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Trumpeting the Transparent Tobin Total Transaction Tax: There is Hope for Economic Recovery if Bank Corps pay their Fair Share
Bloomberg recently reported good news re our long-held TTTTT Transparent Tobin Total Transaction Tax idea since our published Tax Testimony to the House Ways and Means Committee on Replacing the Income Tax some decades ago.
Apparently not only does Prime Minister Gordon Brown of the United Kingdom support it, but so do Warren Buffet, John (Vanguard Funds) Boggle, three Nobel Laureates, Paul Kurgan, Nancy Palos, Joseph Stilts and the late James Tobin.
At one time or another, before they were bought by Wall Street investment banks, so did Ben Bernanke, Tim Geithner, Larry Summers and the International Monetary Fund or World Bank, some currently restudying TTTTT.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tobin_tax
TTTTT studies commissioned by Wall Street Casinos invariably find it would destroy the financial services industry and impact millions of retail consumers depending on it for their livelihood and retirement. We thought Wall Street already managed that last year crashing the markets by half.
The Fed did even more damage to savings and financial markets since 2001, dropping the dollar by 84%.
We recently wrote 1% emergency TTTTT letters to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, where Borrow, Spend and Tax Bills originate and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid where they are confirmed.
We invite many others to link and do the same. If enough people contact our elected representatives, maybe they will listen and do their job upholding Constitutional Law to establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity:
http://www.speaker.gov/contact/
http://reid.senate.gov/contact/index.cfm
December 17th, 2009 at 9:18 pm
The author of this post does not understand how financial market work. A 1% tax on transactions wouldn’t raise much revenue, it would simply eliminate nearly all financial transactions. Stocks, bonds, and futures trading would halt. Mortgage issuance, and therefore mortgage loans, would halt. Short term debt issuance would be impossible. Companies would no longer have access to capital. There would be a massive, massive cash crunch and massive bankruptcies.
A smaller tax, such as the proposed .25% tax, would probably eliminate 95-99% of all trading activity. Once again, the absurd revenue estimates based on current transactions levels would have to be reduce by a factor of 100.
Even the .01% tax would have a big impact. Look at financial markets. The spreads are incredibly small. This is a good thing. It promotes the efficient allocation of capital which in turn increases liquidity and access to capital. Companies need capital. The last thing any civilization should do is to act to impede it’s inhabitants ability to transfer capital from unproductive enterprises to productive ones.
December 21st, 2009 at 9:03 pm
As someone who devoted over half a century of life to financial markets, I welcome another opportunity to clear up widespread misconceptions about Capitalism versus Marxism, theft of property in the name of Social Justice. Claiming a mere 1% Transaction tax would eliminate nearly all financial transactions is similar to the unsubstantiated claim that piling additional trillions of dollars of government debts and taxes onto the American economy would avert Depression. In fact, the subsequent -15.2% contraction in GDP last year was defacto Depression.
The primary purpose of financial markets is to raise debt or equity capital for profitable, productive, viable enterprises, not financial lotteries. The secondary purpose of financial markets is liquidity, which already has many lately unenforced restrictions, such as Chinese Walls, Insider Trading, Lockups, Quiet periods, Uptick Rules. Like the Statue of Liberty, the impressive historical record of true Capitalism stands for all to see – it provided a better standard of living for more people than any other -ism, including banksterism. As Martin Sheen said to Charlie Sheen in the first remake of the 1929 Wall Street, Get a real job son. Hope the next remake does not miss this crucial point.
Are you in fact Warren Buffett or an imposter? Warren Buffett reportedly supports the transaction tax, along with a number of financial prime movers:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=atKLvG3dbZnE&pos=9
Transaction taxes already exist on most exchanges and real property transfers as documentary transfer taxes or exchange fees. Check with Bank of New York, State Street, Title companies or other custodians who already levy them. Numerous respected institutions stand ready to implement fair transparent productive transaction taxes.
http://resources.bnet.com/topic/financial+transaction+tax.html
Kleptocratic banks and brokers long bought curious opinion studies that claim the transaction tax WOULD bring free markets and capitalism itself to a screeching halt and ruin. Bankers and brokers opposed the transaction tax as far back as Tobin and Keynes, perhaps so far back as Adam Smith, David Ricardo and Aristotle, with various misfounded allegations perhaps better described as empirically unproven claims. As we saw with at least two Treasury Secretaries, Corporate Banks and Brokers preferred to tax everyone else. It is no accident the Federal Reserve Act and IRS Tax in 1913, like the proposed Healthcare Tax, were ratified by the Senate around Christmas Eve, when most decent elected representatives were home with their families.
