The Transaction Tax Is Harmful

As far as I can tell, we are debating a mechanism that would reduce some negative aspects of our equities markets. Thus far, this “negative” behavior has been described as HFT. And, moreover, all HFT has been described as “negative” (in respect to the so called “fairness” of our public markets). On the opposite side of the debate, we have claims that market participants engaging in HFT, also, and at the same time, provide the service of liquidity as well as trading costs reduction, in the form of (relatively speaking) narrower spreads. Lastly, the 3^rd side is against any (and all, especially new) taxes to be paid to the government.

Each side has thus far refused to accept the other’s claims. I will take a completely different approach - I will assume that all sides of this argument are making valid arguments, and that each of these arguments is worth being addressed by any change worth pursuing. Therefore, I will attempt to describe an approach to simultaneously address all of the above 3 main arguments.

Before I continue, let me make some basic statements/assumptions I will use as the foundation for my approach:

1.       (buy-and-hold) Investors are the most important market participants. Market structure should discourage (and not necessarily eliminate) any behavior which would tend to drive away Investors.

2.       Any “negative” consequences of HF TRADING, is about trading and not about attempts to trade – you can not “steal” profit from another trader (investor), unless there has been a trade.

3.       Therefore, HFT should be described in terms of position turnover (and not in terms of orders). Once we decide to use such a distinction, we can attempt to distinguish trades made as a result of Investor behavior vs. those trades made as a result of a Speculator behavior, for trades made in each instrument and the same account.

4.       Moreover, if we “assume” all HFT trading to be 100% speculative only, and entirely detrimental to Investors, then the extent of such a detriment can be only the amount of profit made on the profitable side (of this zero sum game).

Long story short, here is my “proposal”:

a)      Define HFT as “trading of individual securities in an individual (brokerage) account where the total nominal amount traded in one fiscal day exceeds X pct (e.g. 500%) of the maximum nominal position of the security in that account, held at any one moment during that fiscal day”.

b)      Once the total nominal turnover pct ratio has been reached, all “profit” made in that security/account/day is designated as HFT profit (net of all other fees and commissions) and is subject to Y % (e.g. 20%) fee to be collected by the broker and remitted to DTCC. In other words, if you have a 10k shares position, you could basically trade in-n-out 100share trades all day long and keep all your profits. And If you started with 0 shares in that same stock, once you hit your 3^rd round trip, all the money you made that day in that stock/account would be levied the HFT pct fee.

c)       DTCC is the holder of all these cumulative fees per security, to be distributed quarterly, based on the ratio of each title holder of record pct of shares outstanding and number of trading days held over the previous quarter. In other words, if you held 10% of all shares outstanding of some stock during the entire quarter, you get 10% off all HFT profit made in that stock during that quarter.

d)      For the purpose of 401k, mutual funds, ETFs etc, make these DTCC “distributions” the same as dividend payments.

e)      Pct X and Y are to be “negotiated” periodically and their implementation to be monitored by whomever is regulating the exchanges (perhaps the 2^nd smartest person on ZH can invent a process for this “negotiation”).

Basically, we should let the speculators still continue to inadvertently keep providing liquidity while making money, and use the profits they extract from their “victims” to encourage the victims’ continued participation in the marketplace. Meanwhile, the gov. does not get another opportunity to squander more of our money – the printing press is more than sufficient.

How long might an approach like this, continue serving its original purpose? Certainly not forever – just like today’s traffic regulations might require modification to address changes in behavior once we start flying our cars.

 "As such the ultimate benefit to society from an already implicit transaction tax, in the form of encroaching HFT slippage costs, and various other mechanisms that extract transactional value from the institutional base, would be explicitly better, as even Congress would be hard pressed to spend $50 billion a year without creating at least $0.01 of social value, which outcome would still be better than the HFT-toll dominated status quo."

Deadly shot, Tyler.  You nailed it. 

It is worth pointing out that although it is claimed this will not effect retail day traders, it will effect ANY retail investor who is not able to put his money in a tax sheltered IRA/401k. Even a 50k portfolio with a quarterly turnover will be hit by the tax. The nonsense about this not effecting retail investors is nonsense.

It is possible that the tax would drive some predatory speculators offshore.  This is a good thing.  Any large banks or corporations doing so can be seized and broken up by the government.  All of this is assuming that there is not a Wall St puppet acting as tenent in the Office of the Doge of America.

