iBankCoin
18 years in Wall Street, left after finding out it was all horseshit. Founder/ Master and Commander: iBankCoin, finance news and commentary from the future.
Joined Nov 10, 2007
23,443 Blog Posts

Saturday Night Thought

The fucking assholes at BAC need the TARP funds so that they can give the piker brokers at MER retention packages.

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98 comments

  1. Goldie

    Yup

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  2. Keyser Soze

    Mature maggots are god.

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  3. punyandy

    Finally, CNBC comes up with something worthwhile. An NCAA tourney bracket, to determine the best “As Seen on TV” product. Shamwow got whored with a #2 seed, but has a clear path to the final four.

    http://www.cnbc.com/id/28693606

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  4. Botd

    next is the “undisclosed severances” …. so money.

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  5. dave

    Asian unemployment will spike during February. The Lunar New Year is their Christmas. The weeklong holiday at the end of this month is the most opportune time for employers to tell employees have a safe trip home and don’t bother coming back, there is no job waiting for you.

    http://www.straitstimes.com/Breaking%2BNews/Money/Story/STIStory_326524.html

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  6. Braveflaps

    Ratigan gets ranty, calls Prince, Weill et al vampires, says they have killed capitalism, and adds that there is no way C will be here a year from now:

    http://www.thestreet.com/_yahoo/video/strategysession/10458439.html?cm_ven=YAHOOV&cm_cat=FREE&cm_ite=NA#8334348001

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  7. cheesefries

    yep

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  8. mdawsz

    The outrageous expansion in money supply should be a green light for the equity markets on a go forward basis, no?

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  9. The Contractor

    Sully Sullenberger for Treasury Secretary.

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  10. j-daddy

    Mdawsz-
    The money supply expansion thus far is being more than offset by money destruction via asset deflation. So no run up in consumer prices, wages, stocks, etc. When that changes, stocks will run up as the dollar’s value crashes.

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  11. MOOBER

    Jake – how did you come across Gibson’s financials? Henry is usually very private about such things. They were merged w/ a German firm in ’07 I think.

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  12. Fly

    The velocity of money is at a standstill. In 1933, money supply was through the roof, yet 1936 was the worst year of the depression.

    FDR was a fucktard.

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  13. j

    1936 was the worst year of the depression because FDR passed some pretty Fascist economic legislation. I don’t mean Nazi stuff but economics at the time was greatly influenced by the “third way” which was essentially fascist.

    I think people need to understand that the Depression wasn’t one event, but a whole series of compounding policy errors throughout the period.

    Hoover/FDR’s attempt to keep high wages in the face of a recession. The Fed’s terrible mistakes. Smoot Hawley. FDR”s attempts to manage the economy. Farm support prices schemes.

    These all didn’t happen at once but were a systematic attack on the market that led to a number of rolling depressions/recessions.

    You need to give a little time to the current Fed’s attempts to work itself through the system, Fly. They have really only started pursuing monetary expansion since November.

    The best book of the Depression is by Murray Rothbard. It’s a decent book and he must have written it before he went whacko libertarian nut ball. I’m libertarian but Rothbard was off his head.

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  14. The Fly

    Best book on depression is The Forgotten Man, by Shales.

    J:

    WTF do you think the government is trying to do now? Artificially, they are keeping wages high and employment full by doing all of these bailouts.

    Next up: trade war with China.

    You know it’s coming.

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  15. T MOE

    The thought of the retention bonuses makes me sick. Just another reason to fucking hate the banks. Fuckem all. Why are people so stupid to see what is going on. This is the biggest shell game in history. They are all in the same club. Thain, Paulson, Lewis, Steele, Pandit. They pay each other off and simply move the money around and the people get fucked.

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  16. j

    Fly

    If the Fed’s didn’t do the bailout C and BAC, MS, GS would have failed by now.

    That means two things they would either have to take them over which would mean $10 trillion sitting on the government’s books or they would have simply let them fail Depression style and we know the consequences of that.

    Now you yourself supported the Wall street package some time ago when you also realized that the entire payments/credit system had basically stopped functioning.

    I don’t agree that they are keeping wages artificially high. have you seen what the bonuses are like on wall street this year even if you made money? they shitty.
    CS paid there’s with toxic credit!!

    I hope you’re wrong about a trade war with China. I really don’t think Summers or whoever is Treasury Sec would support that…. I hope not.

