and if we expect that to apply to our biggest corporations and to our most successful citizens, it certainly should apply to our elected officials—especially at a time when there is a deficit of trust between this city and the rest of the country.” The White House has not said whether the President will sign the repeal.
Despite the repeal, government officials will still have to file disclosures of securities trades over $1,000 within 45 days, but they no longer have to file them in a searchable database that was to be easily accessible to the public.
Congress and the President had delayed the online posting portion of the act from going into effect 3 times already, but the ultimate repeal came after the National Academy of Public Administration, a nonprofit group, found that publishing the information would create an “unwarranted risk to national security and law enforcement, as well as threaten agency missions, individual safety and privacy,” in a report delivered last month. The group suggested that the online posting requirements should be suspended indefinitely.
Lisa Rosenberg of the Sunlight Foundation, a nonprofit group advocating for government transparency, said that the repeal “sets an extraordinarily dangerous precedent suggesting that any risks stem not from information being public but from public information being online.“
Shareholders of Air France-KLM and Safran voted against big pay-offs for chief executives at the part French state-owned groups as public resistance to lucrative executive pay grows on a continent traumatised by financial turmoil, reported Reuters.
Four-fifths of Air France-KLM shareholders opposed about US$500,000 paid to ex-CEO Pierre-Henri Gourgeon, who also received $1.39 million when he was ousted in October following the airline's poor performance. The stock lost 71 percent last year.
Just over half of shareholders in aerospace group Safran voted against awarding chairman and chief executive Jean-Paul Herteman two years of pay and an extra pension when he steps down. He was paid $1.77 million last year.
The moves, encouraged by the government, are the latest in a series of revolts over pay at annual general meetings as part of the so-called "shareholder spring", which has seen the chief executive of British insurance group Aviva lose his job.
Governments in France and the UK are among those who have promised to get tough on top executive pay as voters grow weary of bank bailouts and the impact of government austerity measures on spending power as the euro zone debt crisis drags on.
France's new Socialist government has said it will flesh out plans to cap the pay of top executives at state-controlled companies by mid-June. President Francois Hollande pledged in his election campaign to limit senior executives' salaries to a maximum of 20 times that of their lowest-paid employee.
In Britain, Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron has promised legislation this year to tackle high executive pay and leaned on bosses to give up bonuses at banks that were partly nationalised in bailouts after the 2008 financial crisis.
Pierre Moscovici, France's new finance minister under Hollande, earlier welcomed the Safran shareholder vote while calling for similar action at Air France-KLM. The state owns 30 percent of Safran and 15.9 percent of Air France-KLM.
"The government is thus again giving a strong signal of its will for change on the question of remuneration," Moscovici said in a statement.
Ex-Air France-KLM CEO Gourgeon was given the additional $500,000 in return for not working for a competitor for three years. He received an annual salary of close to a $1 billion plus a bonus of $324,731.
Current Air France-KLM CEO Jean-Cyril Spinetta told shareholders that Gourgeon had the legal right to keep the money, adding that it was justified because Gourgeon had been approached by several competitors, notably Gulf carriers.
In an interview with France Inter radio earlier on Thursday, however, Moscovici called on Gourgeon to reimburse the payment."Indeed, morally Pierre-Henri Gourgeon should himself pay it back," Moscovici told France Inter. "The bonus has already been paid, but we are saying very clearly that this is not the right thing to do."
Hollande said before his election that several measures were needed to restore fairness in France, a dig at predecessor Nicolas Sarkozy, whose policies Hollande alleged favoured the rich.
The measures included a top income tax rate of 75 percent on income above $1.23 million, in addition to the senior executive pay cap.
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. . . or did EVERYBODY think that since insider trading is ILLEGAL, that members of Congress were NOT supposed to participate and should be, been and always be under particular scrutiny to guard against such a thing happening?????
A ban on insider trading by members of Congress cleared a key
procedural hurdle Monday in the Senate, moving toward final passage and a
House vote on similar legislation later next month. A bipartisan
group of senators voted 93 to 2 in favor of ending debate on the STOCK
Act, a piece of legislation meant to prohibit members of Congress, their
families and staff from using any information gleaned while working on
the Hill to execute stock transactions. The legislation 60 votes
to attain "cloture," or limit debate and move toward final passage. The
bill will be debated and amendments will be attached over the next week.
It's unclear when the final vote will occur.
The House version
will expand certain restrictions on insider trading to White House staff
and is also expected to create clear restrictions on members of
Congress making land deals using insider information. The House is
looking to move on that legislation within a month. "Leader Cantor plans to move an expanded version of the STOCK Act
through the House in February to make it clear that those in Congress
are subject to the same laws as everyone else," Laena Fallon, a
spokeswoman for Cantor's office told NBC. Fervor over insider
trading on Capitol Hill reached a peak last fall following the airing of
a "60 Minutes" segment questioning whether lawmakers including House
Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) made
investments based on their knowledge of legislative activity to which
they would be privy.
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