Income taxes were ruled unConstitutional by the Supreme Court when Lincoln tried them. FDR’s payroll tax withholding destroyed prosperity and property rights in our lifetime. Our Constitution requires taxes be uniform. Proposed special interest Climate, Carbon, Healthcare, Utility, War surcharges and taxes benefit profligate monopoly profiteers and break the back of the disappearing middle class and their markets.
Banks and brokers with access to revolving government doors lobbied and schemed to create unregulated, unsecured, Over-The-Counter derivative casinos of $604 Trillion, dwarfing the world economy by a factor of ten, according to Bank for International Settlements, the Central Bankers’ Central Bank. Topsy turvy defaulting derivative markets became the crooked tails that tipped the economic bull. Parasitical gambling, unwitting wealth transfer by Banks and Brokers foisted on host economies, unjustly compromised transparency, fair trade, Glass Steagall and Net Capital Reserves and other laws dating from the lessons of the last Great Depression.
Banks and Brokers violating fiduciary duties toppled entire global financial markets with dysfunctional Automated Algorithms, Black Swan Broken Mathematical Models, Conflicts of Interest, Dark Pools, Front Running, High Frequency Trading, Proprietary Trading and other skullduggery in the pursuit of pirate profits at the expense of productive enterprise. The sad part is Treasury Secretary Wall Street CEOs and a previous federal Reserve Chairman actually extolled destructive derivative speculation as reducing risk, one after decrying Irrational Exuberance and advocating the gold standard. When I was at Merrill, we found most brokers broke themselves and their clients with derivatives. Exactly WHO did not understand financial markets?
It is high time privileged bankers and brokers epitomized by Wall Street CEOs cum US Treasury Secretaries who dodged taxes with special laws, bought tax credits or in fact violated tax laws, pay their fair share instead of destroying their host.
Bankers, brokers and their nefarious agents may try their best to checkmate or water down the transaction tax to benefit no one but their own special interests. The time for 1% TTTTTT is now. We The People have an opportunity to redress generations of destructive tax policy benefiting the tyranny of the minority.
We can take the politics out of taxes. How many brave dissenters have been audited or worse by the IRS? The collapsing world economy will recover faster replacing unproductive non-uniform capital, income, payroll taxes with the 1% TTTTTT generating savings and more productive investment, the primary purpose of financial markets.
Individuals and small businesses that create the most jobs currently spend many unproductive hours and dollars to prepare legislatively-rigged capital, income and payroll taxes based on conflicted legal statutes longer than the Bible and more confusing. (Two previous Speakers of the House had Ways and Means specifically exempt their properties from taxes while robbing the House Bank and taxpayers.)
In 2010 Hardworking Individuals may pay $2 T in taxes, 9 times the $222 B a year wealthier corporations pay. Multinational Corporations today buy politicians like taffy with foreign emolument lobbies to pay little or no taxes, exempting themselves from taxes on foreign subsidiary income unlike Individuals who pay ‘Unitary Tax.’ Corporations cry Crocodile tears about 35% US Corporate Tax rates. They effectively enjoy single digit or even negative net tax rates. Don’t throw me in the Briar tax patch, begged Br’er Rabbit in The Tar Baby. Don’t make me pay transaction taxes chant the few. As Warren Buffett and Bill Gates said, they were privileged to become rich in America and set up tax-favored foundations and credits. Why shouldn’t more Americans keep 99% of their work and put economic emphasis back on productivity rather than speculation? Can anyone beside Adam Smith, JFK and Ronald Reagan understand how liberated and productive America will truly be when capital gains, income and payroll taxes are eliminated?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_United_States_federal_budget
The 1% Temporary Transparent Total Transaction Tobin Tax is an effective step forward to stop subsidizing failure and distorting the free market economy with make work taxes instead of productive work rewards. Socialists in Capitalist clothing rigged taxes to eliminate jobs in a great manufacturing nation, pretending uneconomic alternatives create jobs. The 1% TTTTTT with a one year government spending cap is THE singular once in a lifetime opportunity to begin unleashing the vast productive capability of ALL Americans. Anything less takes US down the drain.
Not everyone is ready to go forward. Most are. Only those confused about the difference between Capitalism and Monopoly, free market enterprise and totalitarian theft may object to the 1% TTTTTT…