Thread: "We want our money back"

What? You're outraged when he gives banks money for free, and then your're outraged when he asks them to pay it back? You're outraged when he interferes in private business in any way but you're outraged that the unemployment rate (how many people private businesses wish to hire and fire) increases and blame him personally for not INTERFERING to get people jobs?



I'm outragerd!

[quote name='michaelr' date='12 January 2010 - 03:14 PM' timestamp='1263327263' post='97880']

Obama Plans to Raise $120 Billion From Banking Fees



And you the slave will pay.

[/quote]



Actually most estimates show the volume of trading declining sharply in response to the tax, so that much less money would be spent on brokers' fees and other trading costs. This means that the total amount of money spent on trading of stock, bonds, options, credit default swaps and other financial instruments (including the tax) is likely to change little as a result of the tax. Therefore, there would be little in the way of higher costs to pass on to the rest of the economy.



Here:



TAM = V * ( F + T )



TAM := Total amount of money spent to trade.

V := volume of trading

F := Fee per unit volume

T := Tax per unit volume



if T increases, V decreases. So V*F decreases. TAM may increase or decrease.



Arbitrage is hindered by a increase in transaction taxes also. It would not be a bad thing if debt lost its tax advantages, and speculative trading became more expensive.

I will be the first to admit I am not an economist, but I am a business owner (one that has never been bailed out, thank you very much), and would like to inform everyone that my customers pay my income taxes, not me. My margins include all taxes I expect to pay...permitting, state sales tax on materials, and federal taxes on profit.



Is our President so naive to believe financial institutions will not pass this proposed tax back onto the very taxpayers that were forced to bail them out...essentially punishing already overburdened citizens with higher fees?



I completely understand Obama's anger at the shenanigans bailed out banks are pulling, but, with all the purported wisdom and common sense dripping from our Washington "leaders", couldn't at least one of them have predicted, and vetted every possible scenario prior to the bailouts?





Obviously not.





Of course, I don't seriously believe this tax will ever come to fruition.... it's merely another divisive "I'm for the people, and will hold those rascally capitalist bastards accountable" platitude designed to assuage the ignorant American sheep.



================================================== ==========================



Obama tells banks: `We want our money back'



By JIM KUHNHENNWASHINGTON – President Barack Obama said Thursday he wants to tax banks to recoup the public bailout of foundering firms at the height of the financial crisis. "We want our money back," he said.



In a brief appearance with advisers at the White House, Obama branded the latest round of bank bonuses as "obscene." But he said his goal was to prevent such excesses in the future, not to punish banks for past behavior.



It was an emphatic and populist tone for a president keenly aware of public antipathy toward Wall Street. With the sharp words, he also tried to deflect some of the growing skepticism aimed at his own economic policies as unemployment stubbornly hovers around 10 percent.



Obama said big banks had acted irresponsibility, taken reckless risk for short-term profits and plunged into a crisis of their own making. He cast the struggle ahead as one between the finance industry and average people.



"We are already hearing a hue and cry from Wall Street, suggesting that this proposed fee is not only unwelcome but unfair, that by some twisted logic, it is more appropriate for the American people to bear the cost of the bailout rather than the industry that benefited from it, even though these executives are out there giving themselves huge bonuses," Obama said.



He renewed his call for a regulatory overhaul of the industry and scolded bankers for opposing the tighter oversight in legislation moving through Congress.



"What I'd say to these executives is this: Instead of setting a phalanx of lobbyists to fight this proposal or employing an army of lawyers and accountants to help evade the fee, I'd suggest you might want to consider simply meeting your responsibility," Obama said.



The president is proposing a tax of 0.15 percent on the liabilities of large financial institutions. It would apply only to those companies with assets of more than $50 billion _ a group estimated at about 50.



They would have to pay up even though many did not accept any taxpayer assistance and most that did have repaid the infusions.

Damn. I did it again...Michaelr scooped me (by days). Sorry, didn't see it before posting. Gypsy, can you combine them?



Thank you.