There are no economies of scale after $100billion

[Cees Binkhorst]

REPLY TO: D66 at nic.surfnet.nl

Een van de commentaren vermeldt 'There are no economies of scale after
$100billion'

Dit is in het geval van GS dus niet waar, alhoewel ook zij wel een
bovengrens zullen hebben. Zij maakten vorig jaar met een investering
(VaR = Value at Risk) tussen $285 en $155 miljoen zo'n $26,5 miljard
bruto winst (zie mijn mail van 11mrt10).

Oh, wacht: dat is natuurlijk nog minder dan 1/350e van die '$100 billion'

Groet / Cees

April 23, 2010
Op-Ed Columnist
Don’t Cry for Wall Street
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/23/opinion/23krugman.html
By PAUL KRUGMAN

On Thursday, President Obama went to Manhattan, where he urged an
audience drawn largely from Wall Street to back financial reform. “I
believe,” he declared, “that these reforms are, in the end, not only in
the best interest of our country, but in the best interest of the
financial sector.”

Well, I wish he hadn’t said that — and not just because he really needs,
as a political matter, to take a populist stance, to put some public
distance between himself and the bankers. The fact is that Mr. Obama
should be trying to do what’s right for the country — full stop. If
doing so hurts the bankers, that’s O.K.

More than that, reform actually should hurt the bankers. A growing body
of analysis suggests that an oversized financial industry is hurting the
broader economy. Shrinking that oversized industry won’t make Wall
Street happy, but what’s bad for Wall Street would be good for America.

Now, the reforms currently on the table — which I support — might end up
being good for the financial industry as well as for the rest of us. But
that’s because they only deal with part of the problem: they would make
finance safer, but they might not make it smaller.

What’s the matter with finance? Start with the fact that the modern
financial industry generates huge profits and paychecks, yet delivers
few tangible benefits.

Remember the 1987 movie “Wall Street,” in which Gordon Gekko declared:
Greed is good? By today’s standards, Gekko was a piker. In the years
leading up to the 2008 crisis, the financial industry accounted for a
third of total domestic profits — about twice its share two decades earlier.

These profits were justified, we were told, because the industry was
doing great things for the economy. It was channeling capital to
productive uses; it was spreading risk; it was enhancing financial
stability. None of those were true. Capital was channeled not to
job-creating innovators, but into an unsustainable housing bubble; risk
was concentrated, not spread; and when the housing bubble burst, the
supposedly stable financial system imploded, with the worst global slump
since the Great Depression as collateral damage.

So why were bankers raking it in? My take, reflecting the efforts of
financial economists to make sense of the catastrophe, is that it was
mainly about gambling with other people’s money. The financial industry
took big, risky bets with borrowed funds — bets that paid high returns
until they went bad — but was able to borrow cheaply because investors
didn’t understand how fragile the industry was.

And what about the much-touted benefits of financial innovation? I’m
with the economists Andrei Shleifer and Robert Vishny, who argue in a
recent paper that a lot of that innovation was about creating the
illusion of safety, providing investors with “false substitutes” for
old-fashioned assets like bank deposits. Eventually the illusion failed
— and the result was a disastrous financial crisis.

In his Thursday speech, by the way, Mr. Obama insisted — twice — that
financial reform won’t stifle innovation. Too bad.

And here’s the thing: after taking a big hit in the immediate aftermath
of the crisis, financial-industry profits are soaring again. It seems
all too likely that the industry will soon go back to playing the same
games that got us into this mess in the first place.

So what should be done? As I said, I support the reform proposals of the
Obama administration and its Congressional allies. Among other things,
it would be a shame to see the antireform campaign by Republican leaders
— a campaign marked by breathtaking dishonesty and hypocrisy — succeed.

But these reforms should be only the first step. We also need to cut
finance down to size.

And it’s not just critical outsiders saying this (not that there’s
anything wrong with critical outsiders, who have been much more right
than supposedly knowledgeable insiders; see Greenspan, Alan). An
intriguing proposal is about to be unveiled from, of all places, the
International Monetary Fund. In a leaked paper prepared for a meeting
this weekend, the fund calls for a Financial Activity Tax — yes, FAT —
levied on financial-industry profits and remuneration.

Such a tax, the fund argues, could “mitigate excessive risk-taking.” It
could also “tend to reduce the size of the financial sector,” which the
fund presents as a good thing.

Now, the I.M.F. proposal is actually quite mild. Nonetheless, if it
moves toward reality, Wall Street will howl.

