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

Thanks Tom, good points as always.

I was thinking a EZ-only FTT is financial-market suicide for the EZ, just when they need speculators to buy PIIGS debt, as MF Global mistakenly did too early.

Much of the 20% of financial-transactions being booked outside of London in the EU - 80% are in London - will move to London too. This will cause a banking shock in Paris and Frankfurt. How much more can German and French banks take with this meltdown already? The French banks are already on borrowed-time.

If the Germans and French play hard-ball with the UK, trying a back door EU-wide FTT VAT or an EZ FTT that explodes in London too (with counter party reach), then relations between the UK and Germany/France will be horrible - just when the Germans and French need the UK to cooperate on the fiscal union budget and spending controls.

Just like President Obama had to table his bank levy in the U.S. due to bigger political battles, the Germans and French will hopefully table FTT soon too. Wishful thinking, but as they like to say in Washington - hopeful.

Tom, just as you point out, with 17 EZ members, there is bound to be one that says no to FTT. How much arm-twisting capital will the Germans with Merkel have left?
 
You're 100% correct, but Jose Barroso is an egomaniacle empire builder willing to institute the FTT at any and all costs. He doesn't care who gets hurt as long as he gets his pot of FTT gold and the power that comes with it.

I've been hoping that the EU dominatrix, Angela Merkel, would at some point behave like a rational human being and tell Barroso it's time to drop the FTT and move on to other business. So far, I don't see any signs of that happening.

Quote from Robert A. Green:

I was thinking a EZ-only FTT is financial-market suicide for the EZ.
More...
 
During 2011, we watched as grandstanding Merkel and Sarkozy studiously dug themselves into a deep hole. The UK's Autumn Statement is unambiguous. It provides certainty. The EU cabal is on its own. They now have the duty of turning their self-built Titanic around --- or sink.

UK Hansard: 29 Nov 2011 :

"Mr Ruffley: Under the treaty on the functioning of the European Union, the financial transaction tax would have to go to the Council of Ministers, which requires unanimity. Will the Minister confirm that Her Majesty’s Government will veto the new Franco-German euro tax that will only damage the City of London?

Mr Lidington: My right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer made it quite clear at the most recent ECOFIN meeting that we would reject an EU financial transfer tax, and he was supported in his opposition by 11 other member states".

Osborne: "It is this Government’s policy to ensure that we remain the home of global banks and that London is the world’s pre-eminent financial centre. That is why we will not agree to the introduction of an EU financial transaction tax. It is not a tax on bankers; it is a tax on people’s pensions. Instead, we have introduced a permanent bank levy to make sure that the banks pay their fair share. I have always said that we wished to raise £2.5 billion each and every year from this levy. To ensure we do that, I need to raise the rate of the levy to 0.088%. That will be effective from l January next year. We will also take action to stop some large firms using complex asset-backed pension funding arrangements to claim double the amount of tax relief that was intended. This will save the Exchequer almost £500 million pounds a year."

The finance sector is clearly receiving a penalty tax bill that it can absorb instead of a tax that would destroy. The EU cabal cannot expect the UK Treasury to pile another new tax on top of increased other taxes. They are defeated.

(1) High level decision-makers were never going to decimate the City.
(2) In support of workers, the tax attack on pensions logically strengthened the case against (1).
 
Quote from tomdavis:

You're 100% correct, but Jose Barroso is an egomaniacle empire builder willing to institute the FTT at any and all costs. He doesn't care who gets hurt as long as he gets his pot of FTT gold and the power that comes with it.

I've been hoping that the EU dominatrix, Angela Merkel, would at some point behave like a rational human being and tell Barroso it's time to drop the FTT and move on to other business. So far, I don't see any signs of that happening.
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Thanks Tom. Barroso's 2nd 5 year term ends around late 2013. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/José_Manuel_Barroso and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President_of_the_European_Commission. Unfortuntely, the European Commission suggests tax policy for the EU to vote on.

As an ex-PM of Portugal, Barroso comes from a PIIGS country, and he may be on a mission to attack bankers and raise new revenues to bailout Portugal.

Someone should call him out on that, in the same way the new ECB head, the ex-Italian central banker Mario Draghi shouldn't step on pedal to bailout Italy. The ECB head sounds more like a German central banker stepping on the brakes.

Barroso in Portugal reminds me of Rep. DeFazio in Oregon (Dem), both shooting to kill the financial services industry from a rural backwater of finance, where there isn't a money center anywhere in proximity to their local economy.
 
Spot on. Barroso and DeFazio are two of a kind.


Quote from Robert A. Green:


Barroso in Portugal reminds me of Rep. DeFazio in Oregon (Dem), both shooting to kill the financial services industry from a rural backwater of finance, where there isn't a money center anywhere in proximity to their local economy.
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--- THIS IS GOOD FOLKS. REAL GOOD. SUPER ARGUMENT WITH NUMBERS ---


"Just to give an indication, a 30-year-old worker, retiring at the age of 65, having a pension fund yielding 5 per cent per annum, with a turnover of the portfolio of 1.5 times a year, will see his pension reduced by 5 per cent due to the Tobin tax."

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/0df299ba-15ef-11e1-b4b1-00144feabdc0.html


USE THAT QUOTE & THAT LINK IN REPLIES TO ONLINE ARTICLES!!!

(give it to the articles about the nurses protesting too. they'll cut their own pensions.)
 
Good stuff. Here are two others along the same lines.

---------------------------------------------


http://www.risk.net/life-and-pensio...ction-tax-proposals-hit-pensions-hard-experts

Pension funds could soon have to bear the cost of a Europe-wide tax on equity, bonds, currency and derivative transactions.

“In fact, one of the conclusions by the International Monetary Fund in its report, A Fair and Substantial Contribution by the Financial Sector, was that the ‘real burden may fall largely on final consumers rather than, as often seems to be supposed, earnings in the financial sector.’ It further adds that a tax levied on transactions at one stage ‘cascades’ into prices at all further stages of production.”

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http://www.efinancialnews.com/story/2011-11-14/dutch-fund-warns-ftt-would-cost-billions

Dutch fund warns FTT would cost ‘billions’


“Guus Warringa, chief legal counsel and board member of APG Asset Management, said: “The rough calculations point to a multi-billion euro damage just for Dutch pension funds… The man on the street will pick up the cheque.”



Quote from jackpearson:

--- THIS IS GOOD FOLKS. REAL GOOD. SUPER ARGUMENT WITH NUMBERS ---


"Just to give an indication, a 30-year-old worker, retiring at the age of 65, having a pension fund yielding 5 per cent per annum, with a turnover of the portfolio of 1.5 times a year, will see his pension reduced by 5 per cent due to the Tobin tax."

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/0df299ba-15ef-11e1-b4b1-00144feabdc0.html


USE THAT QUOTE & THAT LINK IN REPLIES TO ONLINE ARTICLES!!!

(give it to the articles about the nurses protesting too. they'll cut their own pensions.)
More...
 
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