1/4% Tax on all stock trades pushed in NY Times today
- Thread starter seasideheights
- Start date
This is the problem with one party controlling all three branches by such a wide majority. If the Republicans controlled even one branch, this tax would not even be on the table. But because of the complete control the Democrats can throw this on the table and let it sit and fester for months and months. Whether it passes or not is almost irrelevant because it has the net affect of scaring liquidity out of the system. Would you right now start to open up any investment related company, whether it be software and services, brokerages, advisement, self directed trading, or even market research for long term investments given that this tax is even a remote possibility?
This administration and the Democrats in general have instituted or openly proposed one after another policy that is detrimental to growth. Over the long term it is sapping the life out of this economy on every single front. Nobody I know has any enthusiasm for entraprenurealship, as it's left to only those who are already super successful and can hire lobbyists and law firms to navigate them through these legislative quagmires. Too bad the country's future rests on small enterprises just as much as well as those that are big. Right now small enterprise and ingenuity is being shut out. When it's obvious that their behavior has worsened our country, it will probably be far too late for them to correct it.
I don't know how to tell folks this but Obama on a personal ideological level would shut down Wall Street tomorrow if he could do so without the political fallout. So if you're saying that he'd make a political calculation that signing this tax into law could hurt his re-election chances, then yes I'd agree that he'd probably rather not see it on his desk.
But if anyone thinks that means that he would have any trouble signing it after being re-elected than they have not been paying attention to who this man is and the ideological underpinnings that have guided him.
Wall Street may have missed all the cues and donated to him in 08, but he is trying to remake America in the image of countries that don't have any use for things like open markets and overnight success. Remember, this is about "fairness", his words. Don't ever forget it.
So the *long* message to the middle class is this: "Once the small traders are gone, and banks are exempt, whom will they tax? This tax has to be paid by someone. And it will be YOU, letting your mutual fund manager turn over your stock portfolio once a year, and paying monopoly premium prices to the remaining sellers - the big boys, who could afford the 'specialist' exemptions. If you just turned over your stocks once a year, as a typical mutual fund does, rotating money away from worst performing sectors, the 50-times wider spreads will cost you -5% per decade, taking -20% of your lifetime income. If you earn $50k per year, 8 years of your income will be now transferred silently to the IRS - it is a $400000 tax on your lifetime earnings. Not exactly a Revenge On Wall Street tax, is it? More like a new Stocks VAT, or Mutual Fund Turnover Tax"
But how to reach to the average investor with this message? Anti-tax associations such as Americans for Fair Taxation?
Or is there a faster, more scalable solution if time is of the essence and if opponents rule over the traditional media? Yes there is - why not piggy-back the YesWeCan campaign...? Use the power of social networking, posting 'snowball', 'campaign', 'forward-me', 'viral' messages on sites such as: MySpace (200m users), Facebook (110), LinkedIn (30), Twitter (5). Short messages are best remembered, slogans really, especially when meeting these criteria:
- addressing investors directly (names work best - will be recognized from any noise),
- showing it is in their interest (that they will pay the tax personally regardless of any exemptions),
- including concrete action in the imperative voice and with a deadline, such as 'Email your Senator now',
- and 'scanning', i.e. flowing smoothly, easy to chant and remember, ideally using assonance, i.e. same-sounding consonants as in: 'now'/'tax') e.g:
E-mail your senator now
against your Fund Turnover Tax
E-mail your senator now
against your Fund Investor Tax
E-mail your senator now
against this Stock Market VAT
Alarm your senator now
or watch your fund tax-bled by half '(by a fifth actually, but assonance is not there
Tip off your senator now
or watch your funds bleeding like mad
... any other suggestions?
Of course these are Twitter-style, but longer ones won't be read.Better avoid key words such as 'transaction tax' or 'Tobin tax' - keep people underinformed, curious and feedback-seeking, prompting action, and thus making the message harder to ignore/forget. And never mention that your trading will suffer - pity does not work as marketing device, while sense of community does, so try "we are all in it, all affected by this tax as investors - regardless if we do it using financial services or individually'.
But are there enough well-connected (social-networking-wise) volunteers who care enough about their trading to push the snowball rolling..? Tipping point can be reached even with the smallest of triggers, human networks are chaotic systems.. just try it out on a single friend. I did my bit - informed all US stock traders I know personally (which meant: both, since I live abroad... that's probably not enough..)
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=aZxk6z7R4V5I&pos=10
Nothing new offered same shit, just repeated over again.
Nothing new offered same shit, just repeated over again.
Church challenged to broaden its moral scope
http://www.indcatholicnews.com/news.php?viewStory=15243
Lobbying governments to honour their commitment to the Millennium Development Goals was a key issue, in her view. She complained that the UN target of richer nations providing 0.7% of their national income in aid to poorer ones âis a long way from being metâ and she contrasted it with âthe huge debt being racked up to save the banksâ. Britainâs aid, as a percentage of national income, stands at 0.43% and in the US the figure is considerably lower at 0.18%. She also urged the churches to promote the Tobin Tax, a tax on international financial transactions which would potentially raise more than US$ 420 bn a year for such things as public services, green energy and funding the Millennium Development Goals. âFifty-eight countries have embarked on an intergovernmental working group to study the tax but the UK is not a memberâ she noted.
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<i>Anyone know more about this 58 country study?</i>
http://www.indcatholicnews.com/news.php?viewStory=15243
Lobbying governments to honour their commitment to the Millennium Development Goals was a key issue, in her view. She complained that the UN target of richer nations providing 0.7% of their national income in aid to poorer ones âis a long way from being metâ and she contrasted it with âthe huge debt being racked up to save the banksâ. Britainâs aid, as a percentage of national income, stands at 0.43% and in the US the figure is considerably lower at 0.18%. She also urged the churches to promote the Tobin Tax, a tax on international financial transactions which would potentially raise more than US$ 420 bn a year for such things as public services, green energy and funding the Millennium Development Goals. âFifty-eight countries have embarked on an intergovernmental working group to study the tax but the UK is not a memberâ she noted.
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<i>Anyone know more about this 58 country study?</i>
I hope everyone notes the Reinhart quote
From the Bloomberg article posted earlier by rsikit:
<b>Vincent Reinhart, a former U.S. Federal Reserve economist, says the collapse of the financial system in 2008 left the public so angry that a proposal as radical as a transaction tax just might get done.
âPolitically, such a tax sounds very attractive right now,â says Reinhart, who is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington think tank. âEspecially in Europe, thereâs support for it.â</b>
From the Bloomberg article posted earlier by rsikit:
<b>Vincent Reinhart, a former U.S. Federal Reserve economist, says the collapse of the financial system in 2008 left the public so angry that a proposal as radical as a transaction tax just might get done.
âPolitically, such a tax sounds very attractive right now,â says Reinhart, who is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington think tank. âEspecially in Europe, thereâs support for it.â</b>
http://www.leadinggroup.org/rubrique20.html
Here is its we have talked about this one a while ago. This group aims to help the poor, their name is" Leading Group on Innovative Financing For Development" They loo into things to tax and call them solidarity fees, like airplane tickets, digital solidarity fees etc.. They have a meeting like twice a year or so and had one last month. Its made up of countries that sign on to see what they can get, plus lots of NGOS. The US is not a member.