One Half of One Percent Tax on Financial Transactions Will Raise $1 Trillion

[sfpcjock]

...and tax the speculation that is raising food prices.

http://www.southernstudies.org/2011/08/nurses-rally-to-heal-america-with-wall-street-tax.html"> Nurses rally to heal America with Wall Street tax - The Institute for Southern Studies

Nurses will gather across the U.S. to urge Congress to tax financial transactions and use the revenue to fund social programs desperately needed amid the ongoing economic crisis.
...
Earlier this month, NNU sent a letter to all 535 members of the House and Senate asking them to support a tax on trading of stocks, bonds, derivatives, currencies, credit default swaps and futures -- the sort of financial speculation behind the 2008 economic meltdown and resulting recession.

"America's nurses see every day the broad declines in health and living standards that are a direct result of patients and families struggling with lack of jobs, un-payable medical bills, hunger and homelessness," said NNU Co-president Karen Higgins, a registered nurse. "We know where to find the resources to bring them hope and real solutions."
...

www.SouthernStudies.org

[msongs]

1. speculators are only for taking, not giving back nt

[sfpcjock]

17. The speculators took $9 Trillion in addition to the TARP...

...we now know. They used to pay off the TARP quickly and start paying hundreds of millions of dollars in "bonuses" to the criminals who crashed the world economy (and ours). They also used the "funny money" to speculate on commodity prices which they do because they put real estate into the toilet, and the stock market is more or less flat-lined, too.


That is why a small fee on this speculation is wise and needed to be fair to us, the 99%, and to fix state budgets, and other needy programs that make life go on and help us to recover much more quickly than we would without it.

:)

[librechik]

2. YES YES YES YES and also raise the cap on SS contributions

no more financial problems and single payer affordable!

BVut they won't do it, and the fact that they won't indicates just whose side they are on. And it's not us. EVEN FOR ONE HALF OF ONE PERCENT--IT'S STILL TOO MUCH FOR THE RICH!!!

[Logical]

8. You will also have to raise their SS payout. Only fair.

[librechik]

15. absolutely, checks should double; it's the best stimulus dollar for dollar

or nearly so

[Major Nikon]

24. Even if you did it wouldn't go up proportionately

The formula for SS benefit calculation isn't linear between high and low income earners. So effectively higher income earners already receive less of a benefit relative to what they are putting in.

If you no longer have a cap, it only makes sense to insert more bend points and continue reducing the payout formula for higher income earners.

[Logical]

26. I agree, and it still helps SS.

[leveymg]

3. Make it a full percent and then double that. Raise $4T, use the money to put everyone back to work.

[sfpcjock]

27. Definitely consider! nt

[johnd83]

4. Put a 0.5% tax on micro-trading

See how long that stays profitable. Micro trading completely violates the spirit of what the stock exchange is supposed to be used for.

[sfpcjock]

28. This is the one that I thought of, too!

Yes.

[safeinOhio]

5. Yes, please.

best idea since ice cream.

[IndyPragmatist]

6. Where did you get $1 trillion, the article says $175 billion

And the cost would just be passed on to consumers anyways.

[kenfrequed]

12. Uhm... how??!!

Taxing investment is not increasing the cost of production, it is an attempt to gamble on the relative value of a company and skim the cream off of the company in the form of profits. This kind of tax reduces short term investments that increase the requirement for maximization of quarterly return on rate of investment.

Short term investment of this nature is actually anti-investment or descructive investment because it does not actually put resources in the hands of the company to increase or expand business but rather just makes a demand to pull resources out of the company.

By making micro investing or short term investing less profitable it encourages more stable growth and more rational corporate policy. The means by which one increases profitability massively or unsustainably usually takes the form of cutting service, price gouging, or massive cuts in "flexible" expenses such as labor.

The "costs" already ARE on all of us.

[sfpcjock]

29. What I think, too. This is the standard talking point of the right

...that no matter how unregulated and abusive the actions of multinational corps and the six banks, "it could be worse", so don't give them a bad day. Oh, please!
:rofl:

[PA Democrat]

22. Except most transaction are not about "investment" in a company, they are bets,

like a roll of the dice or a spin of the roulette wheel.

Did you know that the average share of stock is held for a mere 22 seconds before it's sold again?

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/michael-hudson-average-stock-held-22-seconds-and-average-foreign-currency-position-held-30-s

[Enthusiast]

32. Geez, Republican talking points.

We love Republican talking points.

[quaker bill]

35. All costs get passed on

it is an economic cycle. Tax rates are profoundly not relevant, as long as every dollar is returned in spending. As it is, roughly $2 is returned in spending for each $1 taken in taxes. The problem arises as you approach budget balance, because instead of $2 coming back, it gets closer to only $1 dollar coming back.

