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While it would have to go through legislative channels in those respective countries, bear in mind that they (as far as I know) do not have a filibuster. In other words, it is much easier to pass something to law in both the UK and Germany than here in the US.

Great posting. Most people currently hate "Wall Street" and they naively think this tax will hit "Wall Street" where it hurts. In reality, the big boys that they are after will either get exemptions from this tax or they will simply pass this tax along to the average individuals. Of all the...

If is concerned about oil in particular, when why tax all equity transactions? Furthermore, I find it amusing that DeFazio had so many complaints about speculators when the commodities went up in price. Where was his complaint about the speculators when the commodities went down in price? As...

Just to be clear; nobody will exempt from its consequences. With lower volume, bid and ask spreads will result in a less efficient market and you are less likely to get as good of a fill as you would today. IRA or not.

Yup. And the government will also lose income taxes from all the jobs that are bound to be lost in the retail trade sector from firms such as Schwab, Etrade etc. And with the increases bid ask spreads due to lower volume, it will be harder for anybody to retire with their IRA's/401ks as...

You do realize that this trader tax won't be the only tax you will be hit with. As volume declines, the bid ask spreads will widen. This will mean you will not get as good and efficient prices as you did before. Anybody who has a 401k account will see their fees go up and it will make it so more...

So far three Democrats in the House has said they are opposed to it. Schumer in the Senate has said he is against it. I have not heard anything from the Republicans on it.

If they are, I wish they would speak out. As it is, we have for the most part had a media frenzy for this tax, including CNBC.

We don't necessarily have to win in 2010. The key thing will be to get additional senate seats in 2010, thus being able to much easier enforce a filibuster. Nothing will happen as long as the senate refuses to go along with the House. And all you need to stop something in the senate is 41...

From the same article, Harkin is quoted as saying: <i>“I don’t look upon it as any kind of way of punishment or anything like that,” Harkin said. “I mean, we’re just looking for revenue. We’re looking for ways of getting out of this hole we’re...

But that's just it; this tax will hurt liquidity to such an extent that bid ask spreads will be so large that retirement accounts won't escape the damage of this. DeFazio claims retirement accounts are excluded; but in reality they are not.

Amen to that. It would have been a heck of lot easier for him to do whatever his own party wanted to do. At least he had guts to stand up to them. At least so far...

Good point!

I do hope Obama/Geithner stands tough on this tough. From what I understand they are getting a lot pressure from his own party. They could also use our support on this issue. Once this tax is in place, it is in realty difficult to take it away. If the GOP gets back in power, they would have...

In this article, Pelosi stated she is opposed to DeFazio's bill, while she is open to the concept of a tax. In other words, it sounds like she is opposed to the limit of just $100,000 per year. But it doesn't say in the CNN article if she then is in favor of $100k per transaction, which would be...

Wouldn't it then be easy to avoid this tax for just about everybody? If the limit is $50,000 and you want to make a $100,000 transaction, you would just make two orders. Am I missing something?

Yes, using a transaction tax to slow down speculation worked so well during the 1929 crash didn't? We had a 0.20% transaction tax then, not all that different from the 0.25% transaction tax that is proposed now.

Then why did Sweden's seven year attempt with transaction taxes fail? Volume moved to markets abroad...

You make it sound like the only tax that will hit long-term investors is the 0.25% tax. When liquidity dries up as it will (most traders will go out of business, some will go to foreign markets), the bid-ask spreads will jump to where they were decades go. The increased spread will impact the...