But the fact is that we’ve been devoting far too large a share of our
wealth, far too much of the nation’s talent, to the business of devising
and peddling complex financial schemes — schemes that have a tendency to
blow up the economy. Ending this state of affairs will hurt the
financial industry. So?

3. Ruskin Buffalo, NY April 22nd, 2010 11:49 pm
"What’s the matter with finance? Start with the fact that the modern
financial industry generates huge profits and paychecks, yet delivers
few tangible benefits."

Call me old-fashioned if you like, but I am sure as sure can be that the
97% of the American people who are not in the "financial services"
sector/industry/racket do expect, and will always expect, that work
entails creating something that is tangibly beneficial to society - to
the Common Wealth. Whether that work actually makes some artifact or
other (a car, a computer, a widget) or provides a service (education,
dry-cleaning, pulling teeth) our culture has taught us that money should
be made from things that deliver tangible benefits. But the other 3% are
getting obscenely rich by moving around (much of the time in virtual
reality media) pieces of paper which, in and of themselves, are WORTHLESS.

We MUST rebel against a development which makes the successful players
lead lives that are - by any historic standard - empty, parasitic and
ultimately as worthless as the paper-exchange on which their success is
based.

Wake up Americans. Grab your pitch-forks!
  Recommend  Recommended by 700 Readers

4. Dim Texas April 22nd, 2010 11:49 pm
One would think that the Democrats could easily ride this wave of anger
directed toward Wall Street, but seems they are having hard time gaining
traction. Best case scenarios for them are: (1) some Republicans get
onboard and reasonably strong package is passed in a feel-good moment of
bipartisanship, or (2) Republicans resist reform, dig themselves deeper
and deeper into a hole and make themselves look bad.

However, slippery Republicans are playing a good game right now avoiding
either of these scenarios, and Democrats should think it through not to
repeat the fate of healthcare debate. Republicans will keep blocking
reform in the Senate, pretend to share public anger toward Wall Street,
make cynical and deceptive statements about Democrat's proposals a la
"death panels", try to dilute the bill, chop a few legs in the name of
bipartisanship and try to make the final product look as ugly as
possible. If Democrats bite this "Grassley bate", they will waste the
energy of the anger wave and end up with a lukewarm compromised bill,
definitely not a feel-good moment and probably zero or negative
political gain.

To avoid this, the Democrats should call Republican bluff and let them
filibuster a good bill, and then add pressure by making the bill tougher
and tougher on Wall Street, thus making it better and better. Democrats,
stop dancing with Republicans. Build your strategy around one
unchangeable reality - Wall Street's arrogant insulting unapologetic
behaviour, those mind boggling bonuses after being bailed out by the
rest of the country, will not be forgotten anytime soon.
  Recommend  Recommended by 561 Readers

7. David SF April 22nd, 2010 11:49 pm
“The fact is that Mr. Obama should be trying to do what’s right for the
country — full stop. If doing so hurts the bankers, that’s O.K.”

+++++++

Hooray! And thank you, Dr. Krugman, for that. I only wish that the same
had been said during the health care debate: “If doing so hurts the
health insurance and pharmaceutical companies, that’s O.K.”

But let us get back to financial reform. As Robert Reich recently
stressed, there are no economies of scale after $100billion, so the size
of the firms should be capped about there. A totally independent
consumer protection agency is a must: none of this putting it in the
Federal Reserve. While we are here, why is it that no other central bank
in the world is privately run except the “venerable” Federal Reserve?
Let us make it non-private!! Re-institution of the Glass-Steagall act is
absolutely necessary. There is no reason for depositary institutions to
be visiting gambling parlors with our money in their pockets.

Since we did not get the public option in the healthcare, why not have
it in banking? North Dakota escaped much of the recession because they
had the foresight, eons ago, to have a state-run bank as competition to
the private financial institutions.

Financial Transactions Tax? Oh, yes! I am happy to pay it every time I
buy or sell any securities. I daresay that 99.9% of us will be happy to
do it instead of shouldering trillion dollar bailouts.

These banksters are like three-year-olds who are used to having their
way in a candy store without adult supervision. Sensible financial
reforms will result in violent tantrums, infantile howling, and petulant
foot-stamping from these still unindicted criminals. But that’s O.K.
  Recommend  Recommended by 439 Readers
Report as Inappropriate
10.
Bill Pieper
Taiwan
April 22nd, 2010
11:49 pm
"Shrinking that oversized industry won’t make Wall Street happy, but
what’s bad for Wall Street would be good for America."