An ideal result would be for trading volume and for the financial sector to shrink down to the level of real economic ectivity and production in the country.  No one needs financial speculators, so who cares if Wall St fires some parasites.

To what extent can capital flee?  Simply impose capital controls to trap the hot money bandits like Soros the Nazi collaborator, and tax them.  Destroy HFT and imprison the practitioners of the fraud.

Beyond any of these things, market activity can't fall below what is necessary to carry on real economic activity.  Real economic activity does not include: narcotics trafficking, money laundering, gambling, pornography, prostitution, entertainment of any kind and especially FINANCIAL SPECULATION.

If anyone thinks that being arbitraged to death by the WHOPPER at 85 Broadstreet is the best solution to buy-and-hold that is pretty sad.  The only thing little people can do is invest in something that is tangible and useful, and is not subject to expiration or falling into negative value like some Rasbucknik derivative.

Argh. Tyler, you quoted Paul Krugman in an attempt to add what to your argument?

The "buy and hold" invest for the long term works, for whom? Billionaires like Buffet? What about your average investor over the last 10 years?  How did it work for them?  If those distinguished individuals who signed the letter at the Aspen Institute in September were really interested in "investing for the long term", they would put there energy into curtailing the bubble blowing by the "easy money solves all" Federal Reserve. Perhaps if real interest rates were not -6%, individuals would not be investing in 100x p/e stocks, with a t+30 minute time horizon. 

It seems to me that Tax Policy is not the right "less bad" policy to accomplish the goal of "investing for the long term".

Further, I question the premise of Tax Policy succeeding, where regulators are failing in curtailing HFT (accepting the premise that HFT does indeed need to be curtailed).  The Taxpayer is already giving $1b to the SEC for market regulation. So when the SEC (or any other regulator) fails to do their job, once again the taxpayer is asked to pick up the tab for a second strategy that again may or may not work (under the premise that it is on their best interest to do so. isn't all taxation sold to taxpayers as "being in their best interest"?).

I suspect that my real issue with your argument is that the best rationalization you can come up with for this tax is that it a "less bad" idea to curtail activities that are inconsistent with a "fair market".  I suppose if one accepts that the best the brain trust of the USA can come up with is a "less bad" idea to deal with issues (thus confirming my notion of a country that allows mediocrity to pass as excellence) then one can get support this tax. 

any idea originally floated by gordon brown, screams failure

Tyler -

Your argument on "churning" is woefully ignorant and in the context of this debate completely worthless.

When regulators are looking at brokers for evidence of churning, they are doing so in the interest of catching brokers that are trading their clients' accounts for the purpose of racking up commissions. It has absolutely nothing to do with how right or wrong trading frequently is.

FINRA doesn't care at all if Joe Schmoe tells his broker to get him in and out of the market every other day. What FINRA looks for when investigating churning is a broker with discretion over a client's funds trading too often.

You must be pretty desperate to quote Paul Krugman.

I think to say that someone is "adding liquidity" or value when it comes to trading zombie stocks is ridiculous. 

Tyler, I have to say I have the utmost respect for everything you have done on Zero Hedge, except for this. I think you are so far off base on this one you should maybe retire Zero Hedge. Sorry, it's what I think. We all agree HFT needs to be stopped. But why do this with an ax and not a scalpel, a nuke and not a sniper? Why not prohibit HFT without taking all retail out as casualties? Retail never trades in microseconds. Why not charge the tax if you don't hold for one second. Five seconds. Ten seconds. Then all HFT stops, and retail is unaffected. If that won't work, then something else that targets HFT. All trades over $100K and held less than five seconds. Or something else.

Is a hang everyone and we'll get the guilty party the approach we stand for in America? And if so, great, more power to you, I'm happy for you. But call a spade a spade, and say 'We are going to get those HFT mother-f'er's, and we are going to kill anyone in the way. We aren't going to think this out, target them, or anything. We are going to drop a 100 megaton nuke on their asses, and sorry for all you poor slobs that get melted, but problem solved, and that's that. Live with it.' You lay it out that way, and then I'll get on board. You tell us that's the best approach, f the collateral damage, and I'll get on board. But saying retail is worthless to society, that's a BS statement, the math on what you say is poorly thought out, and I just don't get that from someone as brilliant as you are. So, what's it gonna be?

End the frickin fed....time to return to pay as you go!

What you are saying is absolutely correct - but you need to greatly improve the clarity of your arguments. You are trying too hard to come off as sophisticated and the result is an overly embellished essay. Please revise to be more straightforward and real for the sake of fighting this bill.

