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Comments on new trading limits in commercial banks. Not trading on a customer's insured deposits is reasonable. Goldman will reverse it's application to be a commercial bank it's presumed. New proposals to be part of financial reform are in Congress so expect some gridlock now. McCain bill wants full Glass Steagall and that's more severe. More regulation and prevention of trading at big banks that does not impinge on small business traders is good for our cause. It reduces the reason of using a shotgun FTT to rein in trading outside of big banks. I do expect regulators to continue making changes on that front too like hedge fund registration and leverage constraints. Like the new CFTC limits and more. Micro and direct fixes like these are better than a FTT. Still we know the government will over reach too.
Getting into a real (I mean real) debate about who or what is useful or useless to society is dangerous. The scale definitely tilts toward socialism the more this type of thinking gains traction. Just a rambling of socially useless or un-necessary endeavors: -any type of work or occupation that involves being a middle man (feel free to add your own specifics) -buying/selling of real estate for investment (only occupants should be permitted and only if approved by the government) -renting property (government should provide funds for all to live in a residence) -leasing automobiles (purchase only should be approved) -design, manufacture or sale of any luxury automobile is un-necessary to society, only basic transportation should be permitted -luxury retail in general (even semi-luxury is bad too) -most Apple products (iPhones & iPods are useless to society), pay phones and/or basic celluar devices work fine) -Twitter, Facebook, etc., totally useless waste of brain power -music is not necessary except lullabyes to put babies to sleep, all else serves no purpose and should be made illegal -movies likewise should be banned, those efforts should be put into something the government deems useful -paid sports, benefits nobody except the athletes and those in the business, socially useless (we could be more socially useful if we didn't waste time watching sports) -for profit utility companies, government should provide for all -most retail is completely un-necessary and should be banned -weather men, useless and un-necessary (go ahead, argue that one) -think tanks, serve no one but themselves -hairstylist, we can just lop off our own hair -any other occupation derived solely for the benefit of making a living .....what else......add your own, it'll be fun! ....if taxation is the point, just have a progressive tax system at the highest level.....if you make the money, pay the tax, if you don't, you don't pay....simple .....stop the specific taxes on every little thing to tailor the country the way you think it ought to be ....if you don't like paying high taxes, don't make lots of money ....don't specify HOW the money ought to be made
If goverment ever passes a tax on transactions as it deems socially uselss whats next. Driving above the speed limit is socially uselss, obviouse exemptions for police etc.. So maybe the will not make cars that go above the speed of 65 or 70. Why not do that then we wont have socially useless speeders
IMF Seeks Views on Financial Sector Taxation "We request that comments be submitted by February 1, 2010, to allow their consideration for the study. All contributions should be sent by February 1, 2010 to IMFConsultation@imf.org. " http://www.imf.org/external/np/exr/consult/2009/index.htm
Scary Obama quote: "When you see more and more of the financial sector basically churning transactions and engaging in reckless speculation and obscuring underlying risks in a way that makes a few people obscene amounts of money but doesn't add value to the economy -- and in fact puts the entire economy at enormous risk -- then something's got to change," Obama said in an interview with Time Magazine published Thursday. I think he's referring to the big banks' reckless speculation but it still caught my attention. http://finance.yahoo.com/news/AP-so...tml?x=0&sec=topStories&pos=main&asset=&ccode= -Guru
Here's an interesting quote from a Time magazine piece: "Aides say that in recent meetings with his economic advisers, Obama has been tilting toward former Fed chairman Paul Volcker â who has been outspoken against the Wall Street antics â and away from Lawrence Summers and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, who were intimately involved in the deregulation of Wall Street. "He's definitely going to side with Volcker on trying to make sure that banks concentrate on traditional banking," an Obama aide told me." http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1955401-1,00.html Let's just hope Volcker doesn't talk him into a TT - although I think Volcker seemed to sour on the TT recently. I'm sure the above is referring to the banking stuff he's going to announce with Volcker. -Guru
Hearing the Prez call out "churning transactions" as a problem is not at all encouraging since that exact phrase has been used by Baker and other progressives throughout their push for FTT (as well as "doesn't add value to the economy"). Here's to hoping that Turbo Timmy stays put until at least the end of the year.
You all probably know the correlation by now....equities up, USD down and vice versa. Would be nice to see a break of that at the time of Obama's speech to equities down AND USD down, and hard too. Make those who like this shit talk pay when they see their retirements going away and there USD's going away. Oil soaring would be nice too. Let the US citizen see how much this makes sense. Would love to hear the uproar about how bad things are and this is a disaster....who will be able to pay taxes then?
What I don't understand is how something ("reckless speculation") that does not add value to the economy but at the same time puts the same economy at risk? Are those people parasites? Or he just does not understand that the free markets need the traders to work properly. These people are not parasites but hard working worms.