[GPSCC-chat] Tax the Rich Banner

[Gerry Gras]

Brian Good wrote:
>
> And if you cliick to enlarge and look on the sidewalk opposite the left
> leg of the
> "W" you'll see my 14' tall representation of the 9/11 Commission report full
> of holes.
>
> I think "Tax the Rich" is vulnerable to the counterargument that this would
> be of little practical value.

Why is that?

> I'd like to see a transaction tax
> graduated for the
> magnitude of the transactions--so that when speculators buy and sell
> huge quantities of securities to profit from (possibly manufactured)
> blips in
> the market, they face confiscatory taxes.

There is the Tobin Tax:
     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tobin_tax
According to this page, Tobin was talking about a tax for
currency exchanges.  And others have carried that idea
to the stock market. ... And in the "Tobin's concept" page,
it says Tobin got the idea from Keynes.
"Keynes' concept stems from 1936 when he proposed that a transaction tax 
should be levied on dealings on Wall Street, where he argued that 
excessive speculation by uninformed financial traders increased volatility."

Gerry

>
> Back in July Dr. Sharat Lin gave a lecture at SJPJC challenging the myth
> that speculators stabilize the markets. As I recall he showed that
> speculation
> actually exaggerates market blips.

I have seen an article in the past few days arguing that
speculators have driven up the cost of food, causing hunger
(and starvation?).  Hmm, can I find it? ...
Well, I can't find it, but maybe this will do:
 
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-10-10/economists-call-for-crop-trading-limits-to-curb-volatility.html

Gerry

>
>
>
>
>
>  > Date: Mon, 17 Oct 2011 22:37:49 -0700
>  > From: gerrygras at earthlink.net
>  > To: sosfbay-discuss at cagreens.org
>  > Subject: [GPSCC-chat] Tax the Rich Banner
>  >
>  >
>  > Remember the huge "Impeach Now" banner photographed from
>  > the air? At Ocean Beach, SF?
>  >
>  > Well, they are going to do the same thing soon, except it
>  > will be "Tax the Rich". Saturday, October 29.
>  >
>  > http://www.humanbannersf.com/
>  >
>  > Gerry
>  >
>  > P.S. If you look at the photo, you might see that the "C"
>  > is pink, and the "!" is orange. That's because Code Pink
>  > did the "C" and "World Can't Wait" did the "!".
>  >
>  >
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