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

Ok, there has to be a massive campaign that can be spread out to the media about the massive flaws guys:

1.) The bank bailouts (TARP) was PAID in full plus $60B in interest. Taxpayers made money, and it is over. So, the FTT is not recouping any money of the bailout. So it is a lie that is being sold.

2.) The FTT will hurt everyday investors, pensions, mutual fund holders. It will do nothing to the banks. All cost are passed down to the investors in funds and traders. Just like the $5 BOA ATM fee....passed down.

3.) Liquidity would dropped 50-80%. Spreads, costs would skyrocket. 10,000's+ jobs would disappear from finance to software providers, et. al.

4.) History has proven that this tax is a revenue net NEGATIVE to guberments as capital gains and lost jobs and lost liquidity will bring in negative revenue. Not only that, but damn, if capital flows shrink 50%, imagine what that does to basic private sector investments.

Robert Green has penned good pieces. But we need much more in the media. I feel this is getting very serious because all the unions, and loser OWS crew are being feed a line of bullshit about this and they just yell like drones. Common sense has to prevail about all this. The above 4 points are facts. All the FTT OWS hollering are lies and being fueled behind the scenes of liberal socialists.
 
Let me add point #5:

5.) With a FTT, they would almost have to give exemptions to the MM's. So, the banks would PROFIT handsomely if the FTT would be implemented.
 
Quote from Stok:

Let me add point #5:

5.) With a FTT, they would almost have to give exemptions to the MM's. So, the banks would PROFIT handsomely if the FTT would be implemented.
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I read the whole EC proposal and there is a paragraph about possible exemptions. they don't want any for the time being but it's just a proposal.
 
Quote from Stok:

Let me add point #5:

5.) With a FTT, they would almost have to give exemptions to the MM's. So, the banks would PROFIT handsomely if the FTT would be implemented.
More...

this is exactly why goldman and morgan stanley cannot be trusted to be against the ftt.
deutsche bank is obviously included as merkel will do what is necessary to save the german flagship.

the end result will be to nickel and dime the trader to death
http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&postid=3327070#post3327070

the futures industry will be favor of the ftt under the umbrella that the hft trader are an aggravation to long term investors. of course futures will be exempt. one idea proposed by bart chilton with the cftc to be discussed tomorrow with the sec would require hfts to register with regulators with resulting accreditation and testing and supervision.
http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20111004-712635.html

bottom line the individual equity trader has no friends.
 
Quote from JamesL:

Obama can't even get thru this congress a needed jobs plan, with targeted millionaire tax. He has zero chance of getting a much broader tax, such as this. We would have to see a change in the party control for this to even have a chance of seeing the floor.

Remember, even with a super majority for 2 years, DeFazio's bill(s) never made it beyond sponsorship, let alone out of committee and up for a vote. If Obama says anything to address this, it would be nothing more than a campaign ploy to rile his base. It's good to keep abreast of this but with the current Congress makeup and the projected increase in Reps in next year's election, this probably will not get much if any traction for a while.
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Agreed 100%
Besides, people inside the Democratic Party like Schumer, Clinton, and Pelosi wouldn't let this happen because they are smart enough to know what it would do to the likes of Boston, Chicago, and New York.

DeFazio is an outlier.
A complete nut-job.
All that rain in Oregon must have done something to his BRAIN.
 
Quote from Stok:

........Robert Green has penned good pieces. But we need much more in the media. I feel this is getting very serious because all the unions, and loser OWS crew are being feed a line of bullshit about this and they just yell like drones. Common sense has to prevail about all this. The above 4 points are facts. All the FTT OWS hollering are lies and being fueled behind the scenes of liberal socialists. [/B]
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Thanks for your nice comments and support. I think this OWS movement is going to grow much bigger, and it's already huge. It's the first time social media has blown up something like this really big, maybe even bigger than the Tea Party. President Obama is our first “campaign organizer” president and he’s been very adept at starting these community activist campaigns to support his interests. Obama is fueling OWS with his class-warfare rhetoric. The 99% came from Obama, as he wants to raise taxes on the 1%. Remember what Obama told Wall Street when he came to office, that he was the only thing between Wall Street bankers and pitchforks. I am not sure Obama will be able to control these pitchforks in the future.

OWS is clearly adopting FTT as its Wall Street Tax. It’s a way to merge the grassroots efforts with FTT-pushers like the unions and other organized left-leaning and socialist campaigns like Robin Hood Tax, OxFam and global charities. The heat of OWS - coming to a city near you - may get even more intense than the political wrangling over FTT in Europe.

I just wrote a Forbes blog “Occupy Silicon Valley?” and my editor changed the title to “Should Occupy Wall Street Occupy Silicon Valley Instead?” http://www.forbes.com/sites/greatsp...py-wall-street-occupy-silicon-valley-instead/

I am taking some heat with some initial comments on that Forbes blog. One guy pushed hard on selling the Tobin Tax. I need some help from you on this thread, to make some more positive comments in support of my arguments.

