New Coronavirus - COVID-19

[Xist]

Originally Posted by Fat Charlie

Thrift Savings Plan. You didn't use it when you were in?

Your request cannot be completed because a TSP account does not exist for the Social Security number you entered.

I guess not. I believe that had you mentioned TSP while I was in I still would have thought of the cleaning product, although I knew which TSP Oil Pan meant.

Originally Posted by Fat Charlie

You executed trades (and told your donors to do so) based on classified information? Nice work if you can get it, I suppose.

Light your pitchforks, boys!

Quinidine is ototoxic.

[redpoint5]

What info could have been privileged info? Isn't health stuff in the public domain?

[oil pan 4]

The wild turkey 101 alcohol content will kill you before the tonic will.

[redpoint5]

I'll take up to 151 neat. My preference is slow sipping a strong peaty islay Scotch, neat. I'd never drink Wild Turkey outside of the context of the value proposition of alcohol content for the money when choice is constrained on a flight. I don't usually buy drinks on a plane. You can bring your own alcohol onboard too, as long as it's already in your belly.

[Fat Charlie]

Originally Posted by redpoint5

What info could have been privileged info? Isn't health stuff in the public domain?

That's what oil pan 4 used. The chair of the Senate Intelligence committee was receiving daily briefings on the coronavirus situation. He knew the "Nothing to see here", "Fake news" and "Political smear job" storylines being put out by the Administration were completely wrong. So he kept quiet and sold his stocks on Feb. 13.

He privately told a group of donors how bad it was on Feb 27. That was the day his financial disclosure form made his sales a matter of public record- he didn't want his donors to find out that he had sold out and left them hanging.

Meanwhile, "Nothing to see here" was still the public message. He didn't use his position to protect Americans, he used it to protect his money. And once that became public record he pulled his donors aside and quietly told them to do the same. That's who the chair of the Senate Intelligence committee is really working for, wealthy people from his home state who donate to his party.

Originally Posted by oil pan 4

I did the same thing as the senators just with much smaller amounts.

No you didn't. Some guy selling his stocks early isn't at all the same as a Senate chair selling everyone out. He saw a threat, saw that the Administration was dangerously downplaying it and immediately got on the phone... to his broker. And then waited two weeks to tell his donors.

"I've got mine, Jack" is apparently the new "The buck stops here". It may inspire confidence in you if you give enough money to the right politicians, but for regular citizens, not so much.

[redpoint5]

Yeah, but getting conflicting info isn't insider information. We all had access to media saying there is a virus threat. Perhaps there is something very foul at play, but it would be a tough case to prosecute.

As I'm always saying, the rules are stupid anyhow. Who sees a train coming and then stays on the tracks because the law requires them to? There's got to be a better way to get a 1-time capital raise than Wall Street.

[freebeard]

I've been [more] self-isolated [than usual] since I got that novel inflammation on 15 January. Actions taken mid-Febraury seem tardy to me.

[redpoint5]

Hehe, I was going to say, isolation seems your default MO.

I probably mentioned it already, but it was a sad realization when I found out that people were being impacted by the virus with cancelled concerts and sporting events, shops being closed, and being sent home to work, and that nothing in my life had changed. I'm already living as a recluse. I'm so out of the loop that I was planning to close my work week out at the coffee shop last Friday until I was informed that it's been take-out only for a while. I finally get the gumption to be in public, and it's no longer an option.

I took up running a couple weeks ago, so I'll probably do a short loop around Silver Falls with a friend tonight. There's my social interaction for the week.

Might head up to the rental property to put the tenants (and myself) to work this weekend. Gotta make lemonade.

[Fat Charlie]

Originally Posted by redpoint5

Who sees a train coming and then stays on the tracks because the law requires them to?

I would submit that members of the Senate Intelligence Committee are not innocent bystanders on railroad tracks, but actually have an important duty to the country.

Even a public statement like "this is so bad I sold all my stocks this morning" would have changed things. But his mean boss in the Oval Office would have tweeted that he was nasty. That's too hard for some people to stand up to, I guess. So Burr gets his own chapter in Profiles in Cowardliness. But he doesn't care, he said in 2016 that he isn't running again, so this term is only about getting paid.

[oil pan 4]

So now all of a sudden people care about how government employees on a 100k to 200k a year income become multi millionaires?