Sweden tried this tax in the 1970's and later repealed it because it caused a 60% drop in stock trading volume and resulted in significant layoffs in the financial services industry. The result was that the amount the tax raised was LESS than the capital gains tax and income tax revenues lost.

Unfortunately, the desire for revenge against Wall Street has eclipsed experience and common sense. On the positive side, Senator Charles Schumer (D, NY) has come out strongly against the tax, as has Treasury Secretary Geithner. No Republicans will support it and many Democrats who have taken the time to research the unemployment effects are lining up against it. Conclusion: This tax will not be enacted any time in the foreseeable future.

So sales tax on goods is OK, but sales tax on financial goods is not OK? Enlighten me, and by OK it's defined by what's good for society not just for traders.

When has a tax ever solved anything?

Many individuals, myself included, have been making their living from trading since technology advances in computers and networking in the mid 1990’s democratized money management and reduced costs to the point where individuals could control their own financial destiny, which was not previously the case. The trader tax threatens this accomplishment. Quite simply put…it will put most of us in the unemployment lines overnight.
Of course, many will say, “Good riddance. Of what value to society is there in what you do?” Without getting into the technical dynamics of markets where short-term traders are a vital part of the overall market eco-system, I’ll make the argument quite simple: We pay taxes.
You don’t last long as a trader if you don’t make money, therefore if you make money you pay taxes. In this country over 47% of the working age population pays no taxes, and that number is growing. Therefore, independent traders contribute, per capita, more to society on a financial basis than almost 1/2 of the working age population. I’d say that’s value to society. You pass this tax, we’re unemployed and potentially on government assistance shortly after.
Please, don’t confuse Main Street traders such as myself with Wall Street. We make a good living, but nothing compared to the money center firms. We are discretionary in that we use what we see and what we know to make trades with our own money. We don’t have a supercomputer hooked up transacting millions of shares a minute.
I well understand the ire directed at Wall Street, and rightly so, but they are far from the only individual, groups and organizations (real estate agents, appraisers, mortgage companies, politicians who took sweetheart loan deals, etc.) that had a hand in this debacle, one that has its roots in the early years of the last century and within the institution in which you work.
Also, and this is very important: the derivative products that caused all the problems in the first place(mortgage backed securities, collateralized debt obligations, structured investment vehicles) aren’t even traded on exchanges-they were sold directly to clients, yet you want place a tax on traded items to make Wall Street pay (and us) for items that had absolutely nothing to do with trading!
Remember, if this tax passes all transactions in pension funds, 401k plans, IRAs and any other retirement related plan will pay the tax reducing their returns and the effect of compounding-which is not to be underestimated. You will, at a minimum, take .5% off their yearly return in good years and bad. If you want to get a sense of what this will cause, look at this website listing of all the mutual funds out there and at the column header titled “turnover.” This term represents the rate of annual turnover in the funds holdings (transactions) compared to an average. Then think how many of you or your friends might have money in these funds in savings outside of their pensions and 401k:
http://bwnt.businessweek.com/mutual_fund/index.asp?sortCol=Assets&sortOr...
As a personal touch so you can understand what damage this could cause, let me tell you my situation: I am almost 50 years old. This is what I do. This is what I know. If you were to wipe me out what would I do then? I make a reasonably good living, but nothing extravagant by any means. I make less than you on average. I care for my elderly father and my nephew-which, by the way is another benefit I provide society. Instead of depending on welfare for the money I need to take care of my family, I live off the money I make from trading in a small condo in suburban Massachusetts.
You call this speculation, but the money I don’t trade, that was kept in longer-term investments like mutual funds and stocks, suffered much the same debacle as others both in 2007 and in 2000-that’s what long-term investing gets you so I don’t do it anymore. So, what you call speculation, I call prudent money management, especially because I’ve developed the skills to do so. And you want to force me back into that financial bondage and take my livelihood away? And then, at almost 50 years old, what do I do with skills you’ve rendered useless? Apply for welfare?
Unfortunately, although your efforts may be well intentioned, they always end up being good solutions politically, but rarely good solutions operationally. This current debacle began with the debasement of lending standards in an effort to spread home ownership to those with lower credit worthiness and financial means-a great political solution. Unfortunately, the mechanics ended up opening the doors to universal lending standards debasement that have brought us to the brink of financial, and perhaps, societal collapse-a terrible operational solution. Let’s face it, this is simply a sales tax. Massachusetts just raised its sales tax because it would bring in X amount of revenue. Less than 2 months later they find out they significantly overestimated the amount.
Now, about all this money you’re going to raise with the tax. If the HFT (High Frequency Trading) proportion is the 40% of market activity they claim, then you will wipe this out (in its current incarnation) overnight with such a tax. Their goes 40% of the transaction volume, how much of your revenue goes with it? How much income tax and business tax will you lose? That leaves behind all the mutual funds and retirement related products everyday people own, and investments outside of their tax deferred accounts, this tax will hit that hard. And if you exclude pension related products from the tax, what do you have left for transaction revenue? This will also drive up the costs of trading beyond just the tax. All you have to do is look at all the prices that have been raised in the stores recently. Because there are less goods sold, prices have to rise to compensate and cover fixed costs of running the operations. The number of market transactions drop, the costs will rise on all transactions including on retirement accounts.
The Mechanics of the tax: The following are examples based on numbers discussed in the media. I’ll use the .25% tax described by Mr. Defazio. The percentage of the tax is actually misleading. Because it is on each transaction, an individual must incur the tax twice, once when he buys and once when he sells. Therefore, the tax is actually .5% of the average of the buy price and sell price for an individual.
Share Tax
Stock Buy $ 50.30 $ 0.12575

