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

Very impressive work on the website and the contributions of ET members BUT is it all in vain? It's a come-to-me passive campaign and unless you overcome inertia zilch will happen. In an election year the globalists are weakest but they have a proactive strategy to ensure victory. Unless you enlist the help of FA's or the like to rouse up every voting client to contact their elected representatives to crush FTT, you will have as much impact as all the top scientists who have resigned their positions in protest at the non-science agenda pushing climate change.

Here is the push we are up against...

http://frontpagemag.com/2011/11/08/the-un-push-for-global-taxes/

Hundreds of top scientists have signed a petition that man made climate change does not exist and it has amounted to nothing. The media won't give them the time of day. Meanwhile around the world events such as Project Eco-Kids with HSBC's Group Communications & Corporate Sustainability Officer along with the World Wide Fund for Nature are visiting schools to ensure the coming generation will be effective advocates for the environment.

Quoting from the UN report...

The report recommends consideration of an international currency trading tax or even broader financial transaction levies “to fund the fight against climate change and extreme poverty.” The report estimates that an international currency tax alone could raise at least $40 billion a year, while a broader tax on all financial transactions could raise a whopping $650 billion a year globally. This grand wealth redistribution scheme “would allow those who benefit most from globalization to help those who benefit least,” the report argues – a variation of Karl Marx’s anthem “from each according to his ability, to each according to his need.”...

Progressives in the United States are also pushing hard for a global financial transaction tax. One prominent example is Jeffrey D. Sachs, a Columbia University economist who is a special advisor to United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and works with the UNDP on the United Nations’ massive global wealth redistribution program known as the Millennium Development Goals. Sachs is urging President Obama to accept and impose a financial transaction tax (FTT). Sachs links the tax to the sentiments behind the Occupy Wall Street movement, which he resoundingly supports:

If President Obama is true to his recent words sympathizing with Occupy Wall Street, he will join Sarkozy and Merkel in supporting the FTT… We keep hoping that Wall Street impunity will finally be ended. Mr. President, this week is your chance to make good on your word. Adopt the FTT at the G20 meeting and bring the fight back to Congress. The American people will support you in the fight to restore democracy for the 99 percent.

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You guys have made the bullets but is there a gun to fire them?
 
The Truth About the Financial Transactions Tax

http://www.forbes.com/sites/timwors...ncial-transactions-tax-or-the-robin-hood-tax/
"To watch the financial transactions tax (FTT) being discussed is to be reminded of piglets at swill bucket time. Squeals of delight at the thought of the trough being filled, squeals of outrage at the slightest impediment to a snout being dipped into it...."



Links from the above article:

introduction:
http://www.iea.org.uk/in-the-media/...l-transactions-tax-proposals-must-be-rejected

full report:
http://www.iea.org.uk/sites/default/files/publications/files/Financial Transaction Tax_0.pdf
 
Quote from Xspurt:

Very impressive work on the website and the contributions of ET members BUT is it all in vain?
More...

When this ET thread began almost 3 years ago, the pro-FTT forces had already gotten off to got off to a huge head start. They were well organized and left the anti-FTT crowd standing at the starting gate. During the last couple of years we've managed to make up a lot of lost ground.

At the November 10, 2011 EC meeting on the financial transactions tax, twenty-one EU finance ministers spoke on the subject. Ten were against the FTT. Three others expressed serious reservations and would probably vote against it. Compare this to what EC President Jose Barroso was saying less than a year ago when he promised an agreement on an EU-FTT by the end of the year.

At the last G20 meeting, eleven nations outright rejected the FTT, a few said that had reservations and only 4 offered unconditional commitment to the FTT. Compare this outcome to what French President Nicolas Sarkozy was saying a year ago when he boasted that a majority of G20 countries would agree to an FTT by 2012.

Here in the US, the FTT was rejected by the Obama Administration. Lael Brainard, Treasury Department Undersecretary for International Affairs, recently said: “We're very much in sync with Europe on their goal of ensuring that large financial institutions bear their fair share of the burden, but the US-proposed 'responsibility fee' would better deter the kind of risky behavior that led to the crisis as well as ensure that large financial institutions and not retail investors bear the burden."

I agree with you that we need a broader base of support and a good way to do that would by engaging financial advisors and accountants. One of our regular contributors here, "Tortoise," is currently putting together a website that we can refer others to and hopefully expand our influence. We need to keep building on our momentum step-by-step.

