Eliot Spitzer: Tax the Traders! It Would Solve Economic Crisis and Stop Reckless Activity

[99th_Monkey]

64. I trust Mr. Spitzer's expertise on this subject far more than I do yours

In short, I trust Mr. Spitzer's expertise on this subject far more than I do yours. Besides Eliot Spitzer,
this proposal is also supported by Nobel laureate James Tobin, as well as other prominent advocates,
including Ralph Nader. I don't pretend to know lots about how financial markets work, so I rely on
others I do trust to be more knowledgable than myself (and who's world-view I resonate with), to
explain in plain language how this stuff works, and how we might improve on it. You, I don't know
from Adam; and you are still flatly making assertions out of thin air, without providing any LINKS to
anyone else on the planet with a shred of credibility who agrees with you.

The part of my Wikipedia cut/past that you apparently missed was, the UK's "Stamp duty was
so successful that it continues to this day through a series of Stamp Acts." This is the same
Stamp Act that you claim has "been tried before (in UK) and it failed".

As near as I can tell, your counter-proposal would be regressive, in that it would be a flat per-
transaction fee, rather than being based on the value of the commodity. If you really think your idea
is unique & original, and has merit i.e. meaning that it would raise lots of much-needed new revenue,
in a way that is fair to small-time traders, I suggest -- rather than carping about how it's a "bad idea" --
that you email or twitter Mr. Spitzer with your suggestion, so we can improve further on his good work.

Beyond that, I suspect that we're not going to change each others minds much on this.

PS - my reference to a Federal Real Estate Transfer Tax is related to the Wiki information, where it
says ""Stamp duty land tax" (SDLT), a new transfer tax derived from stamp duty, was introduced for
land transactions from 1 December 2003."