ROBERT REICH | Why not tax financial speculation?

[think]

ROBERT REICH | Why not tax financial speculation?

Why is there so little discussion about one of Bernie Sanders's most important proposals — to tax financial speculation?

Buying and selling stocks and bonds in order to beat others who are buying and selling stocks and bonds is a giant zero-sum game that wastes countless resources, uses up the talents of some of the nation's best and brightest, and subjects financial market to unnecessary risk.

High-speed traders who employ advanced technologies in order to get information a millisecond before other traders get it don't make financial markets more efficient. They make them more vulnerable to debacles like the "Flash Crash" of May 2010.

Wall Street insiders who trade on confidential information unavailable to small investors don't improve the productivity of financial markets. They just rig the game for themselves....

Read more:
http://www.kitsapsun.com/opinion/robert-reich--why-not-tax-financial-speculation-30da2113-4c90-2d1c-e053-0100007f8a1f-376867051.html

[dreamnightwind]

1. Let's demand that this is a party platform plank! - eom

[ContinentalOp]

2. Why not do a thing that both democratic candidates have already proposed?

such radical stuff
http://www.cnbc.com/2015/10/07/hillar-clinton-to-propose-tax-on-high-frequency-trading-in-wall-st-reform.html