Why is it that this is self-evident everywhere to nearly everyone
outside Washington DC and Wall Street but still our political "leaders"
continually fail to hear the angry protestations of the voters? Sadly, I
think we all know the answer to this question.

If there is one issue most likely to solidly unite the angry right and
left, it is this. The people most responsible for bringing about the
biggest financial disaster since the Great Depression have thrived while
millions suffer and have their lives destroyed. Meanwhile, people who
actually create value, engineers, teachers, assembly line workers, watch
as their pensions and life savings are transferred to con men in Brooks
Brothers suits. Men who praise the holy principles of "free markets",
doing "God's work" as their firms are bailed out by taxpayers yet to be
born - born to the unwashed working masses no doubt for they are the
fools who actually pay taxes. Accountability? Justice? Eh, not so much.

If the politicians can't dismantle the Wall Street oligarchy then the
citizens must. The very least we can do is not bank or invest with the
big players (Simon Johnson's "13 Bankers"). It might have little actual
impact on the oligarchy, but at least you can know you are not helping them.

A FAT tax absolutely. But also break up the Wall Street oligarchy so
they can no longer hold the economy hostage.

"All truth passes through three stages. First, is it ridiculed. Second,
it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident."
Arnold Schopenhauer
  Recommend  Recommended by 303 Readers

14. Marie Burns Fort Myers, Florida April 22nd, 2010 11:49 pm
The news over the past 48 hours has been that President Obama agreed
that instituting a VAT (valued-added tax) remained one of the proposals
that was "on the table" as a way to reduce the deficit. Well, it would
be, wouldn't it, since the VAT is essentially a regressive tax -- poorer
people would necessarily pay a larger percentage of their incomes to the
VAT than would richer people.

The FAT tax, on the other hand, sounds GREAT! One downside: the billions
of dollars that will be transferred from financial institutions to the
campaign chests of sleazy politicians in exchange for their promise to
parrot canned talking points on why the FAT tax would be disastrous for
the economy. "The issue now," as Sen. Bernie Sanders said, "is not
whether Congress will regulate Wall Street but whether Wall Street will
continue to regulate Congress."

Dwight Eisenhower warned of the miltary-industrial complex. He could not
have foreseen that a half-century hence American industry would be
barely surviving on life-support & the new danger would be the
military-financial complex. If we want to get back to the good old days
of Ike's concerns, we will have to incentivize financial institutions to
do more for industry & less for themselves. The FAT tax is one avenue to
achieving that goal.

The Constant Weader at www.RealityChex.com
  Recommend  Recommended by 266 Readers

16. akhilleus Bowling Green, KY April 22nd, 2010 11:49 pm
Professor Krugman is being polite when he terms what Wall Street Kings
have been peddling as "complicated financial schemes" although the
'schemes' part is pretty accurate.

In much of the coverage of the disgusting manipulation passing as
business as usual on Wall Street, what snake oil salesmen like Goldman
Sachs have been foisting on the public are often referred to as
products--financial products. The use of the word products suggests
something useful, something imbued with constructive qualities. Nothing
could be less accurate. Credit default swaps, derivatives, complicated
trading machinations, are nothing but scams. Bets made by bookies. There
is no "product" nothing but an opportunity for scam artists to bilk
hapless investors and run off with their money. These weasels don' make
anything, don't contribute to the welfare of the country or improve the
common good. In fairness, nothing says that pure capitalism has such
responsibilities, but at least classical capitalism has the benefit of
having such qualities as side benefits.

This is robbery pure and simple.

Let's not sugar coat it anymore. Republican apologists for such
chicanery say that if you wander into a casino, you deserve to be taken.
Fair enough. But you don't expect that the house is going to rig every
game you play. And that's what we're talking about here. Thievery. Scams.

No products. Just a way to pick your pockets and then blame you for
being stupid.

But hey, at least that's something to which Republicans can finally say
"YES"!!
  Recommend  Recommended by 264 Readers

20. MNW Connecticut April 22nd, 2010 11:50 pm
The quickest and easiest solution is a return to a strongly progressive
tax system with a top rate of at least 70%, which is what it was before
Reagan was elected. The top rate was 90% during the Eisenhower
administration. We had a viable middle class then and the difference in
wealth between the top and the bottom was not as wide as it is today.

The incentive for wealth accumulation should be reduced through taxation
- attack greed and make it unprofitable. Hit them were it hurts, namely
the pocketbook. Enough is enough.