We need to be very smart and active over the coming months, as the Nov. 2012 elections are around the corner and campaign season is in full swing. Rest assured, there won’t be FTT passed in the U.S. while Republicans control the House during this Congress. But, if OWS becomes another Tea Party voting block and it wins influence and seats in the next Congress, Dems might win back majority control of all three branches of government. If that happens, Dems will probably have to feed FTT and other tax hikes on the rich to the OWS crowd, just like Republicans had to feed “no tax hikes of any kind” to the Tea Party.

Now is the time to fight as hard as we can!
 
hard to believe. These young kids join up with tea party its all over. They also have no love for bail outs and wall st. Many of them lost big bucks on wall st. Tea Party people went to town hall meetings armed with guns. OWS deficate on cars, Tea partiers would break a hip trying to climb up on a car so were ok there. Tea party feels a subsidy of any kind is socialism and if in charge would allow wall st to collaspe. Interesting times we live in. What everyone doesnt understand is we DONT HAVE FREE MARKETS. We have crapitalism NOT capitalism and both dont get that. There is NO market not manipulated INCLUDING our currency. I really feel its time to TRY some capitalism. Special interest of every kind have carved themselves a niche. For profit and NON profit corporations. The Bush tax cuts said by 2011 our federal debts would be paid off, the laffer curve was suppose to work, dont know where the math went wrong but now someone must pay. Hope it doesnt spin out of control.
 
What is happening now is that demagogues are exploiting the legitimate anger out there to further their own ideological goals. The FTT is an easily understood concept that appeals to the economically illiterate and is thus useful as a rallying cry for the masses. All of us here know that an FTT will not accomplish what the chatterboxes are claiming: it will not raise revenue and it will not curb damaging “speculation”. What it will do is destroy financial markets as we know them. And that is fine with these people because they hate markets and those of us who earn a living from them.

However, the cranks who feel this way are the extremists---the union “economists” and the “researchers” at leftist think tanks. The ordinary person who might get swayed into believing in a FTT does not think like this. Such a person is merely angry about a financial system that falls into crisis every few years and which has to be bailed out by the taxpayer. The task for us is to reframe the discussion so that it focuses on things that will actually solve this problem. An FTT obviously will not.

What the ordinary person needs is an alternate goal on which to focus his or her anger. It helps a lot if it is something that will actually fix the things that people are angry about. I propose that this goal be banking reform. There are four possibilities for how to organize a banking system (which could be arranged in 2 x 2 matrix if you wanted to do a nice presentation on the subject):

1) Privatize the profits and socialize the losses

This is the dysfunctional system we currently have. Obviously, this needs to go.

2) Socialize the profits and privatize the losses

This is how gangsters make money and living in a kleptomaniac state is not fun, so we will pass on this option.

3) Privatize the profits and privatize the losses

This is true capitalism and how things would be organized in an ideal world. However, we do not live in such a world. We live in a world of crony capitalism, rife with corruption and one in which there is a revolving door between Wall Street and the governmental agencies that are supposed to be overseeing it. Thus, I doubt the political will would exist here to implement such a system. Moreover, this is not a solution that appeals to a leftist crowd that sees the entire financial system as parasitical in nature.

4) Socialize the profits and socialize the losses

If crony capitalism cannot be broken and banks forever remain “too big to fail”, then the only remaining option is for banking profits to be “socialized”. When I use the term “socialize” here, I mean it as a general catch-all phrase that encompasses the idea that society should receive greater compensation from and/or have greater control over the banks as payment for taking on the brunt of the risks of the banking system. There are various forms this could take, including: 1) higher taxes on the banks; 2) reversing the long-standing trend of deregulation; 3) higher capital requirements (this may be covered by Basel III). There are other possibilities.

Actually, my personal favorite is this: As I see it, the root cause of market crises is a banking culture that encourages short-term behavior in pursuit of yearly bonuses, compensation that bankers keep regardless of the longer-term consequences for their own institutions or the wider world. Thus, the solution is to impose regulations that force banks to change their incentive structures. Pay employees bonuses only on a deferred basis (ex: If a banker earns a bonus in Year 1, then this payment is deferred until, say, Year 5 and they get it only if they do not blow up in the meantime). This solution also has the nice feature in that it lends itself to sloganeering: “Let bankers eat their own shit!”

To summarize, here are the key points:
  1. Understand that people are angry for legitimate reasons.
  2. Recognize that moderates do not want to destroy the financial system. They simply do not want to get the bill for banking crises, especially if they do not share in the upside.
  3. Work on refocusing the anger toward banking reform (particularly incentive structures on Wall Street), a goal that targets those who actually deserve it in a manner that actually addresses root causes of instability in the financial system. Bear in mind that the point of all this is not the actual possibility of reform. The point is merely to divert the anger of the mob away from scapegoats.[/list=1]
 
Key Point #4 - Don't allow Democrat President's/Members of Congress to force lending institutions to provide mortgage loans. or any types of loans to people who are not credit worthy. That may be single biggest issue that caused this entire crisis!!!!!! Wall Street & Banks don't need more reform, it's the Democrat politicians that do!!!!!!
 
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