5 Reasons It's Just Absurd That America Doesn't Tax Wall St's Transactions [View all]

[Junkdrawer]

The financial speculation industry has devastated middle-class wealth -- and there's a simple way to curb its power.

July 22, 2013 | By Paul Buchheit

The logic for the tax is indisputable:

-- 1. Financial industry speculation devastated middle-class homeowner wealth.
-- 2. U.S. investors pay zero tax on their speculative transactions.
-- 3. The tax is easy to implement, and is very successful in other countries.

The emotional appeal reaches most of America:

-- Why should the rest of us pay up to 10% on the necessities of life while risky derivative purchases aren't taxed at all?
-- Why should kids around the country lose their arts programs while trillions of dollars flow, untaxed, to Wall Street?

....

The Tax Works in Countries with the 'Freest' Economies

A good place to start is Singapore. Or Hong Kong or Switzerland. These are three of the top five countries on the Heritage Foundation's Index of Economic Freedom, and they all have FTTs. Critics who might argue that non-FTT taxes are lower in Singapore and Hong Kong should look at World Bank and CIA World Factbook datasets, both of which show the U.S. with lower tax revenues as a percentage of GDP. The U.S. is clearly undertaxed across a wide range of taxes.

....

Unimaginable Amounts are being Traded in the U.S., with zero tax

Unfortunately, in our country, discussions about pension reform and education and infrastructure usually lead to talk about further cutbacks, as if that were the only solution. But pension funds and schools lost money because of financial industry malfeasance. And yet the financial industry keeps surging ahead. The 2012 trading volume for the Chicago Mercantile Group (CME) alone was $806 trillion, about 12 times more than the entire world GDP. In 2011 it was over $1,000 trillion -- that's a mind-dizzying $1 quadrillion.

....

http://www.alternet.org/economy/5-reasons-its-just-absurd-america-doesnt-tax-wall-sts-transactions?paging=off

Wall Street has become an end and not a means. If President Obama is serious about rebuilding a middle class, this is a necessary first step.