How much would the treasury make if we had a transaction tax on all trades... say $1.00 per trade?

[ShamelessHussy]

Does anyone know how many trades (including computer) are made daily?

Can we get some out the box thinking on how to raise revenue that doesn't sock it to main st? I'd say it's way over due for wall st. to pay it's dues.

Then we could call or write in to the various M$M programs, and blogs online to try and get these memes out there for discussion. I am tired of the debate always being about how to raise money by socking it to the working people, let's get some alternative ideas out there, that would make for a far more interesting debate.

I know DU must have plenty of alternative, good ideas!

[Warren Stupidity]

1. NYSE alone traded 4.3B shares today.

There is no need to impose a 1.00 tax, a 0.01 tax per traded share would bring in 430M/day, or around 100B/yr from that exchange alone. NASDAQ dir nearly 2B shares today in addition. If the transaction cost was scaled to stock price we could probably get an average of $0.05/share traded without causing massive damage and bring in 500B/yr.

But we can't have that sort of gummint nonsense interfering with the freedom to buy Ferraris and Connecticut neo-mansions.

A serious proposal was floated back in 2009, before the kleptocracy demonstrated that it was still firmly in control, to put a 0.25% tax on the value of all trades, and that was estimated to be good for around 100B/yr.

[ShamelessHussy]

4. wow- that would certainly go a long way to helping us fund the much needed investment in America

like infrastructure, honoring the contracts made to our retired civil servants, and military folks, etc. from a single exchange :bounce:

this is the kinda thing that needs to be raised EVERY-TIME the elite suggest another tax or cut on the working people.

We need to come up with at least a good half dozen alternatives, to the raise the retirement age, slash benefits, tax smokes or drinks, etc., that we can easily boil down to a sound byte, and get out there... just like the reTHUGs do.

It would be great to do youtube commercials (30sec) as an online community that were very polished, and that could go viral, with any of the good ideas we come up with.

30 second commercials are very powerful means of getting a MSG out quick, just ask madison ave :evilgrin:

I would be willing to volunteer my tech skills to help with any true grass roots project such as this.

[phasma ex machina]

9. Taxing trades would kill at least half the volume.

Estimates of HFT volume in the equity markets vary widely, though they often are 50 percent of total volume or higher. link

[Hannah Bell]

11. and that would be a tragedy because?

[Lagomorph]

17. Because like it or not...

That's where taxable income and government revenues come from. The more volume, the more revenues. You want to encourage economic activity, not discourage it. Every country that has built a strong economy knows that.

Like Sec Clinton has said, we already tax everything that moves and everything that doesn't move. On sheer volume, Americans have provided their government with more financial power than any other nation.

Kill, weaken or bleed the market and start giving up all but the most essential, irreducible programs along with any hope for growth.

The government made those Wall Street fat cats with 14 trillion dollars of government contracts that allowed the big companies to eliminate the small companies. The mega-mergers were all approved by the government, where the priority was how much money went to who's district.

We need the government to take care of government issues, and perhaps we would be better off if we got them out of the market and put them on a diet.

[Hannah Bell]

25. what "revenues"?

40% of *all* profits in the us already go to financial corps.

a tax on trades would be a good thing; that's way out of line.

[Lagomorph]

26. Profit is the goal of business.

Taxes are the necessary "evil" of raking off a portion of the profits. Trillions of dollars flow out of the financial sector and trillions of dollars flow back in. If more flows back in than flows out, the government gets it's revenues. If all the transactions tank, such as with mortgage backed securities, it's not so good for the government, but even worse for the financial sector. The government came along and bought up a lot of toxic assets, which changed the balance sheets. Suddenly, failing businesses were "profitable" again. Instead of writing down their losses, the government hands them an IOU (with your name on it), they show a profit and must pay taxes.

While the profits seem to be large, the tax codes make damn sure they are there to be taxed. Profits you see reported in the media doesn't necessarily mean they have the money in hand, it just means you have an obligation to pay the taxes.

It's about as complicated and "honest" as a bunch of accountants and lawyers can make it.

[Hannah Bell]

28. when nearly half of *all* profits in a country go to financial corporations, that country has a

problem.

it's called "financialisation" & it indicates that most of the wealth produced is being skimmed off by a narrow segment of the population.

[Warren Stupidity]

29. trading shares does not really produce anything

"We need the government to take care of government issues, and perhaps we would be better off if we got them out of the market and put them on a diet."


OIC

Never mind. Rightwing libertarian free market fundamentalism is a faith based ideology. No rational discourse possible.

[Lagomorph]

34. I agree, trading shares is useless.

It's a game played by the rich for the rich.

The Government hands out multi-million and multi-billion dollar contracts that permanently alter the landscape and allow huge corporations to swallow up the competition and eliminate small business. Nearly dollar we spend goes to people who don't need it because consumer products are a tiny part of their overall business model.

Take the Koch Brothers. If we successfully boycotted 100% of their consumer products, it would have a minor impact on their bottom line.

We're not a free market or capitalist economy, it's hugely oligarchy.

Show me a government controlled economy that hasn't resorted to free market principles to stimulate economic growth. In the US, we are currently doing something quite opposed to free market practice and suffering the predicable market contractions and job losses.

Your assumptions about me only limit your thinking, not mine. Your comment reflects the impact that indoctrination has had on your thinking. You threw a string of media buzzwords at me that provide absolutely no hint of critical thinking.

I want a better America for everybody, and I mean everybody. That doesn't mean everybody gets everything they want because a lot of things we want are either entirely subjective or just plain unnecessary.