In the United States, wealth is highly concentrated in a relatively few
hands. As of 2007, the top 1% of households (the upper class) owned
34.6% of all privately held wealth, and the next 19% (the managerial,
professional, and small business stratum) had 50.5%, which means that
just 20% of the people owned a remarkable 85%, leaving only 15% of the
wealth for the bottom 80% (wage and salary workers). In terms of
financial wealth (total net worth minus the value of one's home), the
top 1% of households had an even greater share: 42.7%.

Note the following:

http://blogs.wsj.com...

http://www.ibtimes.com...

http://www.cbpp.org...

http://sociology.ucsc.edu...

Again, the top 1% has 34.6% of the wealth. The next 19% has 50.5%.
Therefore 20% has 85% of the wealth.
(To forestall any criticism, let it be known that I fall somewhere in
that 20%. So I make these observations based solely on fairness and a
sense of responsibility toward the country of which I am a citizen.
There is a need for economic justice, after all. Taxes are the price we
pay for a civilized society and the effectiveness of the common good.)

The strength of our country is only as good as its structural strength.
The 20% deserves to have their taxes raised - they'll love it when they
get use to it and I rest my case.
  Recommend  Recommended by 216 Readers

9. Phil in the mountains of Kyushu Japan April 22nd, 2010 11:49 pm
Please keep at 'em.

Your voice seems now to be just getting going, or, if I may mix
metaphors, in stride.

But the corrupted, cynical, morally out-of-touch, greedheads who
graduated from all those biz schools and law schools, and then used
banking and finance to corrupt more politicians -- so they together
could milk the American economy -- they deserve much, much more
opprobrium than you even begin to venture today.

We're not talking just parasitic class. We're talking about a depraved
form of "humanity" that has the U.S. -- and by extension, the world --
in a death wish of greed. These corrupted must not only destroy
communities, they must also by their allied parallel efforts prop up the
worst dictators abroad, and create hatreds abroad, and demand more war,
more war -- before which Peace Prize O turns to putty -- saying as in
that Credence song, "how much more, more, more" -- which he just further
supports. The betrayals go on. Wars go on. The monied sicknesses go on.

So please, Paul Krugman, go on, too, yourself, in continuing focus on
this depraved, deadly, lunatic bunch that's taken control of the U.S.
  Recommend  Recommended by 208 Readers

1. Big Jake Tfoilland April 22nd, 2010 11:49 pm
Obama has to care about how this proposed legislation affects the
bankers, Paul. He, along with the rest of the Democratic leadership,
gets more more from the bankers than from any other source. Personally,
I don't think we will end up with any kind of real reform. People are
already aware of Obama's personal relationships with Lloyd Blankfein and
Robert Rubin, among others. This proposed legislation is more about
making people "feel good" than doing anything actually substantive, as
has been the case with most of what this administration and this
Congress has done.
  Recommend  Recommended by 177 Readers

2. Sally M Oregon April 22nd, 2010 11:49 pm
Democratic voters are too uneducated to realize that the Democrats work
for the bankers and not for them. Republican voters are too blind to
realize that the Democrats are tools of the bankers rather than
"socialists". These new laws and regulations will be meaningless, as
long as the politicans in charge are working for the financial kingpins.
  Recommend  Recommended by 163 Readers

19. Mark Wilmington, DE April 22nd, 2010 11:49 pm
"It seems all too likely that the industry will soon go back to playing
the same games that got us into this mess in the first place."

You're kidding, right? The games never stopped. The big Wall St. banks
were insolvent before the crisis, during the crisis and remain insolvent
today. Their balance sheets are pure works of fiction (fraud is actually
a more accurate term).

Washington is still 100% owned by the TBTF bankers and will remain so
until their "games" result in a much bigger and more economically
devastating crisis.
  Recommend  Recommended by 139 Readers

17. pvolkov Burlington, Ontario April 22nd, 2010 11:49 pm
Ah, Mr. Krugman: You've been dancing around the ring and now, your
gloves are tied on and you are ready to face the the competition.
I can see you in my minds eye in full boxing regalia and it is a
wonderful sight. My money is on you.
It helps to realize that we are dealing with gambling junkies on Wall
Street and that it is an addiction that responds to strong, forceful
intervention, and eventually complete removal from the source of attraction.
I listened closely to President Obama's speech tonight but something was
missing. It needed the stamp of authenticity with a statement announcing
that he was going to replace all of his financial advisors and
representatives with appropriate personnel who spoke and worked for Main
street. Until then, I am holding my breath.

