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

We need the markets to beat some sense into Merkel and Sarkozy. If we have another several weeks of action like today, they will get the message and probably change course. They are betting markets calm down and they may not.

I just put the below content into a bulk email inviting people to our conference call tomorrow Thurs. @ 4:30 pm ET. Anyone here want to join the call? See our site for details.

While Europe Slides, Germany Plays Hardball On Financial Transaction Tax
http://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2011/12/08/while-europe-slides-germany-plays-hardball/

New Postscript. When I submitted this blog to my editor last week Thursday, he said it would get more readers if I added an investment tip, since then its distributed more widely on Yahoo and other sites too. I explained that as a CPA and not being an investment advisor, it may not be appropriate. I gave him the following tip. Sell the euro against the U.S. dollar.

The Franco-German war or vendetta against bankers will hurt the euro more and it could lead to a breakup of the euro zone and EU. A bank run is already underway in the EU periphery countries, and since the Franco-German beat down on the UK (banking interests) last week, the euro has collapsed.

As individual countries like France and Germany pass their own FTT plans, that will enhance bank runs and capital flight out of these countries even faster. I always said that FTT was the microcosm for everything that was wrong with the Franco-German attitude and policy against financial services.

FTT is like baking and eating a pie filled with nails. It's time for France and Germany to wise up, take FTT off the table, stop attacking banking, and make peace with the UK. After peace, they should discuss restructuring and ECB bailouts after restructuring, not before.

I just wrote this comment on WSJ. It's the markets versus Merkel now and the markets will win. Merkel doesn't seem to respect the markets and she may be stubborn until the euro hits 120 and things get much worse. At that point, she may have to let the ECB bailout the EU directly, and forcefully soon. Personally, I am not sure she will ever give in to the markets, so get ready for more suspense.

Remember James Carville's famous quote. Per Wikiquotes "At the beginning of the Clinton administration in the early 1990s, adviser James Carville was stunned at the power the bond market had over the government. If he came back, Carville said: I used to think if there was reincarnation, I wanted to come back as the president or the pope or a .400 baseball hitter. But now I want to come back as the bond market. You can intimidate everybody."

Merkel wants to teach the U.S. a lesson and she won't listen to President Obama and Secretary Geithner on no FTT, and opening the ECB bazookas. Even France wants to open the spigot.

Is Europe worth losing over German principles?
 
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/eu-26-fight-to-stop-pact-unravelling-6277137.html

EU 26 fight to stop pact unravelling

Although the "fiscal compact" to impose greater budgetary discipline on the eurozone was accepted in outline by all EU countries except Britain, four non-eurozone governments – the Swedes, Danes, Czechs and Hungarians – have since warned that they might not be able to go along with it. Tensions have also emerged in eurozone countries, including Germany, France, Italy, Ireland and the Netherlands. The uncertainty, coupled with investors' and pundits' doubts about the substance and legal basis of the agreement, unsettled financial markets yesterday. The euro fell to its lowest value against the dollar for 11 months.
 
Quote from Robert A. Green:

We need the markets to beat some sense into Merkel and Sarkozy. If we have another several weeks of action like today, they will get the message and probably change course. They are betting markets calm down and they may not.
More...


Alas, I think they are counting on just this sort of unrest.

Consider the last time the US adopted an FTT. When was it? 1933? How were the markets doing then?

As more and more people become disenchanted with the stock market, fewer and fewer people consider themselves to have "skin in the game"--which means they're more inclined to support some quixotic plan to "make Wall Street pay."

Merkel and Sarkozy know exactly what they're doing. Here's what would frustrate their plans--the mother of all stock market rallies.
 
Quote from tomdavis:

Merkel/Sarkozy/Barroso/VonRumpuy etc. are obsessed with the FTT. They will not stop under any circumstances.

They will enact the FTT among a "coalition of the willing," perhaps 12-15 EU/EZ countries. The EU FTT will be designed to cause as much economic damage to London's financial markets as possible. By itself, this is not a long-term winning strategy, so it's really just the the first step of a much bigger play -- a public relations blitz that they will take around the world with the backing of the unions, the UN, etc.

The timing of their double-down FTT strategy is not an accident. Their purpose is to make it an issue in the 2012 US elections. Sarkozy and Barroso have both publicly said that if the US adopts the FTT, the rest of the world will follow. That's really what this is all about -- putting pressure on the US.

Expect adoption of the Franco-German FTT by next summer, just in time to push it in the US during our elections.

About a month ago I read on a blog that Kirsten Gillibrand (Sen. D-NY) came out against the FTT and now the unions and other organizations are going to put as much pressure on her as possible to change her position before her 2012 re-election campaign.

The 2012 US elections are going to be critically important to all traders.
More...


spot on

P.S. If Democrats secure both House and Senate as well as the White House in 2012, the U.S. will have an F.T.T. in 2013. Period.

If Republicans merely manage hold the House, an F.T.T. will be off-the-table until, at least, 2015.