Regarding your question, "Is it all in vain?" The FTT race is not over. It's not even close to being over. But we've gone from miles behind to being back in the race.

Our next big test will be the 2012 elections.
 
Not directly related to an FTT but a (very) German view of wider upcoming power plays in Europe :

Phoenix Europe
How the EU Can Emerge from the Ashes

http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,797626,00.html

[...]Now there are many in Berlin who hope that the idea of a "core Europe" will bring about accelerated integration and an important simplification of intergovernmental cooperation. Everyone agrees on the charm of the solution: The grumblers from Britain would finally be left out in the cold, and a United Europe could simply dismiss them should they oppose any further integration. "They'll be hopping mad," says Fischer, "but then they won't be able to cause trouble anymore, either."[...]

[...]Giuliani is also banking on a core Europe, arguing that Great Britain and a number of smaller countries are blocking the path toward federalism. According to Giuliani, it is no longer acceptable that all countries have the same amount of say in the EU. "He who pays the piper calls the tune," says Giuliani. If Germany is to guarantee the debts of countries that have fudged their numbers in the past or have maneuvered themselves into difficulties, says Giuliani, it should also set the rules. He believes that the Germans and the French need to make sure they receive the necessary respect in the EU, and that those who don't want to participate can opt out.[...]
 
Quote from Explorer:

Not directly related to an FTT but a (very) German view of wider upcoming power plays in Europe :

Phoenix Europe
How the EU Can Emerge from the Ashes

http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,797626,00.html

[...]Now there are many in Berlin who hope that the idea of a "core Europe" will bring about accelerated integration and an important simplification of intergovernmental cooperation. Everyone agrees on the charm of the solution: The grumblers from Britain would finally be left out in the cold, and a United Europe could simply dismiss them should they oppose any further integration. "They'll be hopping mad," says Fischer, "but then they won't be able to cause trouble anymore, either."[...]

[...]Giuliani is also banking on a core Europe, arguing that Great Britain and a number of smaller countries are blocking the path toward federalism. According to Giuliani, it is no longer acceptable that all countries have the same amount of say in the EU. "He who pays the piper calls the tune," says Giuliani. If Germany is to guarantee the debts of countries that have fudged their numbers in the past or have maneuvered themselves into difficulties, says Giuliani, it should also set the rules. He believes that the Germans and the French need to make sure they receive the necessary respect in the EU, and that those who don't want to participate can opt out.[...] [/QUOTE

"the French need to make sure they receive the necessary respect in the EU"

he must be joking. once it is all said and done it will be seen that the french are no better than the italians and the rest of the riffraff of europe.

Moody's warns on French rating outlook
More...
 
Ok, I spent way to long learning how to code Java this weekend so I could put up an interactive FTT quiz on the site (I'm talking about http://www.financialtransactiontaxes.com).

Probably a poor allocation of temporal resources, but there it is.

Go to the home page and click on "Take the FTT Quiz" at the top right. It's on the "Let's Talk..." page, which is, alas, rather mediocre at the moment, still a work-in-progress.

I continue to update the news page (http://www.financialtransactiontaxes.com/financial-transaction-tax-ftt-news.html).

Let me know what you think. Apologies for my g-l-a-c-i-a-l progress on this beast.
 
Someone on this thread recently implied that we anti-FTT traders (and others) are being overwhelmed by pro-FTT forces with their superior organization, and media coverage. That was true until a few months ago, and the tide has changed to more balance recently, although pro-FTT is still more vocal.

We may have been alone a year ago fighting FTT, but as pro-FTT made more impact in the media and Franco-German forces pushed hard with real proposals, the big financial industry players, law and accounting firms, lobbyists, exchanges, industry associations, and even some academics and economists weighed in with strong anti-FTT statements and arguments.

As FTT gets closer to potential fruition, those affected scream bloody murder, including the entire city of London and other countries in the EU and EZ. Every money-center will probably be against FTT, exchanges will continue to threaten leaving where FTT is applied, and FTT will never be implemented on a global basis.

FTT is one of those tax hikes that may seem doable during discussions - and it's politically-populist to be against banks - but as you get closer to passage, it becomes impossible to pass FTT.

I continue to say Germany is the odd man out and an editorial today said Germany should leave the euro and return to the mark, as they can survive with a single currency fine, like the Brits with the pound. Germany can’t fix Europe with no ECB banker-of-last-resort bailouts and just austerity and teaching a Teutonic lesson. Is the euro a prison run by German guards?
 
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