Please stop telling me I'm voting for Sanders because I'm a purist who wants a pony.

[dreamnightwind]

148. Thank you

I had an earlier exchange with this same poster who doesn't like the FTT, I went on a camping trip right after getting into the exchange and never got to respond to his claims.

It seems to me he either isn't aware of, or doesn't particularly care about, the #2 purpose in your post, slowing down the rapid automated trades which now make up a huge percentage of all trades on Wall St., and which are not purchases of stocks to be held as an inviestment, they are merely momentary transactions designed to take advantage of minute fluctuations in stock pricing, not a legitimate function of the market as far as I can see. It's an important issue because of its massive scale. Slow the beast down with a FTT.

Also, if public pensions are trading in that way and are hurt by the FTT, they shouldn't be doing it in the first place. Make sound investments based on perceived vaue and buying into a company's prospects, rather than skim money from the system with lightning fast automated transactions which don't even bother to look at the underlying fundamentals of a company, because the stock will only be very briefly held so they don't care about whether the comany is valued correctly or not.

If pension funds are trading in a responsible manner, making purchases of stocks they intend to hold as an investment, they won't be hurt by a small FTT, since they won't be making that many transactions.