    Are the retention bonuses based on a draw…ie that the sales guys produce the bonus before they are compted or is it extra. I don’t know and I’m sure none of the press know either despite writing about it.

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  17. Gio

    The GS @10 2010 puts are only $1. That’s pretty cheap, considering GS is going to hit that this year. -gio-

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  18. T MOE

    All in the same club–

    WASHINGTON, Jan 17 (Reuters) – Wall Street may be bruised and battered, but it still donated more money than any other U.S. industry to President-elect Barack Obama’s inaugural festivities on Tuesday, a study has found.

    Who will get a bailout next?

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  19. T MOE

    I like that call Gio. I have been shorting GS all year and banking big coin. Although the run up after their earnings ugh! loss announcement hurt me. I added to my shorts last week. Fuck GS. Tell me how are they going to grow? They can’t use the leverage they were using on their prop desk. That’s where most of their earnings were coming from. No body has really been talking about them lately since Citi and BAC have been the topic, but I sense that they have some skeletons in their closet. They can’t be worth 80 a share IMO. Hell they don’t even put their CDS exposure on their books

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  20. j

    Moe

    they’re fine. They’re going to go broke. they have have learn how to operate with 13;1 leverage. The other side of that is that they’re cost of funds ough to fall significantly.

    That’s not to say they’re stock price won’t go down though.

    I have a lot of faith in GS and MS actually changing the face of banking in a huge way of the next 5-10 years.

    I keep buying a little bit of these two for my longer term retirement money and playing the fact that they will be extremely innovative.

    that’s not to say GS stock price can’t get to 40 or so in the mean time though.

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  21. mamma

    You all need to stop watching the numbers coming out of China. They are made up by 5 guys in a room with a pencil and a direct link to the big boss who tells them what to write down. Nobody lies like the Chinese. The only thing as important as money is saving face. If their pants are on fire they will say they took a new Viagra and their dick is so hot it burst into flames. Chinese are lying sacks of shit.
    I live in Thailand. Thai people are very nice, like to smile. Thai-Chinese, of course, lying sacks of shit. It’s genetic. The only way to tell what’s really going on in China is to monitor the number of riots. Look for rioting to gain momentum such that the government can not put a lid on the media reports. Then add to FXP with both hands.

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  22. T MOE

    I second that. I bought my house from a Chinaman. The don’t know how to deal without lying it is genetic. I ended up having to sue the fucker. It taught me a lesson though. Never again will I deal with a Chinaman. Never again.

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  23. Juice

    btw, it was George Bush’s fault those geese downed the US Airways plane and it was The Messiah who saved all the passengers.

    Get used to these kinds of miracles, red necked liberals!

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  24. T MOE

    j
    What is GS’s CDS exposure? Who is going to be able to pay them and make them whole? AIG? Anyone else that the CDS is tied to. None of them any money? Why did they post a massive loss last quarter. I believe asset prices will continue to drop and credit ratings will be cut on securities related to loans, there are more right downs to come. Also Goldman reported negative revenue of $4.36 billion in its trading and principal investments unit. Their bread and butter.
    Maybe I am missing something here, but I don’t think the stock can hold at these levels for too much longer.

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  25. zubovsergei

    How is it that NONE of you on here care about the 0.25% TRANSACTION tax????

    You guys do know that this thing WILL most likely be in the $850 billion stimulus bill and it WILL VERY LIKELY PASS??

    Meaning that most traders will be out of business overnight.

    The transaction tax was a part of the original TARP bill, the first round bill that failed, and markets tanked 700 points. That bill didn’t pass, but not by many votes.

    Democrats don’t need ANY republican votes to pass this thing, unless republicans filibuster.

    With some much hatred of wall street, this fucking thing has a big chance of passing this time around.

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  26. T MOE

    Ha Ha! Just like the Messiah will save the economy with his magic wand. That’s what people think anyway. There will probably be a rally Tuesday as people watch the millions of Sheeple packed in to watch the Messiah

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  27. T MOE

    z- Did not know about the transaction tax. Elaborate a little more please. Tax on what kind of transactions?

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  28. boca

    zubovsergei … have to wait and see the text of the Conference Committee bill after the new legislation is worked on by the committee. Nothing is final until then, neither the actual text nor any effective date.

