• Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota is a man of relatively modest means, according to financial disclosures.
  • In fact, he doesn’t own a single stock.
  • Like other members of Congress, Walz even slept in his Capitol Hill office for some time.
  • expr@programming.dev
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    4 months ago

    If you have a 401k, HSA, or other common financial accounts offered by employers, you most likely have money in the stock market. Usually it’s an indexed mutual fund of some kind.

    • NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      I haven’t read the article, but usually when people like this don’t have any stocks, it’s to avoid a conflict of interest, but they do potentially own something like a whole market etf that’s being managed by a 3rd party. Something like XGRO

      That varies though. Some really do have nothing.

      Edit: And while it seems like in this case it’s true to the intent, technically, owning an ETF share isn’t owning a stock. You don’t own the underlying stocks with ETFs

      • JackbyDev@programming.dev
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        4 months ago

        Yeah, I don’t own stocks. I just have a 401k and shares of VTI, VXUS, and VOO in my IRA and traditional brokerage. But I don’t own stocks!

        To be honest though, I don’t see a problem (or at least as big of a problem) with politicians owning total market index funds.

        • NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          To be honest though, I don’t see a problem (or at least as big of a problem) with politicians owning total market index funds.

          Oh I totally agree with you on this. There’s no conflict of interest in that case so why not.