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A comment on Congressional lawmakers 47% pts better at picking stocks. Parent comment

Re:Congressional lawmakers 47% pts better at picking stocks by fwipsy on Wednesday December 03, 2025 @10:04AM (#46135299)
Right now congresspeople are only paid about $200k. People who want that position are likely to be people who plan to profit off of it in other ways, at the expense of the nation. We should pay congresspeople more, as well as increasing trading and lobbying restrictions, to help attract honest, capable candidates.
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Re:Congressional lawmakers 47% pts better at picking stocks by nwellinghoff on Wednesday December 03, 2025 @10:17AM (#46135466)
Agreed. The whole idea that they are in it for the “service” is a really naive idea. If we want honest hardworking and qualified people to do the job the salaries should be in the 500k to 1.5m (senate) range. Then knock out the corruption.
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Re:Congressional lawmakers 47% pts better at picking stocks by thmsths on Wednesday December 03, 2025 @10:42AM (#46135767)
According to this link [1] 200k would put someone above the 80th percentile and not far below the 95th percentile in terms of household income for the DC metro area, so I don't see how that could be considered "underpaid", especially when you consider the benefits.

[1] https://statisticalatlas.com/metro-area/District-of-Columbia...

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Re:Congressional lawmakers 47% pts better at picking stocks by rendang on Wednesday December 03, 2025 @02:11PM (#46138615)
The type of person who gets elected to Congress is likely to be far above average in charisma/intelligence/skill, and hence underpaid relative to what they could attain in the private sector
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Re:Congressional lawmakers 47% pts better at picking stocks by skrblr on Wednesday December 03, 2025 @10:58AM (#46135989)
If someone is paid 500k-1.5M, do they suddenly lose interest in further enriching themselves? I don't understand this argument.
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Re:Congressional lawmakers 47% pts better at picking stocks by tekne on Wednesday December 03, 2025 @12:46PM (#46137534)
I mean, it sounds dumb, but returns from further wealth are logarithmic; after a certain point, the only thing you can buy more of is power. And you’ve already got that, in this case!

If you’re in a situation where getting more wealth could endanger your power, it makes sense not to wealth-max since, again, what else could you buy with it? But you need to get into the “what else could you buy with it” regime for this reasoning to make sense.

Someone who only has basic needs gets there pretty early. But even the relatively unenlightened don’t need the second jet except, yannow, for power.

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Re:Congressional lawmakers 47% pts better at picking stocks by gcr on Wednesday December 03, 2025 @02:19PM (#46138721)
i'd support that if and only if it required congresspeople to divest from individual stocks. with perhaps some compromise like...maybe they could hold "total market" index funds, or are only able to trade once a year, or etc
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