It’s Time to Tax Financial Transactions by Katrina vanden Heuvel

[xchrom]

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/03/05-3



On Friday at midnight, the sequester kicked in, triggering $85 billion in deep, dumb budget cuts that sent “nonessential personnel”— such as air traffic controllers — packing.

Not to worry, though: Wall Street’s day was pretty much like any other. Billions of dollars in profits were made off of trillions of dollars in financial transactions. And the vast majority of those transactions were conducted tax-free.

Moral of the story: What else is new?

Crash the economy? Free pass. Prevent planes from crashing? Pink slip.

[eppur_se_muova]

1. I've believed for a long time we need such a tax.

I came to this concusion several years ago, after reading Thomas L. Friedman's "The Lexus and the Olive Tree", which takes the opposite point of view. I found his arguments very convincing -- for the opposition.

[jsr]

2. It's long overdue

Unfortunately, we're unlikely to see it in this century.