The Magic Wand November 27, 2009
Posted by naughtwirthreeding in Future, Humor, Life, Money & Investing, News & Events, Politics, The Economy.comments closed
In a New York Times editorial, economist and Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics winner Professor Paul Krugman advocates something he refers to as a “financial transactions tax,” used as a means not only to raise revenue but discourage speculation in financial currency markets. Professor Krugman is on the right track, but in my opinion he’s advocating a level playing field when really a tilted one is needed.
Professor Krugman advocates a small tax on all transactions in the foreign currency markets — buying or selling of contracts for the delivery of a given nation’s currency at a future date. These transactions are made by the millions every day, and are actually the mainstay of many banks’ profits. It’s called — you’ve heard this term — the money market. It is, literally, the buying and selling of money.
Money is worth money, which sounds stupid, but it’s worth other country’s money, and that amount varies from minute to minute in very small amounts. Large banks try to take advantage of those half-penny or quarter-yen swings in value, in massive quantities, to bring in profits. For example, $100,000,000 of Hungarian Forints that swings a few Forints between 10am and 11am on the Stockholm exchange could net a bank a few thousand dollars with very little risk. Institutional banks like Citibank, Bank of Montreal, and the Royal Bank of Scotland have entire rooms full of traders with their noses glued to computer screens, waiting for the right moment to strike and net their company a relatively risk-free profit.
A small tax, perhaps one-tenth of one percent of the gross profit of the transaction, could net the U.S. government billions of dollars in new tax revenue every year. And if that were the exclusive goal, it would be a good way to isolate big investors as the sole targets of such a tax — transactions such as these are largely out of reach to the small investor. But it’s my assertion that, as I mentioned, Professor Krugman has it almost right.
A financial transactions tax would target speculative investors in the currency market, to be sure. But why stop there? It was found that during the recent run-up in world oil prices, one company controlled almost 80% of the outstanding contracts for a given oil future. The kicker was, it wasn’t even an oil company that held them, it was a financial firm that had neither the means nor the intention of taking delivery of the raw materials. Such speculation in commodities markets has the potential (in this instance) to be a threat to our national security. Other commodities may be less important to our everyday lives, but no less inflationary or volatile when speculators decide to put it in play.
And what about stocks and bonds, the two most common investments of the American financial system? The advent of the Small Order Execution System (SOES) and the immediate emergence of hyper-leveraged “SOES Bandits,” has multiplied speculation on a level not seen since before the Great Depression. Arbitrage traders monitoring small stocks for swings of a penny or more, trading with somebody else’s money, have inflated prices and increased volatility in the markets that are supposed to be the investment of the common man. In doing so, they have put equity investments out of reach to most Americans.
Additionally, Professor Krugman’s financial transactions tax would apply to everybody. This would, in fact, generate a substantial amount of revenue. However, if the goal is to decrease speculation and re-establish price stability, we need not extend the tax to all investors. Any transactions in currency, derivatives or commodities markets where the purchaser takes delivery of the underlying asset should be exempt; and any transactions that are held for more than 365 days should also be exempt — from both this tax, and the existing capital gains tax. Such a change would be a cause for celebration for the GOP (a happy side-effect), who have been attempting to eliminate the tax since it was instituted. But it would also be a tangible encouragement for long-term investment by everyone from big businesses to the $25-per-month mutual fund dollar-cost-averaging parent trying to save for their kids’ college education.
The only other modification I would make to Professor Krugman’s proposal is the tax rate. I view this possibility as a deterrent, not a tool for generating revenue. As a result, the rate should be punitive in nature, as opposed to merely inconvenient: 50%. Additionally, the tax should not be able to be offset by financial losses — if you make a profit on a given transaction, you pay the tax, end of discussion. Such parameters would shut down market players that were interested exclusively in exploiting a liquid market for profit, while passing the non-financial costs of price volatility and artificial inflation on to the market at large. It would essentially bounce pure speculators out of the market overnight.
Speculation was a significant part of the underlying problem behind the financial collapse this country underwent in the last couple of years. The addiction to easy money has Wall Street under its spell. The most effective way to stifle some of this roll-the-dice financial management is to wave the magic wand of taxation and make it not worth their while. This type of a tax would put Wall Street in a different frame of mind and revise long-term business plans in the blink of an eye.
Please, Sue Me Too! July 5, 2009
Posted by naughtwirthreeding in Entertainment and Media, Humor, Life, News & Events, Politics.comments closed
By now everyone is familiar with the story surrounding Alaska Governor Sarah Palin’s resignation, though the actual reasons for her premature departure remain a mystery. What came to light over the weekend was the statement by her attorney, Thomas Van Flein, in which he threatened to sue… well, pretty much anybody who said, wrote, or broadcast anything bad about Soon-To-Be-Ex-Governor Palin.
Last I checked, free speech was still the law of the land, am I right about that? The Fascist Four on the Supreme Court didn’t get that scuttled while I was at the dog park or anything, did they? No? Okay, so we’re good.