It's that simple.
 
Quote from Robert A. Green:

We need the markets to beat some sense into Merkel and Sarkozy. If we have another several weeks of action like today, they will get the message and probably change course. They are betting markets calm down and they may not.

I just put the below content into a bulk email inviting people to our conference call tomorrow Thurs. @ 4:30 pm ET. Anyone here want to join the call? See our site for details.

While Europe Slides, Germany Plays Hardball On Financial Transaction Tax
http://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2011/12/08/while-europe-slides-germany-plays-hardball/

New Postscript. When I submitted this blog to my editor last week Thursday, he said it would get more readers if I added an investment tip, since then its distributed more widely on Yahoo and other sites too. I explained that as a CPA and not being an investment advisor, it may not be appropriate. I gave him the following tip. Sell the euro against the U.S. dollar.

The Franco-German war or vendetta against bankers will hurt the euro more and it could lead to a breakup of the euro zone and EU. A bank run is already underway in the EU periphery countries, and since the Franco-German beat down on the UK (banking interests) last week, the euro has collapsed.

As individual countries like France and Germany pass their own FTT plans, that will enhance bank runs and capital flight out of these countries even faster. I always said that FTT was the microcosm for everything that was wrong with the Franco-German attitude and policy against financial services.

FTT is like baking and eating a pie filled with nails. It's time for France and Germany to wise up, take FTT off the table, stop attacking banking, and make peace with the UK. After peace, they should discuss restructuring and ECB bailouts after restructuring, not before.

I just wrote this comment on WSJ. It's the markets versus Merkel now and the markets will win. Merkel doesn't seem to respect the markets and she may be stubborn until the euro hits 120 and things get much worse. At that point, she may have to let the ECB bailout the EU directly, and forcefully soon. Personally, I am not sure she will ever give in to the markets, so get ready for more suspense.

Remember James Carville's famous quote. Per Wikiquotes "At the beginning of the Clinton administration in the early 1990s, adviser James Carville was stunned at the power the bond market had over the government. If he came back, Carville said: I used to think if there was reincarnation, I wanted to come back as the president or the pope or a .400 baseball hitter. But now I want to come back as the bond market. You can intimidate everybody."

Merkel wants to teach the U.S. a lesson and she won't listen to President Obama and Secretary Geithner on no FTT, and opening the ECB bazookas. Even France wants to open the spigot.

Is Europe worth losing over German principles?
More...

In fact, I'll go further. Germany wants the euro weak; it's an export economy, after all.

Germany's strategy is to neutralize the advantages of its potential competitors through whatever means necessary. In this sense, the nation remains true to its roots and the principles that led it to launch two world wars and bring previously unimagined industrial efficiency and scale to the practice of genocide.

Am I overreaching? Maybe. But the historical resonances are hard to overlook, right down to blame-the-bankers agitprop and the Neville Chamberlin-style dupes all-to-willing to advance Germany's agenda at their own country's expense. We'd do well to remember Santayana's warning--those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it.
 
All good opposing views on my posts, and I've thought that way too at times.

Last year, I was concerned that inevitable meltdown 2.0 in the EU would frame the debate for Germans to penalize banks, softening the playing field for their FTT plans. That has already happened.

I now feel that talk of FTT and related anti-banking threats spooked financial markets and capital flight. Markets are not reacting well to the German vs UK breakdown over FTT last week, so maybe we can convince policy makers that FTT is the wrong move going forward.

We should not concede - give up the fight on - core euro zone countries passing FTT and then giving it a chance to snowball in the euro zone, EU and elsewhere including the U.S.

I still don't think that Democratic leaders in Congress will support FTT, and we know it won't be worldwide by the time it's presented. Schumer and Durbin, 2 and 3 in the Senate can't kill NY and Chicago financial services, exchanges, the tax base and economies. FTT is a national tax that robs states of their income taxes, as FTT kills off their tax base. Reid can't push FTT, as his leadership is weak, and because people may call for applying it to gambling transactions next. FTT will cause havoc in the EU by the time it comes up for air again in the US.

Let's put out the FTT match wherever it threatens a spark on both sides of the pond. And, yes to prevent lots of tax hikes don't vote for a democratic sweep.
 
Speaking of Oxfam:

Oxfam ban Somerset's Robin Hood row banker

http://www.thisissomerset.co.uk/Oxfam-ban-Robin-Hood-row-banker/story-13503963-detail/story.html

Highly annoying organisation which is misusing fundraising money for doubtful political campaigning, misleading the general public with false arguments. Even they should know that, if a FTT would introduced, the revenue will go to EU or national governments, not to charity. And in EU, the money will very likely be used to bailout banks. How ironically.
 
Quote from tortoise:

Is the Times actually lobbying for this thing?
More...
I think it's pretty clear that the answer is YES.

Every NYT article I've seen on the subject has has a decided pro-FTT bias.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top