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  29. Mr. EB

    Even with 13 to 1 leverage (never mind 30 to 40 to 1 leverage), it’s just basic math no? Tell me if I’m wrong here. Almost every asset class is on average down 30-40% ball park. If you had $100B of equity and levered up 13Xs that’s $1.3 trillion of assets. Do a 35% haircut on $1.3 trillion, that’s $455B loss. That means you have $355B in negative equity. Worth worse than zero.

    I mean isn’t it just basic math. What am I missing here. God help you if you have $2 trillion in assets. That’s a $700B loss.

    When people hoot and holler scapegoating people left and right etc., the bottom line is these companies and management teams levered up with money they didn’t have, took huge losses, and the Government is the only one that can come in and bear them. Most of blame should be on them, not outsiders.

    I mean even if you did not use ANY leverage and invested with $100B. You would have a hard to stomach $35B loss. But all these guys used 10X-40X leverage. It’s really that simple and obvious folks.

    So many people are like “how can huge, big and famous companies go under” “how can X company stock be less than $5 when it used to be worth hundreds of billions in market cap?” when it just basic 3rd grade math.

    Just see it this way. Your buddy who has $100 gets someone to loan him $3000 due to his great brand name and prestige from the past. He loses 35% of that $3000 gambling at the casino. He is basically screwed, no matter how great he did the last 100 years before this.

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  30. Mr. EB

    If they pass the 0.25% trade tax, it will destroy the little liquidity the market has left. Making it uneconomical for the millions of active investors to even bother. Which will make prices gyrate and be even more volatile (ever trade any illiquid stock?), which will hurt market confidence even more, which will drive the little investors left in the markets to just quit, and make the market go even lower.

    The law of unintended consequences again. But politicians are on panic desperation mode, WE MUST DO SOMETHING… which usually means throw gasoline on the raging fire.

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  31. zubovsergei

    yea basically it is a 0.25% tax on the total amount of stock bought and sold, not on the profit. So if you scalp stocks, you will need to find another job.

    I would have to pay about $600,000 in taxes for 2008 if this tax was in effect. Unfortunately I only made $200,000.

    HERE IS THE PROBLEM: wall street firms may lobby to get exemptions from this rule. Otherwise, hedge funds would be out of business as well.

    But you know that big money is always exempt from some rules (naked short selling for example)

    Democrats have been trying to pass this bill for years and years. This tax actually was in effect until 1966 I believe, when it was repealed. But alot of countries already have a tax like this: UK, India. I think Japan had it but repealed it. China passed it in 2004, but also quickly repealed it.

    But like I said, with hatred of Wall street. it could very easily pass.

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  32. Mr. EB

    If they passed this and made it “retroactive” for 2009, I’m basically totally screwed. A big chunk if not all my money would be gone.

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  33. boca

    Mr. EB said: “If they pass the 0.25% trade tax, it will destroy the little liquidity the market has left. Making it uneconomical for the millions of active investors to even bother. Which will make prices gyrate and be even more volatile (ever trade any illiquid stock?), which will hurt market confidence even more, which will drive the little investors left in the markets to just quit, and make the market go even lower.”

    Very true (adding only one comment that a lot of little investors have already left the market).

    Hence the statement that stocks could potentially be for asshats. In this economy, everyone, including smart traders, needs to have a backup plan. I know it’s hard, but knowing how to do more than one thing for a living is a plus right now.

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  34. boca

    ^^^ which explains why I’m working on a Sunday.

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  35. T MOE

    I would be screwed also. Mr EB you’re right. It is simple math. How investors seem to miss this is a mystery to me. They seemed to have grasped it in Citi, Lehman, Bear’s, Merrill’s case, but as for Goldman they keep rewarding it because of the brand name. If they were more transparent all hell would break loose. I expect them to lose more money this quarter. They have de-levered but they still hold a lot of CMBS and CDS.

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  36. Mr. EB

    I wrote a call to arms piece here: http://tinyurl.com/9hn55d

    zubovsergei, I hope you don’t mind me copying your posts there.

    Guys we HAVE to fight this. Not only for our own self-interest, but for our country. I’m not kidding here. Totally serious.

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  37. T MOE

    Looking at the BAC paying of retention bonuses-

    Merrill has 16,000 brokers. Let’s say the average trailing 12 months revenue per broker is 400,000 (which is very low it is probably more like 600,000). So we are talking more than $6 billion. With an average retention package of 50% of trailing 12 (some will get more others will get less) that’s more than $3 billion of payout to Merrill brokers for retention. Crazy number no wonder why they asked for more TARP money. Fly is right this is fucking outrageous! Mr EB a call to arms is needed!

