Posted on 04/16/2011 10:16:36 PM PDT by AmericanDave
Well, then. There is no reason not to exceed the record set 150 years ago!
That’s true. Good point.
How exactly is buying a piece of paper that has already been sold by Company X, either to you directly or indirectly, and then reselling that same piece of paper for a profit in any way increasing the money supply of Company X?
Company X does NOT magically have more money just because some idiot somewhere is willing to pay YOU more money for that piece of paper! Thus, if you "produce" anything, it is transient wealth for YOU.
The Market is like the Government in that it can NOT produce material goods (the classic definition of production / producers). Unlike the government, it is much more efficient in the distribution of wealth / goods [as long as Government properly excercises it's oversight responsibilities].
You want anarchic stock exchanges?
Taxing capital is the worst thing you could do. Cut spending instead.
No, just free stock exchanges. There is a difference, you know.
Explain! Free from fees? Free from regulation?
There is a classic example of the demonization and class envy used by Communist community organizers to inspire hatred and divisions in society needed for political exploitatoin. The commodites traders you would demonize are responsible for only a small fraction of the petroleum produced and traded worldwide. The vast majority of the petroleum is traded by direct contracts granted by such major producers, especially OPEC members, as Iran, Saudi Arabia, and others. The major U.S. oil companies altogether makeup only a fraction of Iran's activities alone. Scapegoating the "speculators" and blaming them for the pricing set by OPEC and the other major foreign producers is a fraud.
But OPEC has been meeting demand so what else would explain the jump in prices? In fact, every analyst I’ve seen, even conservatives such as Cavuto (while not demonizing them) have stated that speculation (fairly or unfairly) has driven up oil prices. It was also stated that Bush made the price of speculating on oil higher in order to keep oil prices down. So apparently, they do have an effect on prices, though it’s not necessarily based on greed.
Oh, and can you explain how London / Zurich and many other exchanges seem to be alive and well even though they impose transaction taxes? According to the doomsayers here - a penny per share would be the equivalent of armageddon (even though we used to have a tax as well [until 1966]).
IMHO - if imposed and a countersetting elimination of invidual taxes in like amount (i.e. neutral to government revenues [I know, would never happen!!]) would partially RETURN the tax system to something resembling the founders intent!
Thank you, the math in this thread was bad in several places, but mostly I could not believe trade volume was high enough to generate that much at a penny a share.
The brainpower should be used to make government so small and unintrusive that we don’t need more taxes. Otherwise someone will end up with a plan to tax each breath you take. This is just ‘taking’ and not providing anything for it.
You are exactly right. I’m in complete agreement with you.
Hmmm ... Okay. You are OPEC and I am a specualtor. You see that I am willing to pay $100/barrel [and the Market in general is willing to as well!] and you are selling for $95. Do you,
1. Lower prices to attract more demand,
2. Hold prices stable,
3. Raise prices to match the Market, knowing that demand will not suffer significantly.
No, speculators are not evil, but to claim they have nothing to do with rising prices is niave at best. When major banks buy entire tankers of crude oil (artifically raising demand and thus price) and hold them until prices rise, this is both accepted as normal (buy low sell high!) and decried as immoral.
IMHO less speculation might be a good thing ... ;D.
Serioulsy though, how do you reconcile that statement with the health of both the London, Swiss and German exchanges where transactions ARE taxed!
It is now ingrained in us that wall street and big oil are the cause of all our problems. We need to ignore the fact that the largest recipient of wall street profits and oil sales in this country is the federal government. No not wall street executives and no not Exxon.
Yes we did bail out the banks and even though most of these funds have been paid back we got screwed both as shareholders and tax payers. The feds have not paid it back. The governments windfall enabled them to mask their increased spending, much of it borrowed to the tune of 10 billion per day.
Finding more ways to tax us will enable the government to ignore its over spending and help fund the progressive movement.
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