Buttigieg said he wants a transaction tax too. He did not specify rates. And you know how it is with the dems right now. They move like ducklings. One of them has an idea and they all have it the next day to make sure that no one gets leftier and that there is no daylight between their position and anyone else's. One day one of them came out in favor of reparations, then they all signed up the next day. Same with medicare for all. As they get closer to the primary, they will be falling all over themselves to figure out how to distinguish themselves from the other candidates. Yup, just checked. Gillibrand is on board. Not going to check on the others. It's a given. "Sweden’s imposition of a financial transactions tax in the 1980s illustrates the challenges perfectly. The country experienced a 60 percent decrease in trading volume as it moved to other markets, as well as a decrease in revenue." https://taxfoundation.org/financial-transaction-tax-wall-street-tax-act/
This is the most important part of article: 0.5% tax rate for stock trades, a 0.1% rate for bond trades, and 0.005% for derivatives transactions. I'm going to avoid reacting in a knee jerk self-serving way and instead say that while I do get what he's trying to accomplish, 0.5% is hilariously high. Put a stop loss on your stock as an investor? Bad luck it got triggered, you now wasted 1% of your capital plus whatever your lost on the stop itself. "It's only 1%" the uninformed person will say. The informed person instead knows that this kind of disadvantage per trade is the difference between winning and losing in the long haul. Another interesting observation is traders will flock into derivatives with a rule like that and stock market movement will be very different (and probably much more inefficient). I assume large market makers will get some sort of exception that will put them at an immense advantage over retail. In general, while I basically agree on that we need to address capital income inequality (which probably disagrees from the general right leaning ET board) we need to be very careful in how we do so. It's easy to cause damage. It's also easy to follow a self-serving agenda which is certainly the case of what Bernie and many other people on the left do (I imagine he would say "I don't trade", which is similar Sweden's finance minister saying "I don't own stocks as it would be incompatible with my role" recently to deflect concerns about her agenda on increasing capital gains taxes). This also goes for most of his opponents (we are not poor and we conveniently look the other way as long as possible on why wealth inequality is growing).
In a way, both sides of the equation have flawed arguments. Public primary education is free based on a combination of property taxes, state taxes, other local levies, and federal aid. If it's needs based is it a bad thing to educate the needy? Here in Illinois, the state universities are pretty much free for students whose families earn below a threshold income level. Illinois is already getting hosed and taxes and it's going to get worse with our new governor, but educating the needy creates taxpayers. HFT firms are going to get the worst of this and it may put them out of business - good thing or bad? Most IVY league schools are already free based on threshold income levels - their tax advantage endowments are overflowing with capital. If the money is genuinely used to educate the needy - not create political happiness - it's an investment in the future. If it kills the HFT firms I'm in favor of it.
like I said before the Dem politicians scrape the bottom of the barrel for votes, so it's no surprise there is no daylight between each other, there is only so much stuff at the bottom you can scrape.
0.5% tax rate for stock trades, a 0.1% rate for bond trades ———————— LOL The stupidity of Liberals is astounding