Trading Large: The Hypocrisy Of Nancy and Paul Pelosi

Democrats have carved out quite a niche for themselves as the party of the have-nots, even if it’s mostly a hypocritical marketing ploy. Bernie Sanders, the socialist, lives a pretty non-socialist life with a town house, a vacation home and all the comforts of the bourgeoisie while he claims to champion the proletariat.

There’s no shortage of similar examples. Recall the late Massachusetts senator and liberal icon Teddy Kennedy’s support of forced busing while sending his kids to private school back in the 1970s. The latest of these “freedom for me but not for thee” ­hypocrisies involves the matter of Paul Pelosi, the octogenarian hubby of Nancy Pelosi, the octogenarian lefty speaker of the House of Representatives.

Paul Pelosi has been killing it in the stock market in recent years, according to disclosure forms, for reasons that could well go beyond some innate ability to sense swings in the markets. His latest home run: Snapping up between $1 million and $5 million in shares of computer chip darling Nvidia (via exercising call options) on June 17, according to disclosure documents.

His timing, once again, was impeccable: He executed the trades as Congress moves closer to passing tens of billions of dollars in corporate-welfare subsidies for US semiconductor production. That’s good news for Nvidia and shareholders like Paul Pelosi. Since his bet, shares have risen nearly 10%. By my math, he could have pocketed a quick $500,000.