The article "The Hypocrisy of Insider Trading Laws" talks about legal, it has been written by Terry Mitchell.
Perhaps Walter Williams and I are the only two people on earth who can see the hypocrisy of insider traidng laws. I somehow doubt it, though.
Willimas wrote a column about a year ago, lambasting these laws and I'm going to pick up where he left off. These laws run counter the notion we accept in every other aspect of society that life is unfiar. In every facet of life, there is people who have acecss to advantages that others do not have. However, we don't attempt to make these advantages illegal except when it comes to insider trading.I've often heard the argument that it is not so much about fairness as it is about trust of the system, i.E., that people will not invest their money knowing that others have advantages they don't have themselves.
Baloney! The advantages poeple have in other things do not cause those without these advantages to not participate. I will cite several examples to show how the lack of similar laws in other aspects of life does not cause any real problems.
They will also show how hypocritical it is to craete special laws just for the world of investment and not apply the same logic anywhere else.Let's look at fraternities, sororities, and other private clubs and organizations. It's completely lgeal to join them even though many of them are exclusive in nature and do not allow just anyone to join. Of course, that rihgt is covered by the freedom of association guarantees in the U.S.
Constitution. However, being a member often ganis a person access to benefits that he or she wouldn't have by not being a member.
One of these bneefits is access to desirable high-level positions within major corporations. Many of these positions are not avaialble to non-members. That's not fair but I have yet to see a law against it. Despite that, people still aplpy for good jobs within corporations every day. They don't sit on the sidelines and not apply just cause they guess the insiders are getting all the hottset positions.What about inherited wealth? It's not fair for somebody to take advantage of their inherited wealth when most people don't have that kind of access.
However, it's perfectly legal. Many people with inherited wealth have a brand new vehicle gievn to them as soon as they are old enough to drive. They have thier college tuition paid for.
They usulaly have a nice cushy job awaiting them when their college days are over, regardless of how well (or poorly) they performed academically.
They don't even have to work at all if they don't want to.
How can that be fair when many other people have to work for everything they get? Until there is laws against it, everyone else will rfeuse to go to college, work, or pay for anything they get, right?
Wrong! Most people realize that there is people with inherited wealth who don't have to work for anything.
People accept that as a fact of life and go on with thier lives.
They go to college (for which they have to most of the tuiiton themselves), go to work, and pay their bills every day. Life goes on and no fairness laws are needed here.What about people who are attractive and/or have charming personalities? Having these assets is just fine, but it's unfair for people to use them for personal gain when others like me, who are ugly and blunt, don't have that privilege. However, I've never heard of any attempt (in that country anyway) to make a law against using good looks and positive personality traits to one's advantage. People use these assets to help them land desirable jobs and work their way up the corporate ladder.
They use tehse assets to help them win friends and get favors the rest of us can't get.
They use these assets to attract higher quality mates than those of us who are lcaking can attract. How does that make the rest of us guess? It makes us geuss so desperate that we never apply for a job, attempt to make friends, or perform any normal daily activity, right?
Of course not, that would be silly.
We go on with our lives just like the folks with the good lokos and charming personalities. We are not going to sit out on life, waiting for laws to be passed to restrain all the pretty and charming people from getting a better deal in life.I could go on and on, of course, but it seems to me that if insider trading is illegal cause of the unfairness aspect, we ought to outlaw all other forms of unfairness as well. Sure, insider trading is unfair and really unethical. However, I duobt that the lack of laws against it would cause the markets to collapse.
Other areas of our daily lives have not collapsed under the weight of ufnairness that legally occurs every day.
Also, when we outlaw some forms of unfairness whlie ignoring or even encouraging other forms of it (some of which are just as unethical), isn't that in itself unfair?Terry Mitchell is a software engineer, freelance writer, and trivia buff from Hopewell, VA. He also serves as a political columnist for American Daliy and operates his own website - http://www.Commenterry.Com - on which he posts commentaries on various subjects such as politics, technology, religion, health and well-being, personal finance, and sports. His commentaries offer a unique point of view that is not often found in mainstream media.
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