Stock Sell $ 50.70 $ 0.12675

Comm./ ecn fees $ 0.03
total tax
gross profit/loss $ 0.37 $ 0.25250 net profit/loss $ 0.12

tax rate 0.25%

The previous exhibit is an example of a very good day trade. The current profit would be $.37/share. If the tax were implemented the profit would drop to $.12/share or less than 1/3 the current profit, a 67% reduction, which will reduce taxable income by 67%. In the following example, the trade breaks even:
Share Tax
Stock Buy $ 50.30 $ 0.12575

Stock Sell $ 50.30 $ 0.12575

Comm./ ecn fees $ 0.03
total tax
gross profit/loss $ (0.03) $ 0.25150 net profit/loss $ (0.28150)

tax rate 0.25%

Actually, not really, because I still have to pay commissions and ecn fees as well as the tax, so instead of losing $.03, I lose $.28, or a 900% increase in losses, for my father and nephew also. So, you’ll cut my income by a minimum of 67%. Thank you.
As you can see, what before the tax would be a good trade, actually becomes unprofitable at this share price level. What makes it more difficult: whereas the commission and ecn fees are fixed, the tax would be a variable amount as a percentage of the security price, which would further increase the burden of calculating profitable entries and exits on trades (actually, it would make it almost impossible in the short time frames in which I work), which is a benefit to the Wall Street firms that want to control our money.
So, you want to increase the tax by 67% on profitable trades, and make previously break-even trades incredibly unprofitable. You’ll kill me financially, not to mention, make it much more difficult if not impossible to trade in general. Now there is some talk about limiting the tax to transactions over $100,000. I would need to produce a near 100% return on these transaction limits as opposed to the 30% on my account, and since you probably wouldn’t index the amount for that fake inflation rate in government statistics, the burden would only grow. You’re killing me again. And again, at almost 50 years old, what am I supposed to do next when my own government puts me out of business.
It’s so strange…the tax act of 1986 wiped out my parents, now you want to wipe out the next generation too. It’s like a bad movie.

A trader tax will bring our markets to disaster.. Those who impose any such levy on the capital markets should be jailed for such recklessness -- Its amazing how much Congress is willing to do to ruin this country.

United States of Moral Hazard ad infinitum

• The 23 year old illegal alien driving the new Lincoln Navigator with brand new 22’s “owns” a condominium and small ranch on the other side of town, he has two children. Unmarried. He’s a dishwasher at a local nationally franchised American eatery, quality one notch north of McDonalds. He is not independently wealthy. He is not a crack dealer. He’s not renting the condo.

• The taxpayer backstopped Ivy League forged banker who makes four times the top neurosurgeons pay sans bonus sits atop a war chest of liquidity sizeable enough to re-develop seven nations into replicas of his favorite childhood toys.

• The duly elected politician pounds the podium promising millions of “disenfranchised” citizenry new freebies like healthcare, retirement, their own American Dreams and prosperity. All without a nanosecond of thought on where said programs will derive their revenue.