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  38. Jakegint

    Don’t eat the peanut butter treats! (And short K)

    The Kellogg Co., which listed Peanut Corp. as one of its suppliers, has recalled 16 products. They include Austin and Keebler branded Peanut Butter Sandwich Crackers, and some snack-size packs of Famous Amos Peanut Butter Cookies and Keebler Soft Batch Homestyle Peanut Butter Cookies. Health officials said consumers who have bought any of those products should throw them away.

    ____

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  39. T MOE

    EB-
    Just sent an email to my congressman. Will follow it with a call this week. Let’s flood them with shit so they will have to listen

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  40. RC

    T MOE,

    nice calls lately, what year did you graduate UL?

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  41. T MOE

    1998 after a 7 year stint. Too much partying my first few years and changes of major are too blame. Was easy to do there.

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  42. Mr. EB

    I just emailed TD Ameritrade, Schwab, and Fidelity, letting them know, they better use their lobbying power to fight this b/c it will destroy their active trading business.

    Call your brokers too, they are the ones will real lobbying power on this.

    I will call my Congressman on Tuesday.

    If they made this retroactive for 2009 so far, which I fear they would since it’s easier to implement. I would be wiped out as I’ve been trading market ETFs with large positions, over and over.

    I don’t know what to think. I guess this is what those dot.com stock option people felt about AMT tax when they had no gains to speak of when tax time came around and stuck with huge million dollar tax bill.

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  43. RC

    indeed. What do you do now?

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  44. gappingandyapping
    gappingandyapping

    Only 2 more fucking days until all my worries are gone and all my bills paid! WooHoo I can’t wait until my grocery, gas and rent check comes rolling in. I am seriously going to bank coin since I will have no more expenses thanks to the Messiah!!! Let the healing begin!

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  45. Ozark Hillbilly

    Ditto on the Chinese. And ditto on the Thai people; I would love to go back to Thailand.

    I am wondering if the the 21st Century version of a trade war will manifest in rounds of competitive currency devaluations. Replaying Smoot-Hawley would be too obvious.

    And I can’t believe the Jack Lalanne’s Power Juicer is only a 7 seed. WTF?

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  46. T MOE

    http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE50H1FN20090118

    During the Depression it was the global flight to the dollar that had seriously confused politicians and sparked protectionism. This flight to the dollar also collapsed interest rates at a faster pace irrespective of the design of the government. By abandoning of debt in Europe, they essentially abandoned the Fixed Exchange Rates under the gold standard creating a form of floating exchange rate system constructively that forced the dollar to record highs. This was one of the reasons Roosevelt confiscated gold and devalued the dollar relative to gold in 1934, raising gold from $20 to $35 per once. If anyone tells you the Government is in absolute control of interest rates, they do not know what they are talking about. look at the facts behind every major financial panic and you will walk away with a new perspective. As long as there is a flight to quality, interest rates will decline short term, but will raise long-term due to the massive supply on the horizon. If new bonds are sold only domestically, this will still be deflationary drying up private cash needed at times like this. International purchases will bring in new cash and stimulate the overall net structure.

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  47. T MOE

    RC-
    I manage money basically trade for myself and family. I used to work on a muni-bond desk before the fire storm when they cleaned house

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  48. RC

    Still in Louisiana?

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  49. T MOE

    No, left 8 years ago. In Washington now with all the tree hugging liberals

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  50. T MOE

    Arizona leads. Who would have thought

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  51. Mao

    We will rule the world soon roundeye. We are liars? Look in the mirror dumbfuck.

    Thai people are whores.

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  52. cybtropic

    I guess the best case scenario if the tax passed would be that it would be phased in slowly, or after a while.

    Look at how long it took to get rid of the uptick rule. Firs they tried it on a few stocks for what 6+ months?

    Fact is, that the TARP passed before we saw all those horrible unemployment numbers. SO now they might think twice before messing with the market, especially since no one really knows what would happen to U.S. markets with this tax. You can’t compare U.S. market to any other.

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  53. T MOE

    Has anyone done any research on the exchanges. Specifically CME. It moves like crazy. It had a 4% pop on Friday. If volatility returns which I think it will there will be more options and futures action which bodes well for the CME. What do any of you chart experts think?

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  54. Mr. EB

    Looks like Larry Summer supported this tax in the past. We are screwed.

