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

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704358904575477141643676272.html

A proposal for a financial-transaction tax (FTT) got a weak reception at an important EU meeting today, with EU financial matters being on the agenda. The main agenda item was an EU-wide bank levy and perhaps bailout fund. There was secondary consideration for additional financial tax ideas, including an FTT and FAT (financial-activies tax on bank profits).

The good news is that this EU meeting seemed weak overall, and FTT got a very mixed and weak reception. The only big EU-member proponent of FTT, Christine Lagarde finance minister of France gave a clever quote. She said FTT was “politically-desired” which means politically-correct to placate cry-baby unions and social organizations (like Oxfam and the UN). The more telling quote as “financially unpredictable” and “practically difficult.” This part of her quote speak volumes more about how FTT should remain a talking point for political gain-only and FTT is highly-unlikely to ever be passed EU-wide. Lagarde said FTT was “technically feasible” and I disagree about that too.

I think this EU meeting back tracks on their prior bolder statements to pass an EU-wide bank levy and perhaps fund soon. It seems unlikely for most members of the EU other than Germany - who seeks to lead by example – to agree to put bank levies in an EU-wide bailout fund. These countries finance ministers and officials claim a fund encourages more moral hazard, but I think they really don't want to part with their share of the bank levies. Their banks still fiercely compete through the EU and world and they don’t seem ready to put these types of decisions into one EU pot.

Only one thing really counts for the EU on the finance front in my view and that is staging off meltdown 2.0 with Euro banks, and their upcoming funding windows. It's all window dressing and slow progress in the EU meetings for now in my view. The US would be foolish to act on EU meeting agendas and rather should wait for EU enactment and all EU member ratification, before it commits itself for competitive reasons.

At best, the EU agreed to more consultation on budgets today. To- big-to-fail will have more communication, and that’s not a big deal.

Sent from my iPhone.
Robert A. Green, CEO
Traders Association
 
Quote from listedguru:

I would like to find out more info on this IMF paper that was supposedly leaked titled: Taxing Financial Transactions : Issues and Evidence.

... If anyone knows anything about this paper I please let us know.

I just can't believe the IMF would be changing their view on FTT's after they just issued their report to the G20 back in June in which they basically said FTT's were not a good idea...

-Guru
More...

Thornton Matheson is the June 2010 author of the Issues and Evidence document referenced in this Keen report:

http://www.imf.org/external/np/fad/news/2010/docs/071910.pdf

also referenced by Edgar: http://www.law.uq.edu.au/documents/events/Financial-Instability-and-Tax-Policy-Tim-Edgar.pdf

IMF Working papers search proved fruitless: http://www.imf.org/external/ns/sear...pers&col=SITENG&Filter_Val=N&page=1&sort=date

The IMF's published Fair and Substantial report rejecting the FTT was dated June 2010 but would have been G-20 distributed earlier. It may have been drawn up around the same time (and in conjunction with) the Matheson paper, showing up as June 2010, but possibly finalised earlier for IMF purposes. So the document you are looking for may not be post-IMF's Fair and Substantial report, but still worth a look.

I understand the IMF finalised their in-depth G-20 centred major study, delivered their verdict, and moved on. I requested a copy of their working paper ('Policy and administrative aspects of an FTT' footnoted Page 19 of their final report ("A Fair and Substantial...") Their non-reply indicates that they didn't bother to finalise the working paper because the idea is not only unviable, but insulting to countries that have no desire to mess around with their taxpaying/high employment and disparate financial sectors.
 
Quote from Explorer:

Last Friday's BBC Newsnight is on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bxmYRlLBX4

It quotes briefly from an un-named and leaked IMF report at 3:16.

It certainly doesn't sound from what little is quoted that the IMF has suddenly become pro FTT.
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This has to be taken from the Thorton Matheson paper that is talked about in the post above yours?

It seems as though that paper was authored in June 2010 right around the time of the IMF final recommendations to the G20 (in which they don't endorse a FTT).

It says here that Thorton Matheson is an economist for the IMF:

http://www.linkedin.com/pub/thornton-matheson/21/a28/a48

I think this is simply a paper authored by an IMF economist expressing his (her) views and not those of the IMF as a whole. That appears to be the case to me. I think these leftist publications got wind of the paper (opinion piece) and tried to say that the IMF is softening it's positon on a FTT (which I highly doubt)...

Just my guess,

-Guru
 
Quote from listedguru:

This has to be taken from the Thorton Matheson paper that is talked about in the post above yours?

It seems as though that paper was authored in June 2010 right around the time of the IMF final recommendations to the G20 (in which they don't endorse a FTT).

It says here that Thorton Matheson is an economist for the IMF:

http://www.linkedin.com/pub/thornton-matheson/21/a28/a48

I think this is simply a paper authored by an IMF economist expressing his (her) views and not those of the IMF as a whole. That appears to be the case to me. I think these leftist publications got wind of the paper (opinion piece) and tried to say that the IMF is softening it's positon on a FTT (which I highly doubt)...

Just my guess,

-Guru
More...

I agree with your comments above, although I'm not sure why a report would be confidential if only an opinion piece.

In any case it seems probable that the RobinHoodies were putting maximum spin on the subject ahead of yesterday's Ecofin meeting, both on the BBC and in the Guardian. It didn't do them much good though as we discovered yesterday. Nor did this presumably:) :

"Oxfam reports that actors playing bankers and people from the developing world put on a show outside the meeting of European Union Finance Ministers yesterday (7 September) in a bid to convince them of the viability of a Europe-wide FTT."

http://www.cafonline.org/Default.aspx?page=19478
 
Quote from Explorer:


"Oxfam reports that actors playing bankers and people from the developing world put on a show outside the meeting of European Union Finance Ministers yesterday (7 September) in a bid to convince them of the viability of a Europe-wide FTT."

http://www.cafonline.org/Default.aspx?page=19478 [/B]
More...

They're past their use-by date.

International aid dynamics have significantly changed over just 12 months. There will be no new political stomach for commandeering public monies for re-distribution to non-preferred causes. There's decreasing developed world tolerance for exponentially increasing aid demands from irresponsibly over-populating countries.
Pakistan has been the most recent prime marker of developed world resistance to blistering population growth.
 
Flash Crash Revisited: How Computers Changed Trading
By: Bob Pisani CNBC Reporter



Next Tuesday, CNBC will begin a 3-day series, Man versus Machine...

............The SEC should take a Trading Hippocratic Oath: First, do no harm. The odds that tons of new rules make things worse, rather than better, has to be considered. If you doubt me, look at the 2,000 plus pages that make up the Dodds-Frank bill, and the literally tens of thousands of pages of regulations it will spawn. No one has a clue what these regulations will do to our financial infrastructure......

Some have already proposed a "transaction tax" that would charge traders who put in excessive bids and quotes a "tax." Almost certainly, the SEC will be recommending a higher level of surveillance....

http://www.cnbc.com/id/39099881
 
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