1/4% Tax on all stock trades pushed in NY Times today

Quote from Moneyball:

You're probably right, but the Republican's have been "dead set against" the health care reform bill, financial overhaul, etc., and they still passed. All it takes is a little tweaking, and as we've seen, enough Republicans can be swayed to "change their minds". They can throw something into the 2300+ pages at the last minute to get their votes.

Hopefully you're right about the election, and it seems they will pick up at least some seats, but I won't be comfortable until they do.


The major Senate vote for the health care bill took place before Republican Scott Brown won in MA. Before that election, the Democrats had 60 votes in the Senate, which was enough to bypass a GOP filibuster and pass health care. It was the House that had to pass the Senate version, which they did, and then the Senate used reconciliation (only 51 votes) to pass changes to the bill that the House demanded.
In regards to the financial reform bill, I am disappointed that three Republicans, including Scott Brown went along with this nonsense. I still see no chance of a FTT passing, especially with many more Republicans about to win seats in November. It makes you wonder though, with the super majority Democrats have had in both houses of congress, we've see a few different FTT bills introduced, some even before they lost that super majority, but they've gone nowhere. Why? Because there are many Democrats opposed to this tax as well. With all the articles we've seen on this issue, it's always been the same smattering of 3-4 Democrat House/Senate members talking up this issue, only to have it die. If Democrats couldn't pass this with a super majority, then there's no way it will pass, no matter how many union activists, or liberal leaches scream for it.
 
Quote from rc8222:

The major Senate vote for the health care bill took place before Republican Scott Brown won in MA. Before that election, the Democrats had 60 votes in the Senate, which was enough to bypass a GOP filibuster and pass health care. It was the House that had to pass the Senate version, which they did, and then the Senate used reconciliation (only 51 votes) to pass changes to the bill that the House demanded.
In regards to the financial reform bill, I am disappointed that three Republicans, including Scott Brown went along with this nonsense. I still see no chance of a FTT passing, especially with many more Republicans about to win seats in November. It makes you wonder though, with the super majority Democrats have had in both houses of congress, we've see a few different FTT bills introduced, some even before they lost that super majority, but they've gone nowhere. Why? Because there are many Democrats opposed to this tax as well. With all the articles we've seen on this issue, it's always been the same smattering of 3-4 Democrat House/Senate members talking up this issue, only to have it die. If Democrats couldn't pass this with a super majority, then there's no way it will pass, no matter how many union activists, or liberal leaches scream for it.

Again, I'm pretty confident it won't pass either, but I can't rule anything out with this crew. What if they wanted to use reconciliation for this next year? What if they "slipped" it into some other bill? Part of the reason some democrats are "against" this bill is because of the election coming up. Once we get passed that, they may change their minds.

Assuming the economy doesn't pick up on it's own anytime soon (and we know they aren't going to cut spending), they may very well bring this up again as a way to raise revenue. Wall St. is still an easy target remember. We know this would cause more harm than good, but that hasn't stopped them before.

I still think it's very unlikely that anything comes of it, but there are some ways it could happen.
 
Quote from Moneyball:

You're probably right, but the Republican's have been "dead set against" the health care reform bill, financial overhaul, etc., and they still passed. All it takes is a little tweaking, and as we've seen, enough Republicans can be swayed to "change their minds". They can throw something into the 2300+ pages at the last minute to get their votes.

Hopefully you're right about the election, and it seems they will pick up at least some seats, but I won't be comfortable until they do.

Yes but there are Democrats that have come out against the FTT as well
 
Quote from drukes1234:

Yes but there are Democrats that have come out against the FTT as well

Lot's of people have spoken out against something publicly, only to vote the other way when the time came (especially if some pork gets slipped in for them). See my previous post- I suspect many of the democrats that are "against" the FTT are only saying that because there is an election coming up. Once they clear that hurdle, they won't have to worry about being re-elected for a while. If you were a Democrat up for re-election in NY or IL would you be saying you're in favor of a FTT? Both are democratic states, but highly dependent on the financial sector.

Besides, depending on the outcome of the election, they may not even need all of the democrats to vote in favor if they went the reconciliation route in the Senate.

Just playing devil's advocate a bit, don't want to get complacent.
 
Koch reassures on German regulation:

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/415bd75c-927f-11df-9142-00144feab49a.html

"Germany will not introduce any tax on financial transactions without an international accord, one of the top economic experts of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s ruling party has said, in an attempt to assuage fears of excessive German financial regulation in response to the global banking crisis."

“A financial transaction tax is absolutely impossible for Germany alone,” said Roland Koch, the outgoing premier of the state of Hesse, which includes Frankfurt’s banking centre and stock exchange. But he warned that the failure of financial institutions to change their behaviour had increased political pressure for tighter controls.

"On the financial transaction tax, we agree that we need an international solution, otherwise it will not happen,” Mr Koch said."

-Guru
 
So "Finance experts call for 'Tobin tax' on foreign exchange trades" Who exactly? I notice experts don't have their own publications, but they do quote all the usual suspects: Baker, Pollin, Spahn, Spratt, Schulmeister et al. - a pretty comprehensive gathering, and yet ... their total impact factor (in terms of actual non-vanity publications) is precisely zero. I wish these Leading Experts' Favored Authors finally got accepted somewhere (outside of their own 'journal' and websites), it's such a shame to see all these high-flying intellectuals with so much potential for spin (The Leading Group quotes them extensively, because they have not much else to quote) treated so badly by anonymous peer reviewers... surprising really. So here's the latest quality publication by the Leading Group: www(.)leadinggroup.org/IMG/pdf_Financement_innovants_web_def-2.pdf
 
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