Taxing the Speculators - NYT

[Zombi]

I'm wondering if this will pass into law to appease the taxpayers then quietly fade away once everyones feelings of bloodlust have subsided.
You gotta figure that there are some influental people who "speculate".

 

[meanreversion]

Sorry, I think I missed the part where speculation in currencies caused the sub-prime mortgage market in the States to implode.

This is the usual populist sledgehammer-to-crack-a-nut nonsense which will go nowhere.

Governments need to work out ways to REDUCE spending, not INCREASE taxation.

 

[nile_croc]

Here comes Pelosi:

http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/58099

This IS coming, whether we like it or not. Time to prepare, definitely not time to be in denial.

 

[meanreversion]

Everything is just a giant plot to enslave us for life. Taxes always go up, so you are in effect working longer for the state. Liberties are suppressed (Lisbon Treaty). Even the weather is perpetually crap (global warming my ****). We'll end up like the humans bred for fuel in 'The Matrix'. Whilst I know the physics of this are dubious, you get the idea.

 

[robster970]

Seriously, an A-level economics student could tell you why this is a stupid idea. So surely the people in charge of the economy will be able to work that out for themselves...

oh ****, we're doomed!

It's being done for political rather than economic reasons. I think most of us here know this. Unfortunately the public won't think far enough ahead to understand the ramifications of their reaction. They struggle to focus any further than the semi-finals of Stictly Come Dancing.

 

[nile_croc]

The sick thing about this is that this tax will most likely not "punish" all the scumbags that everybody wants their "revenge" on. Goldman, JPM, etc. won't be paying this tax. This will probably be like the stamp tax in Britain, where exchange members are exempt. Hedge funds and daytraders will be paying this, not "evil" wallstreeters.

This is nothing more than mere political pandering to a populus (sp?) that wants to punish the wall street/city of london crowd for this financial calamity that we're currently in.

 

[gooseman]

yes but this time the govt are coming up against serious power and in many cases they'd be only hurting themselves if they started taxing the hell out of the City. London's financial community are this close to upping and leaving. if they do it's goodbye UK. The lost tax revenue is HUGE.

 

[nile_croc]

yes but this time the govt are coming up against serious power and in many cases they'd be only hurting themselves if they started taxing the hell out of the City. London's financial community are this close to upping and leaving. if they do it's goodbye UK. The lost tax revenue is HUGE.

That's why they want to make this a GLOBAL tax, so hedge funds, etc. have nowhere else to go.

 

[gooseman]

banks are hedge fuinds and hedge funds are banks. delineate that and we might make progress. ill-thought out taxes on trading are not the way forward.

 

[robster970]

So the likelihood of Darling's PBR containing any substance then is pretty remote. If the US push it through, everybody will leave NY, come to London if the tax regime is still ok, etc, etc

I can only feel this global political poker right now as national economic impacts of playing the hand will just push finance industry to moving somewhere where taxation is not punitive.

 

[virtuos0]

So the likelihood of Darling's PBR containing any substance then is pretty remote. If the US push it through, everybody will leave NY, come to London if the tax regime is still ok, etc, etc

I can only feel this global political poker right now as national economic impacts of playing the hand will just push finance industry to moving somewhere where taxation is not punitive.

I'm going long Switzerland

 

[robster970]

I'm going long Switzerland

Verbier is good this time of year.

 

[meanreversion]

How about a super-tax on members or ex-members of the government who oversaw the debacle of the public finances. Oh and a clawback on their pensions as well. Their sanctimonious attacks on "bankers" make the stomach churn. The "bankers" are responsible for everything wrong with the UK finances, it's nothing to do with Brown's fiscal incontinence.

 

[nile_croc]

How about a super-tax on members or ex-members of the government who oversaw the debacle of the public finances. Oh and a clawback on their pensions as well. Their sanctimonious attacks on "bankers" make the stomach churn. The "bankers" are responsible for everything wrong with the UK finances, it's nothing to do with Brown's fiscal incontinence.

Not a bad idea. Make the people who truly engineered this whole debacle pay for it, not the guy sitting at home in his underwear and his $25,000 etrade account. Like I've said a million times, the public will jump on the FTT as a chance to get back at the evil speculators, but what they won't be aware of is the fact that the perpetrators of the awful financial crimes will not be the ones that have to pay.

Another topic, but has anyone seen the Copenhagen treaty? There is an option, and let me emphasize only an option (for now anyway), in the treaty that deals with funding the global "cap and trade" system with a 2% tax on international monetary transactions. 2% is a pretty high number.

 

[meanreversion]

I've been deliberately avoiding reading about the Copenhagen summit, on the assumption that nothing concrete will come out of it. I did hear some mention of "$45 trillion" as the cost of getting things done. There's a positive feedback mechanism here, the more they tax people to pay for environmental measures, the more likely that economies grind to a halt, thus less production and consumption -> less CO2. Or in the limit, economic strife leads to war and millions of deaths -> less CO2. Brilliant!

 

[nile_croc]

I've been deliberately avoiding reading about the Copenhagen summit, on the assumption that nothing concrete will come out of it. I did hear some mention of "$45 trillion" as the cost of getting things done. There's a positive feedback mechanism here, the more they tax people to pay for environmental measures, the more likely that economies grind to a halt, thus less production and consumption -> less CO2. Or in the limit, economic strife leads to war and millions of deaths -> less CO2. Brilliant!

Ultimately, the plan is to set up a global cartel on energy unit distribution. We all know that these elitists love their cartels. All the usual suspects are involved: Soros, Goldman Sachs, etc. Just another way for them to make unlimited profits by naming their price on something that they produce out of thin air.

 

[meanreversion]

Surely it's more about controlling and manipulating people, rather than making money. If "money" is a dollar, pound or euro, these can be produced in unlimited quantities. The objective is to subjugate the masses into a quasi-slavery through penal taxes and undemocratic institutions.

The question our own government should be asking is not "where can we raise taxes or cut spending" but "what is the purpose of government and why does its take of spending need to rise inexorably".

We're all pawns in a bigger game here.

 

[Dahlonega337]

And who does this Knucklehead think will pay this tax-the banks, the mutual fund you invested in, your 401k, no you will.

Dahlonega337

 

[qwerty07]

if such a FTT would ever become a reality, it would have to be worldwide, that much is clear. i agree a 0,25% tax per transaction would kill off quite a few of us (I think most are severely underestimating how this will affect your bottom line). In general though, there have been lots of careful proposals for such a tax from several different countries (particularly european) over the last few months especially, and almost every one of those proposals would be significantly less destructive than the one this thread started with. i've read about a tax with an exemption of transactions under 100k, also about a tax with an exemption for retail investors, others mentioned a tax of 0.005%, or a tax of 0.05%, none has gone as far as a 0.25% tax without any exemptions for us little guys as far as i know.

So basically, for any proposal to work the whole world would need to be behind it (and that in itself succeeding would be quite ironic after the failure in Copenhagen). I'm still against any kind of transaction tax obviously (there are lots of other ways to make the big guys pay for the crisis, stop giving them all kinds of tax breaks would be an obvious one. getting a grip on bonuses another), but even if some sort of tax would come into existence it remains to be seen how high and under what conditions.