from HuffPost:
Chuck Collins
Chuck Collins is co-founder of Wealth for the Common Good.Time to Tax the Wall Street CasinoPosted: June 17, 2010 03:11 PM
Angry about the greedy financial speculation that wrecked the economy? Got a deficit headache? Anxious about where the money will come from for long overdue investments in energy independence that will create good jobs in the new economy?
How do we spell relief? Try F.S.T., which stands for Financial Speculation Tax.
A financial speculation tax is a modest levy on financial transactions such as the purchase and sale of stocks, bonds, derivatives, and swaps. England and Taiwan have such taxes on securities that encourage productive investment and discourage reckless trading behavior.
Leaders in the U.S. Congress have introduced a proposal to collect a penny on every four dollars of financial transactions, a fraction of what people pay in broker fees. This FST would exempt retirement funds and the first $100,000 of individual investment transactions. So it would target the fast-buck flippers, the same financial gamblers who crashed the economy through reckless speculation.
The financial speculation tax would raise an estimated $177 billion a year, which makes it the potentially biggest revenue raiser on the table right now. ..........(more)
The complete piece is at:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/chuck-collins/time-to-tax-the-wall-stre_b_616025.html