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H.R. 4191 Let Wall Street Pay for the Restoration of Main Street Act And The 1% Temporary Tobin Transparent Total Transaction Tax
In Support of:
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid
Speaker of the House Pelosi
Senator Harkin
Senator Sanders
House Ways and Means Chairman Rangel
US Representatives DeFazio, Arcuri, Perlmutter, Braley, Sutton, Filner, Perriello, Welch, Hare, Kagen, T. Ryan, A. Hastings, Schakowsky, L. Davis, Hirono, Rahall, Stark, Cummings, Hank Johnson, Grijalva, D. Edwards, Shea-Porter
Honourable Madams and Sirs
This is a bi-Partisan letter of Transaction Tax support for the future prosperity of our country.
In 1980, while in the middle of a decade with Merrill Lynch and half a decade teaching Finance by Academic Senate appointment at Stanford University, I was invited to serve as a Member of the Reagan Task Force to reduce tax rates and increase compliance, tax revenues and productivity for our then world-leading economy. The Japanese economic miracle was on everyone’s minds.
In 1993, after capital formation research at Templeton Oxford, founding Stanford Capital Investment Banking, starting a medical device company taken private for $11.4 Billion and participating in the White House Conference for Small Business, I submitted testimony on Replacing the Income Tax, which was published by the Ways and Means Committee. By that time the Japanese sun had begun to set because of Banking Debt Bubble Problems and the Chinese Sun was rising in part because of manufacturing, technology transfer and trade advantages we gave them.
In 2009, with The USA GDP surpassed by the EuroZone, I learned Congress is again considering a form of the Transaction Tax that existed from 1914 to 1966 and was doubled during the Depression in 1932 to successfully deal with generational economic challenges.
December 23rd, 2009 at 9:50 pm
A 1% transaction tax means you’ll instantly lose 2% on every investment in the markets you make. 1% in & 1% out. Who would invest in the stock market with that fee? Between that & capital gains, the average return on a stock would be 0%. Again, who would invest in the stock market which gives the monetary fuel for companies to hire & pay their workers & expand their plants? LOL You’re nuts. Nice way to cause a 2nd crash of the markets.
January 4th, 2010 at 1:24 am
You may be naive Jack, myopically repeating Wall Street doublespeak.
They cite free market liquidity while rigging the game and depending on government for handouts and bailouts when they lose. Yet Warren Buffett and Jack Bogle of Vanguard back the transaction tax among others who know markets.
To paraphrase Keynes, the purpose of the transaction tax is to return constructive enterprise to the casino while preserving liquidity and solvency. Many people the last 10 years in the real and stock markets wish all they had lost was 2% on the investments they made, instead of half their life savings. There is always a cost of doing business Jack. For example, investment bankers took 10% fees on many deals for over a century and no one complained. Hedge fund managers took more. For too long Wall Street scalped clients for free rides and bonuses. Once respected institutions gambled away the rent money, expecting to be made whole by Taxpayers and the Fed and keep their bonuses. No more moral hazard! Markets may in fact crash from decades of deficits compounding to the trigger point of widespread defaults and implosion beyond what government can rescue. Treasury and other markets will certainly crash if Washington and Wall Street do not reign in borrowing and spending, and figure out a productive way to handle $604 Trillion in derivatives, $106 Trillion in unfunded agency mandates and debts exceeding the GDP. Interest on non-productive government debt is the fourth largest 2010 budget item, usury compounding to terminal velocity. Maybe if you reread the post again you will understand the 1% Temporary Transaction Tax replaces all other unproductive taxes including capital gains. Much market activity became no longer productive, but speculative, rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. Dark Pool High Freq Proprietary Trading does not raise capital for productive plants and workers, but increases debts from unproductive government, particularly when taxpayers are robbed to support gambling. In fact, last year, long-term investors bought $66 in bond funds for every dollar in equity funds. And their commissions and fund fees in many cases were more than 1%…Regards*Rich