    “A tax on securities market transactions might sound like a wild populist policy that would damage the functioning of the economy. But in fact it is far more sensible than such populist measures as banning short sales which have already been tried to no effect.

    Proposals along these lines have a distinguished pedigree. Best-known was the Tobin tax proposal, by Nobel Prize winner James Tobin, which was specifically aimed at volatility in foreign exchange markets. More relevant to what I am proposing are two articles by the pre-Treasury Larry Summers: “A Few Good Taxes” and “When Financial Markets Work Too Well: A Cautious Case for a Securities Transactions Tax” (1989). Add another Nobel Prize Winner, Joe Stiglitz.”

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  55. cybtropic

    Summers doesn’t support it anymore.

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  56. Mr. EB

    I hope you’re right. Did you read this Summers not supporting it somewhere? This is important as he has the ear of Obama.

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  57. T MOE

    Fitzgerald is a beast. There is no stopping him

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  58. boca

    Public opinion of voters right now is very anti-Wall Street, and right or wrong, the public lumps all short term or day traders in with the term Wall Street. Means it will be a very tough go against public opinion that it is only fair for “Wall Street” to pay the taxpayers back for all the bailouts via a small percentage tax on securities transactions. Probably the average person does not understand how much liquidity traders provide to the market.

    My guesses/predictions (based on a few years experience in the distant past working with tax laws and nothing more):

    1. The tax might very well pass. Better to be prepared than surprised.

    2. It will probably have unintended consequences, meaning more market trickery.

    3. Market makers would probably be excluded as they were eventually excluded from the no-shorting rule.

    4. Effective date will be in the future, it will not be retroactive – pure guess on my part, merely because most tax changes are not retroactive.

    5. If traders are lucky, maybe they will exclude anything held long enough to qualify for short terms capital gains tax rate (right now there’s only one rate but the concept of short term capital gains is very familiar and comfortable to Washington). That time period might be redefined too.

    6. Proposing a solution that focuses on taxing short term capital gains rather than not paying any tax at all, might be more of a win/win in discussions with legislators.

    7. You might want to consider developing a trading plan based on including some longer term holdings of months, rather than hours or days. JMHO.

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  59. boca

    Here’s a link to a summary of Summer’s article discussing an excise tax on securities transactions, please note he wrote the article 20 years ago…

    http://www.springerlink.com/content/p016371m624r6742/

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  60. Mr. EB

    I did some google searches on retroactive tax increases. It happens a lot in the Federal and State governments. I’m really scared now.

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  61. boca

    I doubt the Congress would make it retroactive in this case. Just my opinion of course.

    No one can tell what the future will bring (except for our resident space alien magician of course) so there is not much point in worrying to the point of panic, starting to think of alternate Plans A, B and C (just in case) is good though.

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  62. Mr. EB

    I’m finding examples left and right of Fed gov’t passing retroactive tax increases for the current fiscal year, California has done it also.

    So I think I can panic. Because if they do this tax retroactively, I would be homeless with negative net worth and huge tax liability. Without this tax, I’m worth a few hundred thousand dollars with no debt, been frugal with my spending, saving, live in a tiny apartment by renting with my wife and toddler, and haven’t levered up like everyone else (no credit card debt, no car loans, no mortgages).

    Scary…. so scary.

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  63. boca

    but what kind of taxes did you find that were imposed retroactively? (serious question)

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  64. Mr. EB

    Just search retroactive taxes in Google.

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  65. Lady Guenevere

    Fidelity where I trade using Active Trader Pro, figures in all your tax liabilities on every trade you make. For instance if I bought FAZ and lost 500.00 on that trade and then bought it a week later at 30.00 they force the stock to reflect the 500.00 loss and suddenly the stock is 32.00 or something. I have a few stocks that what I bought them for doesnt show up, it shows a new number based on past loss. I wonder where they would put this .25% tax? Would they tact it onto my 8.00 one way trade transaction fee?, or 16.00 round trip? and then along side your expenses where transaction fees are…would you see an additional $2.00 for some kind of tax? I would guess it would show up trade by trade and not at the end of the year. If I am understanding what everyone is talking about correctly? Or am I completely misunderstanding this tax? Do they tax every share? 100 shares x.25%? Sorry I havent heard of this before and I am just trying to figure it out.
    Thanks

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  66. Mr. EB

    Anyway, back to stocks. Why are futures up so much?

