Follow The Daily Ticker on Facebook here!

You cannot read the description of the personal stock trading allegedly conducted by Rep. Spencer Bachus and other members of Congress during the financial crisis and conclude anything other than that our government is corrupt.

Yes, this behavior may be technically legal, because of an absurd loophole that some argue makes insider-trading rules not apply to Congress.

Yes, this behavior may be widespread on Capitol Hill. But there is no universe in which a reasonable person would consider this behavior ethical or okay. That's why there is renewed traction in the Senate on two bills that would FINALLY prohibit members of congress from using nonpublic information for financial gain.

Offenders of Crony Capitalism

Many members of Congress are said to have made suspiciously timed trades, including John Kerry, Dick Durbin, and Jim Moran. But Rep. Spencer Bachus takes the cake.

According to a new book called Throw Them All Out by Peter Schweizer, as

Follow The Daily Ticker on Facebook here!

Stop me if you've heard this one before: U.S. stocks fell Wednesday morning as rising sovereign debt yields revived concerns about Europe's crisis.

"Europe's debt problem is having a huge impact on the global economy, and may hurt growth not just of Europe but of the world," Bank of Japan Governor Masaaki Shirakawa said, Reuters reports.

Against such a backdrop, and given the risk of "deleveraging, fiscal tightening and potential defaults...investors should be in a 'risk off' mode," Pimco's Bill Gross writes in a Financial Times op-ed.

Despite some recent stumbles and the poor short-term performance of the flagship Pimco's Total Return fund, Gross is one of the most successful money managers of his generation; his warning is therefore worth heeding.

But another part of Gross' op-ed is arguably more interesting than his market call. "What has become obvious in the last few years is that debt-driven growth is a flawed business model when