Online Broker TradeKing speaks out against the Transaction Tax: http://eon.businesswire.com/portal/...d=news_view&newsId=20091221005201&newsLang=en -Guru
Do they mean that the government revenues are going to increase by 177b of what they are now? The only people who could contribute to revenue increase are the compulsive gamblers - the traders who constantly lose money in the stock market but they have other sources of income to live off. The revenues coming from the profitable traders are going actually to decrease: their previous capital gains will be redistributed between the new transaction tax ( they will have to pay ) and the new much smaller capital gains. This way the government turns itself into the perfect casino house that generates revenues off the unsophisticated compulsive traders. Brilliant!
Speaking of casinos, why doesn't the Government impose additional taxes on gaming houses throughout the country, and abroad if they want something done on a global scale to fund climate change/aiding the poor/healthcare, etc.........? How about placing a higher tax, or for that matter "actually enforcing" tax collections on internet gambling? No, I'm not talking about trading either, although some douche bag politicians like to refer to that as gambling. I'm talking about online poker sites like Pokerstars, Full Tilt Poker, Party Poker, etc..... How about actual regulation and tax enforcement on these things? But for some silly reason, I couldn't see Nevada Democratic Senator Harry Reid going anywhere near a higher tax on the casino industry.
Great, we need all our online brokers to do the same and press them to do it. If they want to show any care for their clients they will do it quickly. I just asked the TradeKing person on the press release to promote our petitions to their clients. We have a press release coming out soon too. Might hold it for Christmas holiday or rush out tomorrow.
Melanie Wold: Taxing Transactions a Terrible Idea http://thewoldreport.blogspot.com/2009/12/taxing-transactions-terrible-idea.html The Wall Street Journal must be desperate for stories this week. Today it ran an article that raises the specter of a tax on financial transactions proposed by the forthright Congressman Peter Defazio. This is a terrible idea, as I said when I first wrote about this in March for Financial News. I'm not sure why it is rearing its ugly head this week, unless the WSJ has the inside track on some progress on the proposal. Led by Congressman Peter DeFazio, eight US senators submitted proposed legislation to the House Ways and Means Committee proposing a 0.25 percent transaction tax on buying or selling stocks, futures and options. The proposed bill, known as H.R. 1068 or "Let Wall Street pay for Wall Street's bailout Act of 2009", was put forth on February 13th and is seeing fierce opposition from exchanges, trade associations and electronic communications networks alike. As I said in March, the bill could increase volatility, decrease liquidity, and decrease efficiency. The proposed quarter percentage tax, or 25 basis points, would be applied to the value of every transaction. If the average stock price is $20 per share, it would add 5 cents per share to both sides of the transaction. High frequency traders would be hardest hit as they operate on very thin margins, and comprise nearly 70% of daily volume. This could be a stealth move, designed to make Main Street happy because it will think that only Wall Street will pay, one that could lead to the demise of HFT. The truth of the matter is that Wall Street will be able to figure out how to get the 10 cents back, Main Street traders (that's you and me) will not. Once again the government is trying to interfere in something of which it has no knowledge. It is a dangerous game. ---------------- She does ask an important question--why did the WSJ run with the article at this time?
Barney Frank actually won a 6 month stay on banks reporting and enforcing a gambling law, he is for online gambling being regulated and taxed, which is the only good thing he is doing. I am for regualted online gambling, maybe that will take the heat off trading and could open the door to other types of venues to trade, you never know.Thats whats scary in a matter of months a few years ago they shut down online gambling and overseas venues stopped taking clients. So I am afraid they can use that same tactic to stop overseas trading if they wanted. Just like they wont allow US citizens to trade certain things in London or abroad, like cfds and spread trading. Despite if people agree with the value of those instruments or not its about the fact that here as US citizen we can not open account to do that if we wanted. I do not want to see that happen with other types of trading.
Make all your trader contacts are aware of this bill pending. It seems some traders are so busy with the holidays that they are not aware of this.
An old but interesting article detailing Obama's White House Chief Of Staff Rahm Emanual's deep ties to Wall Street. Could Emanuel be helpful for our cause on the transaction tax? After reading this article, I don't think he'll hurt us. With Emanual and Geithner's deep Wall Street ties, I feel a little better about our chances of success. I mean, we could have ended up with some liberal, anti-Wall Street, pro-transaction tax economist as Treasury Secretary, and a radical, anti-capitalist as Obama's Chief Of Staff. I'm not a Democrat, and absolutely hate Obama, but I can think of a lot of worse people to have daily interaction with him besides Pelosi. At least some of his main guys have ties to the financial sector, and could play a significant role in helping us defeat this transaction tax. http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sour..._xV_ALN-M4wapir1g&sig2=w9spNmcrTRy6XydI11DMNw