From the NY Post:
…Howard Dean acknowledged yesterday that he sold $15,000 in stock in five Vermont banks in 1991 after getting “inside information” from a state banking regulator soon after he became Vermont governor….”It became clear to me that information I might receive in the future as governor could present a possible conflict of interest,” Dean said in a statement.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the NYPost reports, Dean held onto to other investments which could present a conflict of interest such as $69,000 of AIG “despite state regulation of insurance” in Vermont.
…Dean didn’t specify what the inside information was. A spokesman [for Dean] told the Journal that the regulator’s report was “innocuous” but said Dean was shocked to realize he got inside information.
If it is “innocuous” why not reveal it?
…The Associated Press reported bank stocks were declining in Vermont when Dean sold, but a former Vermont banking regulator, Elizabeth Costler told the Journal that bank stocks were actually looking up and “it wasn’t to his economic advantage to sell.”
Perhaps, but after he sold them, the banks stock prices apparently declined–so his action was profitable in the sense that he was at least avoiding a greater loss. As a parallel, compare Deans actions–and the reaction to them–to the assault on business people such as Sam Waksal, Martha Stewart over their sales of ImClone. Why is it that politicians who hold far more dangerous and lethal power over us than businessmen can “seal their records” so we cannot find out what they were up to? This raises a host of interesting questions: Did any FDA regulators’ or their friends profit from the “inside information” they might have received about what the FDA was going to do to Sam Waksal’ Imclone? Who will regulate the regulators?