Financial Transaction Tax

[BMT (RIP)]

BOHICA!!

You get $500.00 from your ATM and will be charged a $5.00 Financial Transaction Tax!!

No link to the story yet, I heard about it on Fox.

BMT

[Pete]

"Racial, Gender Quotas in the Financial Bill?"

http://www.realclearmarkets.com/arti...tor_98562.html

".........In addition to this bill's well-publicized plans to establish over a dozen new financial regulatory offices, Section 342 sets up at least 20 Offices of Minority and Women Inclusion. This has had no coverage by the news media and has large implications................"

[nmap]

More details: LINK

Excerpt:

One idea for raising taxes to pay down the debt is the bill introduced this February by Rep. Chaka Fattah (D-Pa.). His “Debt Free America Act” (H.R. 4646) would impose a 1 percent “transaction tax” on every financial transaction — whether paid by cash, credit card or any form of financial transfer, the only exception being transactions involving the purchase or sale of stock. Theoretically, everyone would pay one cent on the dollar for every such transaction in America every day — whether $3 million on a $300 million business acquisition, $300 on the purchase of a $30,000 car, or $5 on a $500 ATM withdrawal.

[Snaquebite]

and to think for years they argued back and forth about exorborant bank fees....

so it's wrong for banks to make money but Big gubment can just take what they want.

[LibraryLady]

Wow. Just wow.

That means I'm not going to spend any money, I'll just leave it in the bank. Of course it's deposited in a ridiculously minute interest bearing account.

It's not going to be put back out into the economy, thereby helping to stimulate said economy, thereby creating new jobs and pulling out of this recession.

I don't know what/how this thing should be resolved, but I sure can tell ya, from my standpoint, this sounds really, really, really asinine.

LL

[The Reaper]

Originally Posted by LibraryLady

Wow. Just wow.

That means I'm not going to spend any money, I'll just leave it in the bank. Of course it's deposited in a ridiculously minute interest bearing account.

It's not going to be put back out into the economy, thereby helping to stimulate said economy, thereby creating new jobs and pulling out of this recession.

I don't know what/how this thing should be resolved, but I sure can tell ya, from my standpoint, this sounds really, really, really asinine.

LL

Exactly.

That demonstrates the stupidity of some of our elected officials.

And how do they get elected?

TR

[Sigaba]

Minority and Women Inclusion.

FWIW, The Economist has been covering the issue of quotas in the private and politics. The newspaper offered its opinion on former last winter. Source is here.

Schumpeter
Skirting the issue

Imposing quotas for women in boardrooms tackles a symptom of discrimination, not the cause

Mar 11th 2010

IF YOU are a youngish man who sits on a European corporate board, you should worry: the chances are that your chairman wants to give your seat to a woman. In January the lower house of France’s parliament approved a new law which would force companies to lift the proportion of women on their boards to 40% by 2016. The law would oblige France’s 40 biggest listed firms to put women into 169 seats currently occupied by men. Spain has also introduced a quota at 40%, to be reached by 2015. Italy and the Netherlands are contemplating similar measures. This week Britain’s government threatened to make companies report formally on their recruitment of female directors.

Compared with America, where women held 15% of board seats at Fortune 500 companies in 2009 according to Catalyst, a lobbying organisation, European countries have relatively few female board members. Britain is not too far behind at 12%, according to a survey of Europe’s 300 biggest firms by the European Professional Women’s Network (EPWN). Spain, Italy, France and Germany, however, all lag behind the European average of 10%.

The exception is Scandinavia, and in particular, Norway, where quotas for women on boards originated. In 2005 the government gave listed firms two years to put women in 40% of board seats on pain of liquidation. Businessmen howled. Riulf Rustad, a professional investor with stakes in several Norwegian companies, said 70% of the new recruits would fail. In fact, there have been no obvious disasters. But a close look at Norway nonetheless suggests that imposing high gender quotas with tight deadlines can be bad for companies.

The Norwegian government was interested in social justice; it made no claims that putting women on boards would improve corporate performance or governance. Finding qualified women in a country where only 9% of board seats were held by women in 2003 and the vast majority of senior corporate jobs are filled by men proved challenging. According to a study by the University of Michigan, Norwegian firms have lost lots of boardroom experience: the new, younger women directors have spent less time running companies on average, are less likely to sit on other boards and are more likely to come from middle management.

DNO International, a Norwegian oil firm, appointed two new female directors in 2007. The three men on DNO’s board have a combined 66 years of experience in the oil business, but the new women directors have none; instead they have backgrounds in accounting and human resources. Schibsted, an international media group based in Oslo, selected all three of its new female directors from Sweden, one of its main markets. “If we hadn’t had the Swedish pool to draw from, the law would have been far more difficult for us,” says a senior executive at the firm.

The usual arguments for adding women directors are that diverse boards are more creative and innovative, less inclined to “groupthink” and likely to be more independent from senior management. Numerous studies show that high proportions of women directors coincide with superior corporate performance. But there is little academically accepted evidence of a causal relationship. It may be that thriving firms allow themselves the luxury of attending to social issues such as board diversity, whereas poorly performing ones batten down the hatches.

Women do seem to be particularly effective board members at companies where things are going wrong. A 2008 paper on the impact of female directors by Renée Adams and Daniel Ferreira of the University of Queensland and the London School of Economics found that bosses of American firms whose shares perform poorly are more likely to be fired if the firm has a relatively high number of women directors. On average, however, the paper concluded that firms perform worse as the proportion of women on the board increases. There is certainly no shortage of companies capable of producing stellar results with few or no women on the board. LVMH, a successful French luxury-goods group whose customers are mostly women, has had just one female director over the past ten years: Delphine Arnault, daughter of the firm’s chief executive and controlling shareholder.

