How Come Members of Congress Investments Made Money?

The rest of us were wiped out and they made a killing...

CNBC reports

Stock holdings are among the assets covered in the report, and the investing tastes of Congress appear to be somewhat conventional, with large-cap, Dow 30 members dominating the widely-held list.

General Electric [GE 15.87 0.01 (+0.06%) ] , parent company of CNBC, is No. 1, with 82 current members of Congress listing it. Rounding out the top five are:Bank of America [BAC 11.729 -0.211 (-1.77%) ] (63), Cisco Systems [CSCO 19.58 0.145 (+0.75%) ](61), Proctor & Gamble [PG 63.415 -0.035 (-0.06%) ](61) and Microsoft [MSFT 25.745 -0.065 (-0.25%) ](54).

In another context, however, Beltway watchers might find it unsettling that some of the most widely-held stocks are those of companies at the center of the financial crisis in 2008-2009.

In addition to Bank of America, Goldman Sachs [GS 165.53 0.43 (+0.26%) ] , Wells Fargo[WFC 26.91 -0.28 (-1.03%) ] , JPMorgan Chase [JPM 39.19 -0.42 (-1.06%) ] and Citigroup[C 4.185 -0.035 (-0.83%) ] were popular holdings. All of them received funding under the TARP. Morgan Stanley, General Motorsand AIG are not on the list.

Another big sector is health care-drugs, which, like financial services, was the subject of major reform legislation in 2009.

Drug industry giants like Pfizer [PFE 16.5793 -0.0207 (-0.12%) ] , for instance, ranked seventh on the list, with 49 members disclosing ownership. RivalsJohnson & Johnson [JNJ 63.12 -0.02 (-0.03%) ] andMerck [MRK 34.6862 0.5862 (+1.72%) ] also made the list of 50 companies.

What do the Democrats have to Hide?

The Hill Reports

Rep. Edolphus Towns (D-N.Y.) locked Republicans out of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee room to keep them from meeting when Democrats aren’t present.

Towns’ action came after repeated public ridicule from the leading Republican on the committee, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), over Towns’s failure to launch an investigation into Countrywide Mortgage’s reported sweetheart deals to VIPs

“The origins of the financial crisis lie in the collapse of the housing market – a collapse that was spurred on by reckless and irresponsible lending policies at companies such as Fannie Mae and Countrywide,” said Rep. Issa. “The benefits and strategy behind the Countrywide VIP program were reminiscent of the benefits Jack Abramoff bestowed on individuals with political influence. This Committee, on a bipartisan basis, conducted a targeted investigation into the Jack Abramoff scandal. It needs to investigate Countrywide’s efforts to buy influence.”Added Issa, “Democrats may have skated out of today’s vote, but they can rest assured that Republicans will again demand a vote to hold Countrywide accountable.”