Further proof of the corruption in Washington

CNBC is reporting a study by a group called The Center for Responsive Politics about the wealth of members of Congress.

Members of Congress saw their net wealth increase 16% last year.  Average Americans saw their net wealth drop 3% last year.

Members of Congress tend to hold large cap major market stocks.  Which seems fine until you look at the conflict of interest that this creates when these people attempt to legislate regulations and limitations on these companies (this is just some of the interesting companies from the top of the holdings list):

• GE (one division of which was at the heart of the financial crisis, and was a major recipient of bailout money.)
• Bank of America (bailed out)
• Goldman Sachs (bailed out)
• JP Morgan Chase (bailed out)
• Wells Fargo (bailed out)
• Citigroup (bailed out)
• Morgan Stanley (bailed out)
• AIG (bailed out)
• Pfizer (healthcare)
• Johnson & Johnson (healthcare)
• Merck (healthcare)

This conflict of interest is virtually impossible to get rid of with our current system.  We certainly cannot expect Congress to fix this problem.  We will have to fix it for them.

This is a large part of why I am working on Democracy 2.0.