Charlie Gasparino Discovers Henry Manne

Intrepid FOX reporter Charlie Gasparino has discovered Henry Manne. This morning Gasparino thumbs:

at least someone agrees with me (aside from maybe ivan boesky) that insider trading shld be legal: httpp://tinyurl.com/4ylbq5u

The link goes to a Smart Money post discussing the legalization of insider trading and the fact that the scholar Henry Manne called for its legalization. Uh, as the article post notes, 45 years ago.

Charlie, you are far from standing alone with Henry Manne holding this opinion.

The great economist Murray Rothbard wrote (italics in original):

There is, in short, nothing wrong and everything right with inside trading. If anything, inside traders should be hailed as heroes of the free market instead of being apprehended in chains.

Tibor Machan wrote a journal article titled, The Morality of Insider Trading.

Economist William Anderson has written (italics in original):

...the principle of "insider trading" is in itself fundamentally flawed. Information that is worth anything in a market setting at all by definition must come from "the inside." There is no way to make information public in the way that the government wants it to be done without making all relevant information useless for the purpose of economic decision making.

Ilana Mercer wrote:

Insider trading may even benefit the market in general. It facilitates the circulation of information about the status of the company and prevents misallocation of funds. It's hard to imagine that the share price of Enron or WorldCom would have reflected so poorly on the real value of the stock if insider trading were permitted. Those with inside information would have dumped their stocks as soon as they got wind of irregularities, and others would have followed, saving many people a great deal of money and sorrow.

Charlie, you are so far from being the only one holding the view that insider trading laws are an outrage, that you might not even get a seat on this train.