On February 6, 2013, Jesse Eisinger writes in The New York Times:
Last month, 11 European countries, including France and Germany, moved forward on introducing a minuscule taxon trades in stocks, bonds and derivatives. The tax goes by many names. It’s often called a Tobin tax, after the economist James Tobin. In Europe it goes by the more pedestrian financial transaction tax. In Britain, it goes by the wonderfulRobin Hood tax, and is supported in an often clevercampaign.
On this side of the Atlantic, there is a ghostly silence on a transaction tax in respectable political quarters. But that might change. This month, Senator Tom Harkin, Democrat of Iowa, and Representative Peter DeFazio, Democrat of Oregon, plan to reintroduce their bill calling for just such a tax.
While essentially a tax on Wall Street buy-and-sell trade “gambling” transactions, a transaction tax could raise a huge amount of money.
Of course, the better solution is to address the CONCENTRATED OWNERSHIP issue of income inequality and use the word OWNERSHIP as that is what ties one to the property rights to derive income from the non-human factor of production––productive capital––in the form of prime corporate stock dividends. Such financial structures are not well understood.
A National Right To Capital Ownership Bill that restores the American dream should be advocated by Reich, which addresses the reality of Americans facing job opportunity deterioration and devaluation due to tectonic shifts in the technologies of production.
There is a solution, which will result in double-digit economic growth and simultaneously broaden private, individual ownership so that EVERY American’s income significantly grows, providing the means to support themselves and their families with an affluent lifestyle. The Just Third Way Master Plan for America’s future is published athttp://foreconomicjustice.org/?p=5797.
Support the Capital Homestead Act athttp://www.cesj.org/homestead/index.htm andhttp://www.cesj.org/homestead/summary-cha.htm
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/02/06/time-to-revive-the-financial-transaction-tax/?smid=fb-share
