Sen. David Perdue's Guide to Time Management

Georgia Republican Sen. David Perdue is currently engaged in a close runoff election with his challenger, Democrat Jon Ossoff, but he’s taken time from his busy schedule to give us tips on time management. As The New York Times reported today, Sen. Perdue engaged in 2,596 stock trades during his current term as a senator, until he suspended his trading in individual stocks this past May. We figured that meant he spent the first 1,945 days of his term trading, which comes to roughly 1.33 stock trades per day, all the while devoting what would be full time for anyone else to his nearly equally important job as senator.

To date, criticism of Perdue’s trading activity has focused on the particular companies whose stocks he traded while serving on Senate committees whose actions and hearings could affect the value of their stocks. In its report, the Times cited such companies as FireEye, a malware detection firm whose stock Perdue publicized while serving on the cybersecurity subcommittee; BWX Technologies, which provides nuclear components to submarines, whose stock he bought around the time that he chaired the seapower subcommittee; a range of bank stocks at the time Perdue was pushing for more bank deregulation; and a host of other concerns.

But what interested us was not just the identity of the stocks the senator traded, but their sheer quantity. Conducting 1.33 trades per day (and these weren’t trades worth 10 or 20 bucks!) is a time-consuming business, requiring diligent study. We wondered how Perdue was able to balance those activities with his ancillary duties representing Georgia in the Senate.

“It’s not so hard,” the senator signaled us, “if you can mush the two jobs together. With my concern for cybersecurity, I raised the profile of FireEye, benefiting both national security and my own interests in one and the same action. Freeing banks from onerous regulations in order that they make more money benefits the entire nation, my financial advisers assure me, and my own portfolio as well. For my constituents who feel overwhelmed by the time pressures they’re under, I heartily recommend consolidating tasks whenever possible. It’s how I’ve been able to keep my head above water!

Read more: https://prospect.org/blogs/tap/sen-david-perdues-guide-to-time-management/
(American Prospect)