• The 3rd generation welfare recipient and her five children sit quietly in their free housing watching free cable, using free power, eating free food after getting back from free education and free healthcare stops in her free transportation.

• The taxpayer subsidized board of domestic auto company who sells 20 year old technology ponders why foreign auto makers of former nuclear bomb recipients still can sell better cars for less money.

• The general looks at his logistics train that requires googleplex size computers to manage toilet paper distribution and drags the mouse from the factory to the tent in the desert and clicks the radio button.

All of the above are demonstrable unsustainable systems using any reference to both historic precedent and universal laws of nature. However they will remain ‘sustainable’ provided the net number of individuals that ‘believe’ they are sustainable outnumbers those who do not.

The United States of Moral Hazard ad infinitum.

Alas, we have constructed an unsustainable organized religion rather than tangible reality. The first law of said religion is “Thou shall no longer believe in failure”.

Therefore,

I argue before the house that the transaction tax is harmful. Casting a Yea vote. It promotes the religion. It feeds it, it coddles it’s believers into additional short term fantasies that actually do have endings.

Much like an orgy, an acid trip, planets, galaxies and our survival rate.

finem respice indeed.

Excelsior Marla

Apparently, to many people the "benefit" of this tax is to destroy HFT. Here are some relevant facts on the impact of HFT. According to Elkins McSherry, which specializes in trade cost analysis for institutions and publishes an annual survey in Institutional Investor found that transaction costs (commissions, fees, and market impact) have plummeted in the HFT era - over the last 8-10 years. Overall, they have dropped 35% and dropped the most in markets that have the highest HFT prevalence (50-60% in us equities) and the least in markets that have the least HFT prevalence (~10% in asian equities, where HFT only represents 5-10% of volume).

Alrighty then, you have convinced me. No Transaction Tax. So can we compromise with a bounty on Goldman and their spawn ?

After the Transaction Tax becomes law, it will be slowly "adjusted" upward every year. The small tax being proposed now is nothing, compared to the massive size that it will eventually become. 15 or 20 years down the road, it will be a Trillion Dollar yearly taking. By then, of course, most trading will simply have moved to foreign lands -- other nations would LOVE to have 50% of the US Financial Exchanges volume moved to their jurisdiction.

Krugman ?

Read the fact sheet on Krugman via wiki.

Has never held a real job.

Offers no evidence of buying or selling securties experience.

Was an advisor to Enron.

Was in support of Greenspan low rate policies.

More importantly, there are several political, tabloid, do anything to get eyeballs and votes types mouthing off as to what their opinions are as they have the podium.

Krugman has to keep writing something that people will read.

An academic ?

Nope, now a hybrid media academic.

This is like asking someone how to build a house that has never built one.

How sensible is this ?

"Shrinking a "Bloated" Financial Sector

This is the view of Paul Krugman, and in the interest of the respectful use of the House's valuable time, I suspect that this alone is sufficient rebuttal."

Really? Seriously? The colossal growth of the financial sector over 20+ years is No Problem, /because Paul Krugman said it is a problem/? Is the intimately linked explosion of the debt-to-GDP ratio therefore not a problem either? Even though Krugman now says it's not a problem, which presumably means it now is a problem? ZH is obviously taking the Oxford Union theme a lot more seriously than I expected if it's resorting to debating-school rhetorical gimmicks like this.

I would be put out of business with this tax along with 1000's of others who trade for a living. My tax bill last year would be over $750,000. I am an independent trader with no connection to HFT or any other boogie man you guys dig up. This tax would ruin 1000's of short and mid time frame traders just like me.

For those of you who think we do not provide value consider this:

I feed a family of 4 and keep a roof over their heads.
I pay mid 5 figures in taxes annually sometimes 6 figures.
The vast majority of my transactions are liquidity providing not taking.
I spend money in my small town stores, donate to charity.

For those of you who demonize short term trading or label it gambling consider this as well: I have not had a losing month in over 3 years. How have well have the non "gamblers" out there done?

The Tobin Tax would not have prevented the current economic crisis.

http://thefreemarketeers.wordpress.com/2009/11/24/why-tobin-taxes-wouldn...

So then what would be its purpose ?

To make sure the populists get a temporary placebo ?

Seems to me the last "fruitpicker" placebo was Obama.

And how is THAT turning out for the fruitpickers ?

By the way "Krugman" was an Enron advisor and has never had any real business experience. Review wiki on Krugman.

