please join me in welcoming my friend peter schweizer. [applause] >> thank you for that introduction. great to be back at the heritage foundation talking about this book and nice to be back in washington d.c.. i live in florida and don't know how many people here that live in d.c. realize it but your the wealthiest communities in the united states. past silicon valley in terms of net income. washington d.c. has that in command seven of the ten wealthiest counties in the united states are counties that border washington d.c. and i think those two statistics are indicative of the problem we face today and the subject are am here to talk about today which is crony capitalism. where -- what do i mean by crony capitalism? how is it different from free-market capitalism? let me describe it by giving it a couple examples. free market capitalism i give as an example of that would be steve jobs, the late founder of apple computer. he joined with the occupy wall street crowd would call the 1% by doing what? creating products and services that peopl

after you finish "winner take all politics" read this one by peter schweizer -- "throw them all out: how politicians and their friends get rich off insider stock tips, land deals, and cronyism that would send the rest of us to prison." peter schweizer is a fellow at stanford university's hoover institution, a conservative think tank, and he's just as outraged as the tea party and occupy wall streeters are at corruption hidden in plain sight. he begins his book quoting the notorious george washington plunkitt, who got rich as a new york city party boss at tammany hall in the 1870s: "there is so much honest graft in this big town that they would be fools to go in for dishonest graft." washington today. which makes me want you to hear a call left on our answering machine after last week's show, when we reported on how the influence of wall street bankers has played out in the obama white house. listen. >> i do not understand why you did not include the fact that ubs was fined $780 million by this administration. surely, you do not want to have people vote republican or for a third party

peter schweizer says insider trading people are crooks. >> if they get frustrated with something in thenomy or a bill related to health care, they're free and they often do trade on that inside information on the stock market. there have been studies done, brooke, that show that u.s. senators actually are better investors, i'll put that in quotation marks, than hedge funds. hedge funds beat the market by 7 or 8% a year, hedgers beat the market by 12% a year. there's examples of how they do this. >> i know you cited an example of you're sitting on a health care committee and you get this not yet public information on a specific drug, and you buy stock. perfectly fine? >> yeah. it's perfectly fine. it works both ways. if you find out that the fda is going to approve a drug, you're having a conversation during an oversight meeting or discussion with a bureaucrat, you're free to trade on that information. if you get a briefing from the treasury secretary on something happening in the financial markets that no one else is privy to, you're free to trade on that information. this goes on quite

of the people in us.s this goes back just to early an winter, book appeared by an author named peter schweizer who was then interviewed on 60chwier minutes and made allegationshat that some members of congress and their staffs have used gai information gained onon their js to enrich themselves with timely investments particularly in the stock market. those allegations says washington might certainly have tried to springs of trust we should have let the american people even more than they are ready are so mr. president today i'm proud to rise to bring before the senate the stock act which stands for stop trading on congressional knowledge acts of 2012. this piece of legislation puts in a lot of language and reporting requirements that i'll make clear to the t american people that we understand being a member of congress means that we have a responsibility to the public, a public trust, and thaa any member of congress or staff member here who violates that trust will be punished. this bill was reported as anhe original bill in the committee of homeland security affairs onh december 13, with a bi