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Short Sellers in Congress: Another Lesson in Financial Hypocrisy
...Selling short isn’t unique to Goldman, and any trader can do this — including those who work on Capitol Hill, and the Wall Street Journal and Washington Post articles identified several. Hence the hypocrisy — Sen Levin was accusing Goldman Sachs of financial behavior that members of Congress were also engaged in.

But here’s the important difference. Goldman Sachs traders never took the oath of office. Members of Congress did. For them to be betting against the U.S. economy and profiting from its woes is shameful behavior.

We elected our officials to solve our nation’s problems, the foremost of which is the weak economy. They asked us to give them these responsibilities so that they could exercise their leadership and judgment. In the course of their workday, they meet with government officials, captains of industry, and foreign leaders.

When these same elected officials phone their Wall Street brokers and take a financial position against the very entity which they are charged with preserving and protecting — the United States — how could it be anything other than a breach of the public trust?...