  Recommend  Recommended by 124 Readers

25. Maria NY April 23rd, 2010 1:13 am
The financial industry certainly doesn't care if it hurts us. In some
cases they are willing to bet we will be hurt by something they peddle,
so they can make money when it does.
How do we rid ourselves of these predators?
  Recommend  Recommended by 118 Readers

8. Elwood Anderson Las Vegas NV April 22nd, 2010 11:49 pm
That was refreshing. It's nice to see you're starting to recognize that
Obama is more Wall Street than Main Street. Once again he parades
himself in front of the very people that are doing everything they can
to thwart his reforms. Why? Does he really think they are going to start
liking him? I thought he would have learned from having the drug and
health care industries into the White House for a seance that he wasn't
going to make friends and influence people. But, I guess he needs their
money to get reelected.
  Recommend  Recommended by 96 Readers

43. Timesperson lat 37 long121 April 23rd, 2010 1:13 am
Until we remove the power of the very wealthy from our policy making
bodies and channels of communication, we will be dominated by their
interests. Therefore, I suggest a simple agenda:

* Reinstate Glass Steagall.
* Fund elections with public money
* Pass a law that corporations are not "persons" with the same rights as
people.
* Reinstate the law that required balance on the public airwaves

Then let's have a debate about what policies we need. I think we'll find
we can do very well under those new conditions.
  Recommend  Recommended by 93 Readers

15. W in the Middle New York State April 22nd, 2010 11:49 pm
Paul, good column - but you omit the most fundamental thing.

All these bankers are making their living off money - most of which they
get from us - the US people.

It is almost as if we told doctors they could traffic in air - and
dispense or restrict its flow to people, as it suited their whims and
pocketbooks.

The dollar's standing as (for now) the world's global reserve currency
is (or should be) owned by us - the US people.

The banker's sourcing of virtually unlimited money at 0.25% - which they
more or less refuse to lend back to us - the US people - came from us -
the US people.

So did the banker's bailouts from six different directions - from TARP
to TALF to Freddie to Fannie, to a couple of idiot schemes that were
even worse, but didn't see the light of day.

Paul, the issue isn't whether derivatives need to exist.

It's whether most toolargetofail banks do, at least for the needs of us
- the US people.
  Recommend  Recommended by 92 Readers

24. Anna New York April 23rd, 2010 1:13 am
"The fact is that Mr. Obama should be trying to do what’s right for the
country — full stop. If doing so hurts the bankers, that’s O.K"
Oh, Paul. Bravo, bravo.
  Recommend  Recommended by 79 Readers

22. Charles MA April 23rd, 2010 1:13 am
Mr. Krugman, you're very right that what's best for the country isn't
necessarily what's best for Wall Street. In fact, they're usually very
different. Obama's conciliatory rhetoric nearly inverted the speeches on
big finance given by FDR, as if he wanted to consign the New Deal and
Glass-Steagall to the dustbin of history. But he's wrong. Not only must
the financial sector be shrunk, but all Too Big To Fail financial
institutions must be broken up into smaller components using
Glass-Steagall and other new approaces or it will only be a matter of
time until there are more big meltdowns and until America will truly be
ungovernable due to the steadily increasing political power of Wall
Street -- power which was not decreased by the president's speech, which
criticized Republicans more severely than Wall Street, as if the
president was basically asking Wall Street to favor the Dems over the GOP.

Mr. Krugman, please don't talk about passing the Dem reform bill first
and then "later" adding the fundamental reforms that are needed to truly
regulate and downsize Wall Street. There is another Dem bill right now
that will go far beyond the weak Obama-Dodd proposals: the "Safe Banking
Act" recently proposed by Sens. Sherrod Brown and Ted Kaufman. It would
put caps on leverage and would limit the size of banks. For example, it
does not allow a bank to hold more than 10% of the country's deposits,
and it imposes other limits. If passed, this bill would probably force
three megabanks to downsize right away, and it would help long-term in
breaking up the top six megabanks, which are so big they are oligopolies
striving to reach near-monoply size. Mr. Krugman, please urge that the
Brown-Kaufman bill get an up and down vote on the floor of the Senate.
It's likely that Dodd and the WH will try to kill this downsizing bill
behind the scenes, so pundits need to make the public aware that
tackling TBTF financial institutions is a real possibility right now,
not in some vague future that will only come after the next big meltdown.
  Recommend  Recommended by 79 Readers