Nor is there any doubt that in many cases low female representation also reflects a broader lack of meritocracy in corporate culture. In France, for instance, interlocking board memberships are common. Women, and many other deserving businesspeople, are excluded from the system. Emma Marcegaglia, head of Confindustria, Italy’s main business lobby, says the dearth of women on boards and in management mainly reflects a controlling male elite at the top of business, the members of which have hardly changed for the past 30 years. (Silvio Berlusconi, Italy’s prime minister and a prominent tycoon, last year referred to Ms Marcegaglia as a “velina” or showgirl.)


Core mission

But what most prevents women from reaching the boardroom, say bosses and headhunters, is lack of hands-on experience of a firm’s core business. Too many women go into functional roles such as accounting, marketing or human resources early in their careers rather than staying in the mainstream, driving profits. Some do so by choice, but others fear they will not get ahead in more chauvinist parts of a business. Getting men to show up at every board meeting—another effect of having more women on boards—is all very well, but what firms really need is savvy business advice. Yet according to EPWN, the pipeline of female executives is “almost empty”: women occupy only 3% of executive roles on boards, compared with 12% of non-executive ones.

That suggests that the best way to increase the number of women on boards is to ensure that more women gain the right experience further down the corporate hierarchy. That may be a slower process than imposing a quota, but it is also likely to be a more meaningful and effective one.

From posts on this BB and PMs exchanged with one person in particular, I understand that many of you have suffered unfairly from quota schemes. Clearly, using quota-based policies today to address the inequities of yesterday raises (at least) as many problems as it solves.

Yet if we do not find ways to expand opportunities for self-empowerment and the perception of inclusion among those who feel disenfranchised, visions of 'quotas' will continue to have political traction.

[Sten]

Do you think there will be an exemption for cash withdrawn at casinos ?

[Sigaba]

Originally Posted by Sten

Do you think there will be an exemption for cash withdrawn at casinos ?

Or political contributions to Democratic candidates made by citizens from states with high unemployment rates?

[nmap]

Originally Posted by Sigaba

Or political contributions to Democratic candidates made by citizens from states with high unemployment rates?

Since stock transactions are exempted, I would think the purchase and sale of time-share units in politicians would, likewise, be exempted.

[rdret1]

Putting a "Minority and Women Inclusion Office" in every department? Is the next thing a "Political Officer" with each military unit?

I think any question of race or sex needs to be removed from all government applications of any kind. Approval or disapproval needs to be determined by information relevant to the application. Are you looking for a financial officer? Does the application include prior work history, education and experience for the person to accomplish the job in a competent manner. The same goes for any other job position, contractor position, etc.

We will never get over the race/gender problem until we stop focusing on it, and focus on what people are capable of. I believe this is one of those self perpetuating issues.

And why is the only solution to anything that a dem can think of, is to tax something? Tax financial transactions, tax tanning, tax our incomes, residences, property, food, fuel, savings, deaths and on and on and on. It wouldn't surprise me to have a breathing tax some day.

[Richard]

http://video.foxnews.com/v/4275754/t...ylist_id=86858

And so it goes...

Richard

[Sigaba]

Originally Posted by rdret1

Are you looking for a financial officer? Does the application include prior work history, education and experience for the person to accomplish the job in a competent manner.

How does one define "competence" in areas of expertise where performance cannot be reduced to a single metric? Does a metric-based system of evaluation really serve the long term interests of a corporation? What about 'intangibles' that defy quantification?

While working at what was a premier consultancy, I had a boss, known to some in the company as Dr. Disco.* It is unlikely that she'd have gotten hired if the Powers That Be at corporate had adhered to their button down collar/bottom line way of thinking. (This same mentality sent them into a panic in 2006 and has put the future of a storied company into doubt and caused a great deal of scuttlebutt throughout an entire industry.)

She was a money making machine that would run through walls for her team (and then drink everyone under the table when someone would start making martinis in the break room in the late afternoon). When it was her turn to put a team together, she also thought outside the box by bringing non-traditional types into the fold.

Our diversity was crucial to our success on major projects. Our range of experiences allowed us to relate to our clients and their concerns in ways other teams at corporate and other regional offices could not.

Yes, this is just a story about one person. But Doc Disco represents what I have in mind when I envision diverse hiring practices.

YMMV.

_________________________________
* The person in question earned her doctorate in American Studies with her dissertation on disco music.

[Paslode]

Originally Posted by rdret1

Putting a "Minority and Women Inclusion Office" in every department? Is the next thing a "Political Officer" with each military unit?

I think any question of race or sex needs to be removed from all government applications of any kind. Approval or disapproval needs to be determined by information relevant to the application. Are you looking for a financial officer? Does the application include prior work history, education and experience for the person to accomplish the job in a competent manner. The same goes for any other job position, contractor position, etc.

We will never get over the race/gender problem until we stop focusing on it, and focus on what people are capable of. I believe this is one of those self perpetuating issues.

And why is the only solution to anything that a dem can think of, is to tax something? Tax financial transactions, tax tanning, tax our incomes, residences, property, food, fuel, savings, deaths and on and on and on. It wouldn't surprise me to have a breathing tax some day.

To glimpse the fruits of employment focused on Race and Gender, just visit Kansas City, Missouri sometime. Boy-O-Boy, if everything is run in that fashion we might as well close shop and sell the entire lock, stock and barrel to the Chinese.

[Sigaba]

Originally Posted by Paslode

To glimpse the fruits of employment focused on Race and Gender, just visit Kansas City, Missouri sometime. Boy-O-Boy, if everything is run in that fashion we might as well close shop and sell the entire lock, stock and barrel to the Chinks.

Unbelievable.