MARK CUBAN: 'Tax The Hell Out Of Wall Street And Give It To Main Street' My Soapbox Advice to the OWS Movement and then some Oct 14th 2011 8:53PM I may not know much, but I know a lot of it. So I decided to share my opinions and thoughts on what I would do if the OWS movement either elected me Grand Poobah or asked for my advice: 1. The Great Lie of Wall Street. Every CEO tells the same great white lie. It is at the heart of every communication. It is at the heart of every financial decision. It is, at its very base, the reason why you all are in the 99pct and they are in the 1pct. The Lie ? Great CEO White Lie = We are acting in the best interests of shareholders. When a CEO utters this lie, everyone automatically forgives whatever they do. Add 10k jobless to the unemployment rolls? Sorry, we did it in the BEST INTEREST OF SHAREHOLDERS. Merge or buy a company and cut back across the board? We did it in the Best Interest of Shareholders. The problem is that unless the company is losing money and it is the only way to keep the company alive, in this era of 9.1pct unemployment it NEVER is in the BEST INTEREST OF SHAREHOLDERS. Shareholders, whether they own shares directly or through mutual funds or pensions do not live in a corporate vacuum. Their lives are impacted by far more than the share price of a stock. Every layoff in the name of more earnings per share puts a stress on the economy, on the federal, state and local governments which is in turn paid for through taxes or assumption of government debt by&. wait for it.. the same shareholders CEOs say they want to benefit. If OWS really wants to change corporate structure and impact the economy, talk to shareholders. Talk to your parents, uncles/aunts, cousins, friends who own shares of stocks either directly or indirectly and have them state loudly and clearly that they would rather have a higher Price to Earnings Ratio and even a lower stock price than have their TAXES increase in order to support all the people laid off from their jobs in the name of shareholders! You might even consider buying a share of stock. Just 1. Maybe you can all pitch in and then go to a shareholders meeting and let them know how you feel about the best interests of shareholders. 2. Push to Make All Financial Institutions Partnerships We should make all investment banks become reporting partnerships (meaning they still have the same reporting requirements they have today ). I would have no problem with our government loaning money to the partners of Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley and other Too Big To Fail Institutions so that they can buy back all public shares of their stock. Of course all those partners would become personally liable for repaying that money back to the government. It would probably be about 120B dollars in total to take these 2 companies private. That is far, far less than a possible bailout would cost. Those personal guarantees would change EVERYTHING in the banking industry. It would change the decision-making process across the board. There would be a moral hazard to every decision. Today, a wrong decision and they vacation on their yacht. As a partner, the wrong decision and they are protesting right next to the OWS crowd as a 99pcter. It would be the definition of having skin in the game. 3. Limit the Size of Student Loans to $2,000 per year Crazy? Maybe, maybe not. What happened to the price of homes when the mortgage loan bubble popped? They plummeted. If the size of student loans are capped at a low level, you know what will happen to the price of going to a college or university? It will plummet. Colleges and universities will have to completely rethink what they are, what purpose they serve and who their customers will be. Will some go out of business? Absolutely. That is real world. Will the quality of education suffer? Given that TAs will still work for cheap, I doubt it. Now some might argue that limiting student loans will limit the ability of lower income students to go to better schools. I say nonsense on two fronts. The only thing that allowing students to graduate with 50k , 80k or even more debt does, is assure they will stay low income for a long, long time after they graduate! The 2nd improvement will be that smart students will find the schools that adapt to the new rules and offer the best education they can afford. Just as they do now, but without loading up on debt. The beauty of capitalism is that people like me will figure out new and better ways to create and operate for profit universities that educate as well or better as today's state institutions, AND I have no doubt that the state colleges and universities will figure out how to adapt to the new world of limited student loan. There's more to the article, but if you're interested the link is at the top of the post. It's too much of a pain in the ass to copy and paste.
1: seems like a bad argument that laying people off is bad for the company because they circle back as lower consumer demand and unemployment benefits you get taxed for. 2: don't need to go priv if you let the pub companies fail, but i wouldn't be against this by any measure. i trade through a partnership and i know i sure as hell am not going to get bailed out if i'm on the wrong side a flash crash. 3: amazing idea i've been saying for years. the only reason college is so expensive is because of federally guaranteed student loans. colleges don't care what they charge because they know the demand from students is there and the government will pay whatever they charge. 4: was the transaction tax- would ruin our markets, period. i can only hope that because i trade the us treasury debt market we don't have a suicide wish and exempt that market. 5: i would never buy stock in a company that sacrificed it's long-term performance in able to try and maintain an unsustainable workforce. however if i could be convinced of the long-term value i might (growing market share by not shrinking in a downturn for example) 6: yeah i think paying ceo's all cash is a good idea, no need for all the stock options to encourage them to juice the system.