What does it mean - members of congress could not trade stocks? You’re not saying categorically? Or just in reference to stocks they would have “insider” information about because of their role?
Categorical. No individual stock trading while in office—required divestiture to blind trusts or broad-based index funds (like a total market ETF).
Here's the reasoning: Members of Congress have access to non-public information across virtually every sector of the economy. Defense, healthcare, tech, finance, agriculture—they get classified briefings, advance notice of regulations, and insight into policy changes that will move markets. Trying to carve out "insider" trades from "legitimate" trades creates endless loopholes and enforcement nightmares. Cleaner to ban individual stock-picking entirely.
But there's a deeper point: this is about who the job attracts.
Public service comes with trade-offs. You get access to privileged information and the power to shape policy. In exchange, you give up the ability to personally profit from that access. That's the deal. If that trade-off doesn't work for you, don't run.
This filters for people who actually want to govern—and filters out people who see Congress as a wealth-building opportunity. The current system does the opposite. And we wonder why we get the representatives we get.
That does sound like a policy that could clear a room rather quickly if it were enforced.
Afterthoughts don't make for good solutions. Unfortunately, most organizations develop their "systems" in an organic way over time. They start out doing things one way, often on the fly because they're occupied with urgent business. Then they discover their approach doesn't work well over the long run. But they make adjustments on the fly, too. They're busy. After a while they've got a big convoluted mess on their hands with odd branches running off in all directions. I can't tell you how many times I've seen this happen, although on a relatively small scale. Part of the challenge is understanding in advance what needs to happen, so it can be planned in. Predicting the future is not always easy. Maybe include a periodic system reboot to adjust for change, accept that restructuring is part of the process. Is it avoidable?
Ha! Yes, it would clear the room. That’s a feature, not a bug.
And you’re asking exactly the right question: is the organic mess avoidable? I think partially yes, partially no.
Some drift is inevitable—you can’t predict everything. But there’s a difference between a system that fights adaptation and one that’s designed for it. Most organizations (and governments) end up with the first kind, because no one’s job is to think about the architecture.
Your instinct about periodic reboots is spot on. The Constitution’s framers actually expected more frequent revision—Jefferson thought each generation should rewrite it. But they didn’t build in a mechanism for that, so here we are, patching 1789 code.
The patterns you’re describing—recognizing repeated failures, building in abstraction layers, designing for adaptability—that’s exactly the skill set that’s missing from governance. It’s what I’m calling for with the Federal Governance Agency: someone whose actual job is ongoing structural review, not just crisis response.
What does it mean - members of congress could not trade stocks? You’re not saying categorically? Or just in reference to stocks they would have “insider” information about because of their role?
Categorical. No individual stock trading while in office—required divestiture to blind trusts or broad-based index funds (like a total market ETF).
Here's the reasoning: Members of Congress have access to non-public information across virtually every sector of the economy. Defense, healthcare, tech, finance, agriculture—they get classified briefings, advance notice of regulations, and insight into policy changes that will move markets. Trying to carve out "insider" trades from "legitimate" trades creates endless loopholes and enforcement nightmares. Cleaner to ban individual stock-picking entirely.
But there's a deeper point: this is about who the job attracts.
Public service comes with trade-offs. You get access to privileged information and the power to shape policy. In exchange, you give up the ability to personally profit from that access. That's the deal. If that trade-off doesn't work for you, don't run.
This filters for people who actually want to govern—and filters out people who see Congress as a wealth-building opportunity. The current system does the opposite. And we wonder why we get the representatives we get.
That does sound like a policy that could clear a room rather quickly if it were enforced.
Afterthoughts don't make for good solutions. Unfortunately, most organizations develop their "systems" in an organic way over time. They start out doing things one way, often on the fly because they're occupied with urgent business. Then they discover their approach doesn't work well over the long run. But they make adjustments on the fly, too. They're busy. After a while they've got a big convoluted mess on their hands with odd branches running off in all directions. I can't tell you how many times I've seen this happen, although on a relatively small scale. Part of the challenge is understanding in advance what needs to happen, so it can be planned in. Predicting the future is not always easy. Maybe include a periodic system reboot to adjust for change, accept that restructuring is part of the process. Is it avoidable?
Ha! Yes, it would clear the room. That’s a feature, not a bug.
And you’re asking exactly the right question: is the organic mess avoidable? I think partially yes, partially no.
Some drift is inevitable—you can’t predict everything. But there’s a difference between a system that fights adaptation and one that’s designed for it. Most organizations (and governments) end up with the first kind, because no one’s job is to think about the architecture.
Your instinct about periodic reboots is spot on. The Constitution’s framers actually expected more frequent revision—Jefferson thought each generation should rewrite it. But they didn’t build in a mechanism for that, so here we are, patching 1789 code.
The patterns you’re describing—recognizing repeated failures, building in abstraction layers, designing for adaptability—that’s exactly the skill set that’s missing from governance. It’s what I’m calling for with the Federal Governance Agency: someone whose actual job is ongoing structural review, not just crisis response.