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  67. cybtropic

    I think we are safe. The original TARP was voted on Sept 29, 08. They tried to introduce the tax into that TARP bill on Sept 26, 08 but it didn’t get anywhere. It seems it was not part of the original bill but they tried to put it in there. Basically it didn’t even make it to the committee.

    http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h110-7125

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  68. Lady Guenevere

    I looked at the Summers link…he says the motive of the tax besides getting revenue is to take ‘ speculation’ out of the market. Holy Smokes…does he mean just everyday ‘ day trades” as speculation? Or is he talking about how oil ran up to 150.00 on ‘ speculation’ or shorting a company down to 0.? How long do you hold a stock before it is not considered speculation – a year?

    If you take speculation out of the market…is risk then gone? or greatly reduced?

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  69. Mr. EB

    It’s a different world from late Sept. cybtropic. With 60 Minutes blaming speculators for oil prices, the people want BLOOD. Too bad it will be our blood, not the bad guys.

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  70. boca

    Anybody know offhand the bill number for Son of TARP 2 stimulus bill passed by the House?

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  71. j

    Tobin Tax is a far left concept that anti globalists always tout. There’s no chance any form of transaction tax is passed on Wall street. Larry knows what would happen.

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  72. j

    I’ve been giving it some thought since the Fly earlier up the thread mentioned a trade war with China. I thought it wouldn’t happen however my concerns were raised when I thought about it some more.

    The trade war will come from the emissions angle once the US imposes some sort of emissions tax.

    It will then tax any product coming from a country that doesn’t have an emissions agreement . Watch for the fireworks with that shit and China/ Asia

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  73. That’s Awesome EB!

    Good to know someone else lives like me, minus the wife and kid(still too young for that). I’m not into buying fancy clothing labels or other status materials to show/prove complete strangers/friends I have wealth. I laugh at these idiots cause I know 80% of the time these people live paycheck to paycheck.

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  74. Very few of us…

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  75. Max

    Futures are rocking tonight. 865 SPX

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  76. cybtropic

    Mr. EB

    Everything is alot worse than in September. You can’t pass a tax that will have unpredicatable results at a time when U.S. might be heading towards depression.

    Their best chance to get this tax into the bill was during a time of panic (like during the time of the first TARP) when no one would even read what was in the bill. And they couldn’t even get it to the committee.

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  77. boca

    well, I just printed the text of Barney Frank’s bill amending the original TARP. Looks like I have reading to do, so won’t comment further until I have more details. Also, I could find zero details on any text of the Senate Bill for ARRA (American Recovery and Reinvestment Act). Zero info = zero opinion right now.

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  78. Max

    Is that fuctard tax proposed to be a round trip tax or on each transaction. Fuc’in fuc’kers

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  79. Max

    SPX UP TO 865 !

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  80. Fly

    Funny stuff right here
    http://ff.im/-EYla

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  81. gappingandyapping
    gappingandyapping

    Fly that was fucking stupid, bring that shit to Chicago and someone would get their ass beat. They would throw that fucker in the river and then drive a Dave Matthews band bus over the bridge. Too many homos in NYC that have no fucking clue what they are talking about, case in point right there. Santelli would rub his dirty Sanchez all over that fucker. Then bear the corn trader would hang that fucker on a post outside next to the statues.

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  82. Mr. EB

    Ok I read the original amendment to the TARP bill:

    http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=h110-7125

    It looks like in this iteration it won’t be retroactive because they will just put the tax on top of the SEC fee per trade we already pay. Whew!

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  83. boca

    That’s the old amendment bill from the prior session of Congress, Mr. EB, no longer applicable. But it does tell you how they’re thinking if (big if) it is brought up again in Congress. Right now we don’t know whether it will be or not.

    Bob Herbert at NY Times wrote an opinion piece about this very tax topic on January 13th, don’t have the link handy but you can search NY Times to find it.

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  84. Lady Guenevere

    OP-ED COLUMNIST
    Where the Money Is

    By BOB HERBERT
    Published: January 12, 2009

    The economist Dean Baker is a strong advocate of a financial transactions tax. This would impose a small fee — ranging up to, say, 0.25 percent — on the sale or transfer of stocks, bonds and other financial assets, including the seemingly endless variety of exotic financial instruments that have been in the news so much lately.

    According to Mr. Baker, the co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, the fees would raise a ton of money, perhaps $100 billion or more annually — money that the government sorely needs.

