[Goose]

 
In point of fact, almost anybody who is knowledgeable about a given topic has conflicts of interest. Some are that you previously worked for X and now love/hate them. 

I would call that experience, not a conflict of interest. No expert can be a tabula rasa for their area of expertise. I think the term in this context should be reserved for more direct financial conflicts of interest, because financial motivation is more readily understandable, disclosable, and dealt with.

I know what you mean Oldalum. However, the consequences of saying that you can't continue to manage your own investments and that you must not invest/own anything that might be affected by your decisions results in most qualified people simply refusing to work for the Government. You already will take a salary hit, but maybe you can accept that to "do a good thing". But now you have to shred your entire portfolio as well? So yes, it is easily dealt with if you don't count the people who just say "Sorry, no". Heck, even filling out the disclosure forms is a major task.
I totally agree that nobody comes to the job tabula rasa (at least we hope not). However, they may bring with them bias that is just as bad or worse than the financial ones that come with owning stock in Boeing. We accept one, why not the other? As I pointed out, this requirement of "financial neutrality" is relatively new, and lots of people who did great work in the past for the USA wouldn't have met it. So how universal do we want it to be? I think a disclosure requirement is reasonable and that most potential government employees wouldn't object to that. Then if the do anything that is fishy, we would know it. I think making potential employees divest or create a blind trust is such a disincentive we need to remove the requirement.

[Goose]

 
In point of fact, almost anybody who is knowledgeable about a given topic has conflicts of interest. Some are that you previously worked for X and now love/hate them. 

I would call that experience, not a conflict of interest. No expert can be a tabula rasa for their area of expertise. I think the term in this context should be reserved for more direct financial conflicts of interest, because financial motivation is more readily understandable, disclosable, and dealt with.

I know what you mean Oldalum. However, the consequences of saying that you can't continue to manage your own investments and that you must not invest/own anything that might be affected by your decisions results in most qualified people simply refusing to work for the Government. You already will take a salary hit, but maybe you can accept that to "do a good thing". But now you have to shred your entire portfolio as well? So yes, it is easily dealt with if you don't count the people who just say "Sorry, no". Heck, even filling out the disclosure forms is a major task.
I totally agree that nobody comes to the job tabula rasa (at least we hope not). However, they may bring with them bias that is just as bad or worse than the financial ones that come with owning stock in Boeing. We accept one, why not the other? As I pointed out, this requirement of "financial neutrality" is relatively new, and lots of people who did great work in the past for the USA wouldn't have met it. So how universal do we want it to be? I think a disclosure requirement is reasonable and that most potential government employees wouldn't object to that. Then if the do anything that is fishy, we would know it. I think making potential employees divest or create a blind trust is such a disincentive we need to remove the requirement.