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

Quote from januson:

I'm kind a sorry, but I'm having a darn hard time to see why FTT would be such a disaster :confused:

I've read that Obama only would tax the major banks leaving out individuals and other small private owned investment companies.

Here in Denmark where I live are the Prime Minister still against the tax, but with good reasons as the proposed tax in EU will punish all minor as well as major players and not only the big banks that is the root cause of the financial crisis.

Sarkozy is going to launch the FTT in France beginning in Augus, no matter what the EU's decisions are.


The FTT is a disaster becuase the size of the tax exceeds the profit many traders earn.

We also don't believe the issue is dead in the USA>

Obama has been quoted as saying he liked the idea of the tax & it must be done. THe 2 people who talked hi out of it will be gone from the Administration after the November elections. If Obama wins again in Novembe,r there's cause for concern. Especially with the massive deficits the country is racking up.
 
Summary of today's ECOFIN.

Just 12 countries spoke - Germany, Luxembourg, Italy, Sweden, Finland, France, Czech Republic, Austria,Poland, Malta, the Netherlands, and the U.K.

The views of each country are well known already and there were no big surprises from anyone, but a few things stood out -

There was a general theme emerging from the pro FTT countries that a compromise or an alternative tax acceptable to all 27 would be preferred if the current proposal won't fly, and there seemed to be some realism from these countries that this was likely.

No-one talked about a eurozone solution or enhanced cooperation for the current proposal.

More analysis should be carried out over growth and jobs impact concerns.

The Netherlands are still officially neutral although their FM spoke generally negatively about it citing the various studies done there. He said they would have an official position by June.
 
Quote from Explorer:

Summary of today's ECOFIN.

Just 12 countries spoke - Germany, Luxembourg, Italy, Sweden, Finland, France, Czech Republic, Austria,Poland, Malta, the Netherlands, and the U.K.

The views of each country are well known already and there were no big surprises from anyone, but a few things stood out -

There was a general theme emerging from the pro FTT countries that a compromise or an alternative tax acceptable to all 27 would be preferred if the current proposal won't fly, and there seemed to be some realism from these countries that this was likely.

No-one talked about a eurozone solution or enhanced cooperation for the current proposal.

More analysis should be carried out over growth and jobs impact concerns.

The Netherlands are still officially neutral although their FM spoke generally negatively about it citing the various studies done there. He said they would have an official position by June.

So basically more of the same? This is just nuts. It's interesting that these pro ftt member states honest believe they can craft an acceptable proposal that would fly with all 27 members? Thats just pie in the sky thinking.

I guess their waiting for those new studies coming out that will show that the ftt is actually pro growth and a job creater (LOL). Then they can sell it to the likes of the UK and Sweden (yeah right).

-Guru
 
Quote from listedguru:

It's interesting that these pro ftt member states honest believe they can craft an acceptable proposal that would fly with all 27 members? Thats just pie in the sky thinking.

i watched the meeting as well. it was encouraging the opposite was happening of what you just described. germany still indicated it wanted an ftt, but actually mentioned the word "alternative plan" for the very first time. finland spoke about it being useless "to keep trying to move the unmovable". austria suggested an alternative plan which would allow the uk to keep their stamp tax proceeds as a (pretty poor) compromise to get the uk on-board. i felt reality is sinking in with the pro-ftt-countries.

the same can not be said from the guy who defended the proposal as a member of the European Commission, but who cares about him anyway.

it's important all anti-FTT-countries (UK, Sweden, Czech, Malta) repeated their objections, without any hint of any compromise any time soon. and that countries which keep on flip-flopping on whether they are pro or anti (Holland and Luxembourg), both made the impression of being a lot closer to our side than the other side.
 
Quote from listedguru:

So basically more of the same? This is just nuts. It's interesting that these pro ftt member states honest believe they can craft an acceptable proposal that would fly with all 27 members? Thats just pie in the sky thinking.

I guess their waiting for those new studies coming out that will show that the ftt is actually pro growth and a job creater (LOL). Then they can sell it to the likes of the UK and Sweden (yeah right).

-Guru

Not quite more of the same because no one's going for a EZ-17 tax or smaller anymore. It's 27 or a search for something new now.

So the commission can go away and massage it's figures for a "compromise" proposal in/before June. But the UK, Sweden and others will stand firm and so the FTT will be scrapped by the end of the Danish Presidency, and the search (fruitless or otherwise) will start for an alternative tax acceptable to 27.
 
the part that was really sad btw was the french contribution. all the rhetoric about how the european population thinks the financial sector is undertaxed, should pay its fair share, bla bla bla, and then that french dude says: well, if we can't get agreement on a euro-wide ftt, maybe our own new stamp tax can act as an example to the rest of europe". a tax which ffs the financial sector doesn't have to pay, only the european population itself. it's so bloody stupid, it's crazy nobody with any sort of political power seems to pick up on this.
 
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