An example of why communities local to this country's financial centers NEED a flourishing Wall Street, not a restrictive one as envisioned by Left Coast loonies: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/10/nyregion/10paterson.html Places like NY need the money flow so that they can meet the obligations of their massive social programs, and any plan that would restrict Wall Street revenue would not be supported by politicians who represent these districts. And while the article is about the New York system, there is a significant amount of WS money that also reached the state coffers of NJ and CT as well, and with NJ having issues covering a 400MM shortfall by years end, I don't see how the state politicians would support legislation that would restrict tax revenue to the state. And being that state law makers have better access to their Congressmen, I am sure they are pressing their case. Still, keep writing your Congressmen and Senators and lets bury this thing once and for all.
Posted on Zero Hedge.... Look ...here it is.... Any time in the past with any country that has tried such tax....the market makers were always exempt.... Any countries currently allowing it....exempts the market makers from all such taxes.... Retail pays this tax.... ......................................... This means that the very banks that have been bailed out....would be exempt from the tax.... There cannot be a market without somebody making a market for the securities.... ie a market maker will buy and sell a single stock thousands of times a year....which means that a tax many times the price of the stock would have to be paid.... Believe it or not....politicians such as Brown, Pelosi, DeFazio, and Harkin are actually that naive....They really do not think that the market making function is necessary in a marketplace.... It just so happens that a portion of the retail public got fed up with market makers stepping between them and the bid ask spread....so a group of frustrated retail traders created the ecn....and after several years of fighting legal battles.....won against the big banks....to the degree that banks bought the ecns.... Next up will be the exchanges in terms of efficiencies.....for which BATS has made it possible for retail accounts to trade for 20 cents per thousand shares.... As a result there are thousands of retail accounts that have replaced a lot of the market makers..... The transaction tax would eliminate all of the retail traders and give this market back to Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and other banks....which is highly flawed because the retail traders had nothing to do with the current financial debacle involving the shadow mortgage securitized market....and the big banks that caused the problems will get rewarded by becoming the sole market makers again.... They always get exempted from the transaction taxes....or else there would be wide spreads in most stocks.....a 10% spread would be common....and some smaller cap stocks may not have a bid or ask.... What really needs to happen is to make the retail market even more efficient and information fact based such that the playing field is made level for the retail trader.... The market would work a lot better if there were millions of retail accounts with differing opinions rather than controlled by relatively small groups of money managers controlling extremely large sums....in that they would want to move out at the exit door at once....It is better to have stocks more widely dispersed.... Retail really needs to be more efficiently retail....such that any retail account ....in the language and currency of their choice....participate in stocks throughout the world.... Furthermore there should be worldwide agreement to never impose any taxes on this capital in order to make the playing field more level for retail....because the big internationals will just move their money to the lowest tax region...a choice retail does not have.... Also it is different today than yesteryear because direct access technology and the personal computer was not available....nor was the internet.... The point being that ecns has made trading more efficient for retail...and companies like BATS are making exchanges more efficient.... I have been a retail trader for over 30 years...and will be adding more informational posts.... But I am also angry at the banks....as anyone should be.... The banks should be taxed directly on their profits in order to pay for THEIR bailouts....THEY are responsible and should pay.....but a transaction tax is not the right vehicle for it.....With a transaction tax....the banks will not pay a dime.....
Looks like Brown and Sarkozy are best buds now: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704240504574585894254931438.html -Guru
I don't like this line: "It would therefore be vital to ensure that any transaction tax was set at a rate that was appropriate to the specific circumstances of the sector at this time." That tells me when things get 'better' this tax will go higher. Thats why we need to stop this before it's to late. -Guru
This article is very skillfully argued, and has an all-star cast: a top mutual fund company CEO and a leading market efficiency proponent from the academic community. Hard to disagree with such points, if they are put in terms of tangible billions of dollars (which we save investors anually... at least I do So guys, nice to see our little spamming initiative contribute to such a powerful voice in our defense. 600 our pages compressed into one... here's efficiency for you Now what we need to do is to immortalize these words, before the link stops working. Why not forward the article to your senators and congressmen? Or - to get past their secretaries - better email it to someone who might be *closer* to them in the social network... with the forwarding request included, which guarantees that the message reaches the target in 3-6 steps http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703558004574579903734883292.html#printMode
This new bank bonus levy in the UK is not a good sign, the put in this 50% levy on top of the 40% tax they already have , it wasnt instead of. So bascially its a way to claw back almost the entire bonus. Like the US was thinking about doing last year with AIG. Hopefully it backfires and executives leave the UK. Now France is looking to do the same thing. I dont like it in terms of the transaction tax, I dont want them to try it and show the US its possible to raise money and then we follow!
Hate politics. Hate reading about this stuff. Hate conflama. Can someone just bottom line this for me? This tax is gaining momentum? What is the timeline? What is the earliest I could be out of work? Thanks in advance.
The tax has gained momentum but the reality of the US approving of a bill is fairly low at this time. Ubnless it is enacted globally at the same time which will take a while to work out. So far they have not started any type of global negotiations that we know about. You should have atleast until the IMF meetings in April and that will give us a better picture of the global viability of the tax. If the IMF comes out and says this will work you will see countries start to negotiate things out for the next g20 meeting. If they come out and say its not viable you will see it probably die down here in the US but other countries like Britian and France will still be lobbying for it. Although Britian, if Brown loses the elections by June , they will more then likely stop there lobby for it since the opposition candidate is against the tax as of now, but remember Brown was vehemently against this tax until september. He was against the tax when Lord Turner brought it up in August. So people change there minds when its down to politics. So we really do not know. If some crazy thing happens and we approve it here in the US it could be done in a couple of months, but highly doubtful it will gain approval here with out studies being done.
in simple terms nothing gonna get passed until after the g20 summit in april 2010, next line yourself up with a firm that is a member of an exchange finra cboe cbsx etc. register and trade professionally. these groups firms will be exempt same as the way traders trade with the stamp tax in uk right now. and yes that includes prop firms as well not just big banks all are exempt. so if you are trading from home with your ib account with 4 -1 leverage and your own capital that is where the problems will be. sux if you ask me but there will be ways around it.