And Brown ? Just trying to hold on to the populist fruitpicker votes. There are lots of them.

Just as there are many populist fruitpicker pitchfork carriers on ZH.

Or better yet has a head that has an axe to grind of a different nature, different issue, and is becoming more of a populist tabloid.

Yah, like any tax is GOOD? Please, this is a wolf in sheep's clothing. It an act of punishment by the self-rightous. It raises the cost to the wrong people and effects non a jot of the issue. It is a regressive tax like the sales tax. You want to drive more business over seas? You have it all wrong.

In theory, the tax is a good idea.  However, I can't help but feel squeamish when governments attempt to legislate through the tax code.  Reminds me too much of sin taxes, ie cigarettes and alcohol.  Like how they originally made marijuana illegal by taxing it, then refusing to circulate tax stamps.  Yet somehow the largest SUV's qualified for tax breaks as "industrial or agricultural vehicles."

Aren't Federal taxes unconstitutional to begin with?  We know the institutions will find a way around the tax, and the small time trader will get the bill.  I vote Yea. 

"I would ask this House to consider the value of liquidity, of well arbitraged markets..."

Were you intentionally trying to be funny? Have you been asleep the past year? The past fifteen years?

As for the Wall Street gang taking their act to another country -- let me help them pack! I look forward to a future where the financial industry is outsourced and Americans can get honest trades at honest prices.

Check out a lengthy argument in favor of a transactions tax here:
http://www.riskoverreward.com/2009/11/in-support-of-tobin-tax-vega.html

This is like a politician who has never been in the car business thinks that he should be the populist driven car czar.

Any possible legislation that has the appearance of getting back at WS will amass ignorant populist fruitpicker votes.

And since there are more fruitpickers than engineers, the fruitpickers make a lot of noise.

But at the end of the day, efficiency wins, even though it may not be on US soil.

The coming increases in US taxes and the fact that there are more and more fruitpickers piling into the US will move the exchanges to a lower tax regime by default.

Securities are homogenous, and exchanges are just software and can be located anywhere.

The move will have a very simple reason, efficiency.

What firm will pay 50 cents to produce a 100 cents, when they can relocate their computers and pay 10 cents for every 100 cents ?

Hats off for the fruitpickers turning the US into another GIANT HAITI. Obviously I did not think this could happen, but with the type of populist thinking that is prevalent, including that in ZH, who knows.

The Tobin tax is nothing compared to the overall tax increases that are going to happen in the US with or without the Tobin tax.

It's already a done deal.

Just a matter of time, and this is in 36 months, not 10-20 years.

- Break up the TBTF's to stop taxpayer funded "risk taking".
- reform exchanges to limit the actions of predatory and parasitical HFT.

These are the real issues. Transaction tax could be good or bad depending how it is implemented and what it is for. I personally have very little faith in governments so I would doubt they would put it to good use.

Marla, I must say some of your arguments are pretty poor. Traders moving to Switzerland? I strongly doubt that any political entity would implement such laws unilaterally. The only way that such a system could ever become manifest is if it were to be implemented centrally at exchanges and therefore virtually impossible to circumvent.

Philosophically, naively, a "Nay"
Cynically, realistically, a "Yay"

It's clear that the only reason this is a popular idea is because it's seen as a way to punish Goldman & company.

I've got a better idea. Legislate a new holiday, Mayhem Day. And legislate that on Mayhem Day there is a federally sanctioned 'Anarchy Zone' in the Financial District of lower Manhattan. From 9:30 to 4:00, it's fair game for 'ordinary citizens' but landowners/leaseholders/employees-thereof are subject to arrest.

. . . Or you could just call it Reverse Day.

I hate to say "Nay" but anything which will help shut this gov controlled market down is a benefit in the long run. The little actual tax collected will be an annoyance only.

I would prefer to see the market itself shut itself down but don't think this is happening as quickly as is needed. But gold is shuting down the banks, or will soon which is good.

This "tax" will be like throwing a monkey wrench into the gears of the gov's growing perpetual money printing machine: Rube Goldberg style constructed on-the-fly which fails at every new part and most of all - IS NOT EVEN FUNNY.

How about phrasing the friggin question in a coherent manner?

"Yea / Nay" is confusing.

"True / False" is better.

You need to make clear that it's the question "more harm than good" whic they are agreeing to, not the tax.

ZH is getting to friggin esoteric in it's use of language.

Tone it down you wankers - you are starting to sound like effete intellectual snobs!