[phasma ex machina]

18. Who said killing HFT is a bad thing?

[depakid]

20. The Obama administration

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE5A611320091108

[phasma ex machina]

22. Touche

[ShamelessHussy]

12. that is still a hell of a lot of Freedom-Trades

not to mention the other markets.

[AnArmyVeteran]

16. Can you substantiate that point?

If someone is trading 20,000 share of XYZ at $40 a share do you think that a one dollar tax is going to stop them from making a trade? No. Since there are very few low end daytraders left it wouldn't affect them. It would only affect those companies that trade professionally and that one dollar per trade tax would be rather insignificant considering the total amount of money involved in the trades.

I think the $1 tax would be a great idea. In fact, there should be a lot of other taxes added to anyone who produces nothing tangible. I'm sick of the deadbeat rich getting wealthy by doing nothing and producing nothing of value to society. They are nothing but leeches on the system skimming off money from the rest of us. It's time they started to contribute to society.

In 2007 one person made $5 billion and another made $3.5 billion in one year. Anyone making that much money didn't 'earn'. They should be taxed at a 99% rate which would still leave them with $50 million and $35 million respectively. If they can't live off of that they should be declared mentally incompetent and have someone else manage their affairs. I am so tired of the deadbeat rich.

[dkf]

19. At a dollar a trade you have a higher per share cost to the little guy.

That seems backwards.

[ShamelessHussy]

24. you could tweak it

anyways, if you are trading on the markets, a dollar won't break you.

[AnArmyVeteran]

33. There aren't many 'little guys' left in the market.

I would even add a one cent per share traded tax and use that money for renewable energy and public works projects. The trillions of dollars flowing through the hands of millionaires and billionaires should be taxed. Wall Street executives produce nothing. They TAKEfrom the system like parasites on a host. It's about time we at least started to tax them for skimming and scamming. If they don't like the new taxes let them leave the country.

[phasma ex machina]

21. HFT often generates only pennies or fractions of a penny profit on each trade.

I merely point out the mathematical fallacy using 4.3 billion trades per day as a constant.

If a trade tax killed HFT the market might actually start to resemble a genuine market again instead of a shark infested tank with a vampire squid (Goldman Sachs) waiting to squeeze the life out of unsuspecting "retail investors."

[ShamelessHussy]

23. "I'm sick of the deadbeat rich getting wealthy by doing and producing nothing of value to society"

Love it, and I bet you are not alone!

now, some will argue that they provide jobs, which may be true, but we provide the labor, so it should be a symbiotic relationship, not like what we got now, where we just get shit on all the time.

i am sick and fucking tired of hearing these fat-cat pimping, limousine riding, smucks, insulting my friends, family, and fellow americans, day in and day out without any fucking rebuttal.

I am serious, i want to make commercials of working people (the vast majority of us), taking these whackos down a peg or two.

we don't need the M$M, we use the internets (youtube, justintv, etc) to get our message out so the younger generation can hear another side of the story, and not be taken in by these thugs.

:toast:

[backwoodsbob]

27. 4.3 billiob shares doesn't =4.3b transactions nt

[Warren Stupidity]

30. I agree. And as I mentioned the serious proposal was a 0.25% tax

on the value of a trade. That was estimated to be worth 100B/yr.

[Lance_Boyle]

31. Would you trade pennies or sub-pennies if the tax was > 10X the value of the stock?

Taxation based on the value of a trade is more reasonable, but should not approach the 1% mark. Quarter percent? Not a bad idea, actually...

[Warren Stupidity]

32. I mentioned the actual proposal - 0.25% of value.

The volume of shares traded is just a data point.

[Barack2theFuture]

2. damn near all the money in the world

and it's a damned good idea

[ShamelessHussy]

8. NICE! and I'd say we definitely earned it considering all the crap Wall St. has heaped on us!

if folks like this idea, please K&R to get it more exposure, and also feel free to add other ideas :hi:

[safeinOhio]

3. I think we could balance the budget

if there was an automatic 10 charge to all senders of email that is directed to anyones spam box.

[ShamelessHussy]

6. but we would have a hard time tracking those shady characters down

and certainly couldn't expect to get paid once we did.

it is much harder to hide though when you are a regulated, public institution.

and even if it would be impossible to get through the tax-per-trade idea (of course we would need a better name - preferably without the word tax in there... more like 'freedom-trades') our current, throughly corrupt system, it would still be worth getting the idea out there (and other alternatives) just so the debate isn't always so one sided... one day down the line, it may actually become reality.

[cbdo2007]

5. Hey, you're cuttin' into my profits!>!>!

that's like an extra $25 a year for me!

[ShamelessHussy]

7. yeah, but they are "Freedom-Trades"... and everyone knows that freedom isn't free =)

:hi:

[ShamelessHussy]

10. still looking for more good ideas =)

post'm, if you got'm

[LooseWilly]

13. If a sales tax is ok, a trade tax should be too.

Make the argument that it's just like the sales tax all the janitors who clean up when Wall St. closes pay on a soda, or even a bottle of water. Just like the tax every kid pays when buying a candy bar. Just like the sales tax everyone pays for a new pair of shoelaces, or for a tv guide.

Why do the Wall St. guys get to buy/sell teeny-tiny-little pieces of World-Dominating-Corporations... and they don't have to pay the same sales tax that a kid has to pay to buy a candy bar?

Just asking...

[slipslidingaway]

14. Nader and La Rouche both called for tax on trades...

see where they are now???

[librechik]

15. they already screamed bloody murder at .025 cents (one quarter cent) per transaction proposal

they are out of control