23. calyban fairfax, california April 23rd, 2010 1:13 am
The only people crying for Wall Street are the Republicans, who are
fully engaged in a cynical campaign of disinformation and dishonesty.
They cry that the financial reform bill is about bailouts by taxpayers,
when in fact the fund established by the bill is for liquidation, not
bailing out, failing institutions and the fund is totally paid for by
the banks, not the taxpayers. They cry that the bill will harm dentists
who allow their patients to pay on time, when that is patently untrue.
Truly their lack of regard for facts or truth is breathtaking.
  Recommend  Recommended by 76 Readers

12. DARich LI April 22nd, 2010 11:49 pm
"Ending this state of affairs will hurt the financial industry. So?"

So what? Isn't that why it's called market discipline?
  Recommend  Recommended by 65 Readers

13. S. Carroll Victoria, BC April 22nd, 2010 11:49 pm
I think you are bang on Paul...however, isn't there an interesting case
to be made concerning the systemic pressures forcing capital into the
finance sector, particularly in speculation? Sometimes people write as
if the disproportionate emphasis on finance and the massive shift in
investment in speculative gambling was some sort of error in knowledge.
what about the thesis that the real economy is the core problem and the
flight to finance is a symptom? This leaves the intellectual defense of
specualtion as mere apologetics, rather than some sort of respectable
economic position. My concern is that we are ignoring the massive
problems with our global economic system; specifically the secular
trends of a profit squeeze in manufacturing.
  Recommend  Recommended by 57 Readers

28. Jon Jost Seoul, Korea April 23rd, 2010 1:13 am
The financial "service" industry has degenerated into a carefully
constructed computer guided kamikaze mechanism in which those at its
helm fly blindly into their own WTC. It is NOT good for the country to
have 2/3rds of the imaginary GDP consist of nano-second paper shuffling
in which FAT commissions are handed over to the makers of shady
soon-to-implode hot deals. It is NOT good for the country to have a
bunch of crooks - to put it in old fashioned un-PC lingo, (since
Shakespeare)shysters, taking everyone for a ride.
The only service Wall Street has done of late is 100% for the thin layer
of the populace who work there and who have skimmed off the country's
wealth in exchange for a vast con-game that has left the rest of us
minus everything. But they are happy. And they ought to be investigated,
brought to court, tried and convicted and imprisoned for they myriad
fraud perpetuated in the name of "innovation."

www.jonjost.wordpress.com
www.cinemaelectronica.wordpress.com
  Recommend  Recommended by 55 Readers

5. SDC NYC New York, NY April 22nd, 2010 11:49 pm
Krugman's stance is for bigger government and smaller banks. He also
believes that believes in increased stimulus spending, raising the
deficits, and higher taxes.

Does he not see that the government is doing more damage to our economy
than the housing bubble or the financial industry? When the government
bubble that Obama is creating bursts, the country will be in real
trouble!! WHERE is the call for regulation on the federal government?!?!
They are mismanaging money worse than any financial institution. They
are changing rules to fit their agenda and making secret backroom deals.
How are these actions worse than anything that the "fat cats" on Wall
Street did?

When will Krugman begin to write about fiscal responsibility, deficit
reduction, tax cuts for small businesses, and reduction in the
size/expense of government?
  Recommend  Recommended by 55 Readers

37. big fat ted usa April 23rd, 2010 1:13 am
According to the media, the derivatives market is about $600 trillion
annually. How about taxing that at 1%? Seems like a simple way to solve
a lot of problems.
  Recommend  Recommended by 54 Readers

34. JWPrice Leesburg, VA April 23rd, 2010 1:13 am
wow - what would happen if we in the USA focused on producing things
with actual, tangible value instead of the wall street parasites using
OPM - other people's money - to enrich themselves.

Might we have JOBS for the blue collar workers?

Maybe we would even slow our descent into the ranks of the third world
countries.
  Recommend  Recommended by 54 Readers

**********
Dit bericht is verzonden via de informele D66 discussielijst (D66 at nic.surfnet.nl).
Aanmelden: stuur een email naar LISTSERV at nic.surfnet.nl met in het tekstveld alleen: SUBSCRIBE D66 uwvoornaam uwachternaam
Afmelden: stuur een email naar LISTSERV at nic.surfnet.nl met in het tekstveld alleen: SIGNOFF D66
Het on-line archief is te vinden op: http://listserv.surfnet.nl/archives/d66.html
**********