I disagree with that entirely. Stocks are generally just one facet of a persons wealth - we own homes, office buildings, rental properties, bonds, managed futures accounts etc. Why should someone in Congress be forced to delegate the decision making of his property, his wealth, to another through a blind trust. There have been many problems with blind trusts primarily because people can't stand not having power over their own wealth. When Secretary of the Treasury Paulson sold $500 million of Goldman Sachs stock because it was a conflict of interest I was disgusted. How is the conflict of interest between a wealthy politician who could make decisions that would primarily benefit the wealthy any different from the conflict of interest between a poorer politician voting on issues that would increase government support to those in his position. As long as the conflict of interest is declared, then there is nothing wrong with the politician continuing to have control over his wealth and if his decisions benefit his position greatly then thats life - get over it because we all make decisions that are good for our own interest and someone like Paulson, if he advised Bush to further decrease taxes on the wealthy then the US economy would benefit along with him as the wealthy are those who have the largest stock of capital and if they can keep a larger portion of what they earn they'll move it from tax free municipals and other investments primarily made because of distortions created by taxes and invest it, increasing the amount of capital goods in the economy and increasing production and the standard of living. Let them just disclose their holdings and be treated like individuals not slaves to conflict of interest rubbish.
