Listen, little perrito! I'm not Mexican, but if you like this transaction tax, hey I'm sure you can contribute even if it's not law.
Hey bud, how's it going? That sounds good on paper, but then they would just end up twisting the words and teaching bogus propaganda anyway. The gummint would still be in charge of what was taught. They would end up using the mandatory economics class as another means of indoctrination. The concept reminds me a lot of how History classes are in school nowadays. You grow up being taught a very biased view of the U.S and the world....but when you get older you finally realize how much of what was said was slanted BS propaganda. Unfortunately the majority of people never come to that realization and remain ignorant bleating sheep.
The benefit of buy-and-hold approach was way overstated. Mostly by the buy-and-hold Buffett wannabes. A surprise or a rude awakening? Your equity drops by more than 40% in less than 2 years. Quit your bitching and learn how to trade, dumbass!
This is not U.S. History we're teaching. Last time I checked, the laws of "Supply & Demand" have not been repealed. Highly quantitative, in fact.
I'm no economics whiz, but as it was mentioned earlier...the goal isn't necessarily to increase revenue, it seems to be more along the lines of getting rid of all the small guys. When you get rid of all the small guys and liquidity, prices are much much easier to manipulate. May not be the only reason they are wanting this tax, but if the gummint's goal really is socialism and total control...getting rid of the free market is high on the to-do list. Liquidity offers built in checks and balances to prices...when you get rid of it....the gummint, goldman, et al can make prices what they want them to be. Just look at how prices get manipulated in thin after hours/holiday markets...it would be the same concept only on a permanent basis. Just think- next time oil (or whatever the commodity du jour is) skyrockets, instead of blaming speculators, we can say it's some other country holding us hostage with oil prices and start launching missiles, etc.
Wags dude chill, I'm on your side but I'm pretty cynical as to how the subject matter would be taught. The gummint takes advantage of everything as it is, don't you think they would probably figure out a way to indoctrinate all the high school kids passing through their mandatory "Ekonomiks Klass of the People"?
Your opinion aint worth spit. Since when is buy and hold the opposite of speculating? Dude, my p&l is easy to duplicate. Just draw a line at a 45 degree angle for the last 20 years.
Zdreg and Anaconda, you guys seem to know the UK situation on stamp duty etc and whose exempt and who is not. Would you please explain it more? It seems that if it happens, that will be the model because the UK stock market had been functioning reasonably well under it no doubt because of institutional ie exempt money continuing to play. I am pretty sure there are no independent high volume short term stock traders in the UK trading UK stocks because of this tax but this did not kill their liquidity but it reduces it no doubt. Greg Mankiw explained good stimulus money spending versus bad and its illustrative of our value to the economic system as traders. Paying one guy to dig a ditch and another to fill in in again is unproductive. Yes they'll take the money and buy a flat panel TV thus stimulating the economy a little. Now pay 2 guys to build a bridge is good use of stimuls money. You have a new bridge (hopefully to somewhere!) and the 2 guys go and buy a new flat panel TV. I'm a high frequency trader I am against the tax and I agree that independent traders provide liquidity but please. I am better than the ditch digger but I'm under no delusions of being the bridge builder. Lastly risktaker says you can trade the UK stock market and avoid these taxes. How? Using CFDs? If so that's not the same and there are big transparency problems with them. How close does a CFDs prices match the underlying best bid and offer? What's their liquidity, speed of fill, can you hedge them? trade options against them? automate their trading with a black box? Please inform.
My vision of a high school level ECON course would be more like a "Money and Capital Markets" class. In this way, people would learn the basics about interest rates, mortgages, real estate, laws of supply/demand, the basics of Fed operations, how an integrated oil company has downstream operations as well as upstream, etc. - - - All basic stuff that the kids SEE and EXPERIENCE on a daily level when they hit the local gas station to fill up their car, or what kinds of taxation they would expect to see on their after school paychecks or summer jobs. In my opinion, far too many unsuspecting people ( with very poor educations ) relied upon dimwitted "shady" mortgage brokers during this last economic cycle. My goal would be to make people more accountable and in control of their own destiny given a greater knowledge base to work from.