As one who played the derivatives game from 1968-1991, the last 8 years
specializing in currencies (but incl commodities, debt, and equities), I
see Soros' point. But Pete's argument is correct. If the authorities want
to tax all speculative financial transactions, they could do a pretty good
job of doing so - in the major financial centers at least.
But why limit it to currencies & their derivatives? I can demonstrate how
debt, equity, and commodity trading abet system throughput (energy &
resource usage and pollution/waste generation-both in finite overloaded
system) to a far greater extent than zero sum game of currencies.
Why not tax(TT type) all financial/capital transactions (not just the
profits, which are supposed to be taxed as income/capital gains in US
anyway)? Likely objections will come from AARP (Amer Assoc of Retired
Persons) as well as all financial institutions & all who invest. Tough
political road in US(& UK, Germany, Japan...) at present.
Steve
Pete:
> The first obvious question which occurs, is if Soros was initially in
> favour of the Tobin tax but discounted it as likely to be ineffective,
> does he then have a better idea? I would suggest that by comparison
> with our current vacuum of regulation, even a partially effective
> measure would be a substantial improvement, in part as a result of the
> message it sends. Furthermore, if the proposed regime was seen to
> have substantial loopholes, those could be plugged by ancilliary
> measures, which could be wrapped into the initial impementation.
> One of the prerequisites of a Tt system would seem to be the
> establishment of an international coordinating agency to aid in
> its administration. Once that is in place, it would seem to me to
> provide an adequate mechanism for monitoring breaches of the spirit
> of the regime, and allowing modifications of the system to thwart them.
>
>
