Why should "politician" be a career? Maybe that's what we should filter for.

Yes. The reality is (and always has been, really) that we should pay our politicians very well. It would make corruption less appealing and attract a higher level of candidate in the first place. Not to mention open it up to a broader range of candidates.

Unfortunately it’s an enormously unpopular idea.

Aren’t the sensible folks the ones buying index funds?

Wouldn't it have the opposite effect ? Maybe I'm jaded but I would say we have very few sensible politicians as is now.

Sensible people largely invest in index funds or retirement accounts, which this wouldn’t prevent.

Practically every single one of these proposals only restricts your ability to buy and trade a particular stock. You can still trade stocks, you can still have an account manager, you can still tell them you want more exposure to solar, you just can’t tell them you want to buy RandomSolarCo by 4pm Thursday.

I would think this would aggressively filter out exactly the individuals we don't want anywhere near the reigns of power. Public school teachers do what they do for the love of the game because they certainly aren't getting paid well. Same goes for fire and EMS. I see absolutely no reason why the same shouldn't apply to politicians.

Yes and in fact, banning individual stock trades would likely force anyone who already owns individual stocks that have appreciated and wants to run for office to sell them and pay a large capital gains tax bill. That disincentivizes anyone who is financially successful from running for office, unless long ago they decided to only invest in mutual funds.

It seems as this article indicates, the 2012 stock sale reporting requirement has made it hard for members of Congress to trade on insider knowledge. However, the public perception hasn't caught up, leaving to demands for more restrictions.

Being prevented from trading stocks doesn't mean they can't invest in index funds.

Plenty of people who work in the financial services industry face FAR more draconian restrictions on what sort of trading is allowed. Between trade limits, and many unable to invest in anything other than (a limited set of) passive mutual funds and ETF's. And we're not talking about portfolio managers and financial planners -- we're talking even entry level people picking up the phone to find out who to transfer you to jobs.

Expecting that persons in Congress be subject to the same limitations is hardly an issue. And if they don't like it, perhaps they should reflect on the fact that prior to their breaking the fiat currency by spending FAR more than we'd ever be able to pay back, you could, you know, actually just save MONEY and not have the value of your labor stolen by monetary debasement.

Give them a little motivation to return us to the sound money the Constitution calls for and who knows, they might even do it.

You'd think it would make it worse than it already is?

We already have the wrong people applying for these jobs.

No, that’s already happened.

So you're convinced that there's more risk of filtering sensible people out of politics with such a ban rather than the opposite, meaning having people act out of self interest because of their portfolio or knowledge?

Not really, but draconian laws won't fix the problem either. All insider trading will just happen via proxies. Friends and relatives.

My friend, do you think ANY of the current people in congress are sensible people? C'mon...

I wouldn't call someone who enters politics with the intention of making a fortune through insider trading sensible. I'd just call them corrupt.