At any rate, the primary target of Van Flein’s ire appears to be Huffington Post blogger Shannyn Moore, who has reported on rumors swirling around the Governor-But-Not-For-Long regarding a contract that was awarded to construct something-or-other in Wasilla. The winning bidder then turned around and “helped” the Palins build their house (to the tune of thousands of dollars in free materials and labor). The word they are using is “embezzlement,” though I’m not sure it meets that definition exactly, but it’s certainly not legal no matter what you call it. The rumor, as reported by Moore on HuffPo, is that a federal investigation is underway and indictments could be forthcoming.
So now that the threats are flying and Soon-To-Be-Private-Citizen Palin has her lawyer knee-jerking at every twitch from the Progressive media, it’s probably appropriate for me to release the results of my in-depth investigative journalist reporting. I have undertaken a comprehensive study spanning nearly twenty minutes and citing almost a half-dozen anonymous and barely-credible sources to come up with the following information, which of course, is all true. Every word of it. I swear.
Sarah Palin worked as a live-in prostitute on an off-shore oil rig for nine years, contracting a total of forty-one different venereal diseases and obtaining no fewer than eight abortions — all while married to Todd, who strung her out on heroin and acted as her pimp. She was recently investigated for illegally importing llamas from Peru, taking pictures of herself performing sex acts with the animals, and selling the photos to off-shore porn interests. And she has also been involved for twelve years in a lesbian sex club that meets in a different city every month for wild orgies of at least twenty women at a time. She conceals her identity at these gatherings by impersonating Monica Lewinsky.
Sarah Palin also has a long history of quitting various offices, jobs, and organizations. The following is a selection from the list of over 150 organizations she has quit since her teen years: girl scouts, cheerleading, 4-H, Madame Baldprairie’s Pageant Prep Academy, waitress at Gawkers Topless Steakhouse, Wasilla Hockey Moms’ Knitting Guild, AA group counseling, PTA, Alaskans Against Renewable Energy, Kill, Baby, Kill! — Wolf Hunting For Moms and Toddlers, shift manager at Northwest Telemarketing, Americans Who Hate Americans Who Hate Us, and the Juneau Township Machine Gun Owner’s Association.
Finally, while Ms. Palin has raged against the exploitation of her children in the press, she has pushed them center stage for the coming years. Her book deal with Rupert Murdoch includes an option to pick up the forthcoming works by three of the Palin children. Oldest boy Track has penned a short story entitled, “My Sister The Slut,” a fictional work about a teenaged girl who gets drunk at parties six nights a week, and gets pregnant without knowing who the father really is. Oldest daughter Bristol will take her abstinence-is-best stance to the mainstream with her forthcoming, “Like Mother, Like Daughter: What my mom taught me about boys, sex and shotgun weddings”. And finally, youngest daughter Piper will be writing a children’s book entitled, “Daddy’s Gun Is Fun!” Illustrations will be done by an artist recommended by the National Rifle Association.
There you have it, the whole honest-to-goodness truth of all of the hard-hitting investigative journalism I could cobble together in the space of an hour. But it’s all true, I swear! All of it!
So Mr. Van Flein, I hope to be receiving your summons in the mail soon. If you are looking to contact me, please see the “About” page on this blog, and it will tell you where to go.
At Least That Many June 24, 2009
Posted by naughtwirthreeding in Entertainment and Media, Humor, Life, News & Events, Politics.comments closed
Boy, they’re falling down faster than they can set them up, aren’t they?
On Wednesday South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford returned from a bizarre trip to what turned out to be Buenos Aires, then held a press conference to admit his affair with an Argentinian woman that he’s known for close to a decade. He joins the lengthy list of Republican politicians who have pressed the self-destruct buttons on their political careers, giving in to their baser instincts for money, power, pleasure, or chemically-induced euphoria.
So long is the list, in fact, that it’s hard to keep up. Nary a week ago we had the Republican Senator from Nevada John Ensign confessing to an affair with a former staffer, now this. Looking back over just the last four years you find names like Foley, Cunningham, Tobias, DeLay, Stevens, Boehner, Murphy, Privette, Flory, Vitter, Allen, and on and on. And those are just the ones we know about! Chances are there are at least that many, if not more, with skeletons in the closet we just haven’t found yet.
To that end, I think we should make the best of what is surely a tragic situation and have a little fun with it.
Let’s start a betting pool.
We’ll compile a list of every GOP elected official from the state level on up, including governors and mayors too. We’ll allow people to bet on which official and what indiscretion, with bonus points for specifics: heterosexual or homosexual affair, which type of drug, how many millions in illegal contributions, etc. In the event of a tie, the person who made the prediction the earliest will win the prize.
Which brings up an interesting point: what are we playing for?
Hmm…
How about, whoever wins gets to take the place of the official involved in the scandal until their replacement is elected or appointed? Sound good?
I’ll get things started with three of my own:
First, a gimme: Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions is outed by a African-American transvestite who claims to have had an affair with him for the last nine years (starting when he was 15).
Next, North Carolina Rep. Sue Wilkins Myrick is indicted for allegedly laundering money from Afghan heroin gangs through her contacts in Taiwan using dummy accounts in the name of a church-based children’s theatre company.
And finally, Idaho Governor C.L. “Butch” Otter will be arrested upon returning from Canada for possession of four pounds of marijuana, hidden inside the lining of his signature black, ten-gallon hat.
I’m hoping Butch gets the cuffs slapped on first. It would be sweet to sign an executive order making everybody eat potatoes at least two meals a day to stimulate the economy.