    But there’s another intriguing element to the proposal. While the fees would be a trivial expense for what the general public tends to think of as ordinary traders — people investing in stocks, bonds or other assets for some reasonable period of time — they would amount to a much heavier lift for speculators, the folks who bring a manic quality to the markets, who treat it like a casino.

    “It raises money in a way that comes primarily at the expense of speculation,” said Mr. Baker. “The fees would be a considerable expense for someone who is buying futures, or a stock, or any asset at 2 o’clock and then selling it at 3. The more you trade, the more you pay.

    “For the typical person holding stock, who is planning to hold it for a long period of time, paying the quarter of one percent on a trade is just not that big a deal.”

    The fees, though small, could amount to a big deal for speculators because in addition to the volume of their trades they often make their money on very small margins. Someone who buys an asset and then sells it an hour later at a one percent appreciation might feel quite pleased. He or she would be less pleased at having to pay a quarter-percent fee to purchase the asset in the first place and then another quarter percent to sell it.

    This, according to Mr. Baker, is part of the beauty of the transfer tax; it tends to curb at least some speculation. “It’s a very progressive tax,” he said, “that discourages nonproductive activity.”

    A hallmark of the Bush years has been the rampant irresponsibility — by the White House, Congress and the general public — when it comes to matters of finance. The costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were placed on credit cards and off the books. Their ultimate overall costs will be in the trillions.

    Incredibly, President Bush and Congress cut taxes in wartime, which is insane.

    Budget deficits and the national debt are streaking toward the moon. And the only remedy anyone has come up with for fending off Great Depression II has been deficit spending on a scale reminiscent of World War II.

    Excuse me, but did somebody say the baby boomers are about to start retiring?

    Maybe the piper will never have to be paid. Maybe the deficits will someday magically right themselves. Maybe some prosperous future generation will be more than happy to clean up the mess we left behind.

    If none of that is true, we should start looking now for some real money somewhere. A stock transfer tax is not a bad place to start.

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  85. The Fly

    Gapping:

    Puhlease. You fucking homos from Chicago have nothing on NY.

    Work on winning a fucking World Series, okay pal?

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  86. Ass Napkin Mike

    FLY

    Is HBC going to be the next Bear Sterns. How can they not be? They are more fucked than Lehman and BSC combined.

    What say you?

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  87. Mr. EB

    Some dude gives complete beginners $1 million to trade after 2 weeks training. Nice TV show idea:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVcMCrwc9UE

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  88. Goin'Fawr

    Lady G, wouldn’t it be best if the US just gave it up and filed for bankruptcy as a whole? Even the former USSR had the balls to own up on that one. That’s still part of the ‘free market’ isn’t it? Where I come from if you make your bed you have to lie in it, not about it.(Excepting banks, car companies, or any group with millions of dollars invested in lobbyists, of course; socialism still applies to the wealthy.) Shake the etch a sketch and start over!

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  89. TraderCaddy

    Yes, listen to Fly. Like the NY Yankees say “if you can’t beat them, buy them.”

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  90. mdawsz

    NYC is the flaming capital of the eastern seaboard. Salad tossers and nipple twisters, the whole lot. The only destination more queer would be the gay mecca, San Fran.

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  91. Goin'Fawr

    Mr.EB
    Heh, that vid reminds me of the movie “Trading Places” with Eddie Murphy. “Beef Jerky? Dere is plenty, know.”

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  92. TraderCaddy

    Just read the comments about the .25% tax. I will be finished if it passes. I imagine liquidity will dry up, $$ will go “overseas” and of course the opposite effect will happen with a decrease of tax revenue (short term Capital gains) as there will be much less trading. Both NY and Chicago financial industries will be hurt and there will be layoffs.
    If they wanted an increase in tax revenue they should slash the capital gains rate in half, at least.
    Morons.

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  93. gappingandyapping
    gappingandyapping

    Fly: Do I even need to bring up Willie Randolph?

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  94. j

    I think they would find it would end up being a tax on liquidty rather than speculation

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  95. Juice

    Buffett says in NBC interview that US is in ‘economic Pearl Harbor’

    OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Billionaire investor Warren Buffett says the U.S. is engaged in an “economic Pearl Harbor.”

    http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Buffett-says-US-in-economic-apf-14093313.html

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  96. gappingandyapping
    gappingandyapping

    The savior is here! I can’t wait for the waves or heaven to rain down on us on Tuesday. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1119783/Obama-save-says-America-polls-wave-optimism-sweeping-nation.html

    The market is going to soar, we are saved!

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