Where this proposal would work is that it would all but eliminate high frequency cheap day trading, where one can "make money" from small shifts in asset valuation. If the tax was imposed, any shift less than 0.5 percent is a money loser.

[Initech]

7. I think we need to make speculation trading illegal.

The simple fact is that people like the scumfuck Koch Bros. are profiting big time from this crap and dragging the economy down with it. This crap must stop!!!

[johnd83]

9. Speculation in commodities used to be illegal

And then we had the deregulation craze. And now gas is ~$4 a gallon. Coincidence?

[hifiguy]

10. Not at all.

Matt Taibbi devotes an entire chapter of "Griftopia" to this phenomenon.

Fuck the greedheads with a hot iron poker.

[johnd83]

11. I haven't heard of that book

I'll have to check it out. I wonder how Matt Taibbi wound up writing for Rolling Stone. He is one of the best liberal/progressive writers out there right now.

[Enthusiast]

19. A hot iron poker!

[safeinOhio]

13. If you can't take delivery, you can't buy

futures in oil. That'd be my rule.

[Initech]

14. Not a bad rule at all.

[Enthusiast]

20. I'm all for your new rule.

[sfpcjock]

40. This is good.

Stop the oil speculation. Before the Iraq war gas was $1.50 ($1.25 before 9/11). After $4.00. Most of that is speculation.

[SammyWinstonJack]

16. Seems reasonable enough, unless you belong to the %1.

:shrug: Why are the ultra rich so damn greedy? They do not exist in a vacuum.

[Enthusiast]

18. Why can't we do this?

We can't do this because TPTB are dead set on cutting medicare, medicaid and privatizing social security. They rule the nation so it will be done. Unless 300,000 protesters show up on Wall Street and/or Washington. That might get some attention.

[KamaAina]

21. A trillion here, a trillion there...

...pretty soon it adds up to real money!

[jmowreader]

23. Five cent per share tax on stock held for less than an hour...

[truthwillout777]

25. great...then let's make it 5%

How much are we in debt again?

They took the money and hid it, time for them to give it back. Turns out it is not so great for the overall economy when the hoarders get hold of the government.

[kentuck]

30. I don't think that 1/2% would be enough incentive to stop the profiteering?

I think maybe 4% or 5% might give them pause about trying to make a 1% or 2% profit in only one day. That would help the market, in my opinion. If it raised $8 or $10 trillion dollars in taxes, so much the better. They owe us.

[truedelphi]

31. A younger, less corrupted Obama used to talk about a similar measure

I think the idea he was considering was about a quarter of one percent per transaction.

In any event, it should be taken seriously and acted upon.

[JCMach1]

33. Still not enough... how about an automatic 50% on banker commissions...

[pampango]

34. EU to explore ways to introduce financial transaction tax at global level

http://nvonews.com/2011/09/28/eu-to-explore-ways-to-introduce-financial-transaction-tax-at-global-level/

The European Commission presented Wednesday a proposal for a financial transaction tax in the 27 member states of the European Union. The EU’s executive body said in a statement that it will also explore ways to introduce a financial transaction tax at global level and present its proposals to the G20 Summit in November.

The Commission said it decided to introduce a new tax on financial transactions for two reasons. First, to ensure that the financial sector makes a fair contribution at a time of financial crisis in Europe.

The financial sector played a role in the origins of the economic crisis. EU Member States have committed 4.6 trillion euro to bail out the financial sector during the crisis. The financial sector enjoys a tax advantage of approximately 18 billion euro per year because of VAT exemption on financial services.

The second reason is that a coordinated framework at EU level would help to strengthen the EU single market. Today, 10 EU Member States have a form of a financial transaction tax in place. The proposal would harmonise different existing taxes on financial transactions in the EU.

[Scuba]

36. And a 2% tax will raise 4 Trillion. I like it!

[MH1]

37. As long as we are clear that it is only STOCK transactions

or other limited classes of transactions.

In other words, the phrase 'financial transactions' is very broad, and could mean things like paycheck deposits and transferring money between savings and checking accounts. Yes I read the article and from the context, that is not what they are talking about. I'm just saying, be sure it is clear what we mean. Otherwise you could end up with another tax that hits working stiffs.

[Scuba]

38. Good distinctions, thanks.

[Festivito]

39. 1T$ = Health care for EVERYONE in the USA.

Since all doctors, nurses and hospitals would be paid, we dump the excess 1.5T$ health care denial through bad insurance practice system and just enjoy paid-for real doctor-patient health care and spend our deductibles on beer and our work places could spend their archaic health care payments on parties. BYOB.