The Rotten Swamp

Via Ritholtz, Brett Arends vents at insider trading corruption on Capitol Hill, which was highlighted on 60 Minutes Sunday:

Meanwhile, it turns out many of the people on Capitol Hill are just “oiling the wheel” without any compunction at all.
Sweetheart deals. Insider trading. Loading up in IPOs. It defies belief that Nancy Pelosi and her husband can own a ton of Visa stock while she is legislating on credit cards. I can’t own Visa stock while I am writing about credit cards. What is wrong with our country?
They used to joke that politics was “showbusiness for ugly people.” Turns out it’s also the hedge-fund business for stupid people. Corrupt, greedy and immoral to a degree it’s hard to imagine.
And here we are, you and I, just working for a living. What are we? A nation of suckers, that’s what.

As the story pointed out, most Congresspeople leave office with much more money than when they came to Capitol Hill.  Unfortunately, if you are shorting stocks after getting briefings on the financial crisis behind closed doors from the Federal Reserve Board, as Spencer Baucus apparently was, it's pretty easy to make a lot of money.