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[albitz]

Merkel and Sarkozy have decided that they want to introduce a transaction tax to prop up the Euro.
This would be a Europe wide tax, but it just so happens that 70% of transactions in Europe take place in London.
Will Osborne and Cameron bend over and take it ? Time will tell.

[saltyone]

whats the odd £13 billion here or there am sure the CON/DEMs can claw that back in no time with  the odd 5000 job losses here the odd RAF base closer there 50p on fags 10p on a pint  hell why not 25p on a gallon of fuel . am sure we can give them more than just a petty 13 bill 

[aaronjb]

Got a link to an article about it Albs? A quick scout of the BBC and I couldn't find one - not that I don't believe you, I just want to wind some European colleagues up about it!

[Varche]

whats the odd £13 billion here or there am sure the CON/DEMs can claw that back in no time with  the odd 5000 job losses here the odd RAF base closer there 50p on fags 10p on a pint  hell why not 25p on a gallon of fuel . am sure we can give them more than just a petty 13 bill 

Set aside the fact that these bankers earn a living gambling not actually doing an honest days work and despite what some people may think are actually fundamentally responsible for MOST of the mess the West is in now,   A transaction tax wouldn't mean the closure of bases, tax on cigs, petrol etc although the main parties in the Uk will continue to keep taxing those items more - that is a given.

What it will mean is less profit for the banks. On the face of it they can afford to stump up this money. Any downside?
-Smaller bankers bonuses
-smaller dividends paid on bank shares
- say a 5% drop in bank share value
- and perhaps the only one that would affect most people an impact on the value of their pension pot when they retire as most UK pensions have exposure to bank shares.

I am not saying I agree with a transaction tax and it going to the EU. but it isn't as bad as it sounds.

[albitz]

Was reported on Sky news last night, but of course Yhe Mail are reporting it this morning.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2027231/Sarkozy-Merkel-plot-13bn-tax-raid-UK-save-euro.html

[albitz]

whats the odd £13 billion here or there am sure the CON/DEMs can claw that back in no time with  the odd 5000 job losses here the odd RAF base closer there 50p on fags 10p on a pint  hell why not 25p on a gallon of fuel . am sure we can give them more than just a petty 13 bill 

Set aside the fact that these bankers earn a living gambling not actually doing an honest days work and despite what some people may think are actually fundamentally responsible for MOST of the mess the West is in now,   A transaction tax wouldn't mean the closure of bases, tax on cigs, petrol etc although the main parties in the Uk will continue to keep taxing those items more - that is a given.

What it will mean is less profit for the banks. On the face of it they can afford to stump up this money. Any downside?
-Smaller bankers bonuses
-smaller dividends paid on bank shares
- say a 5% drop in bank share value
- and perhaps the only one that would affect most people an impact on the value of their pension pot when they retire as most UK pensions have exposure to bank shares.

I am not saying I agree with a transaction tax and it going to the EU. but it isn't as bad as it sounds.

Varche - you seem like a nice bloke and normally quite intelligent with it, but tbh you talk the biggest load of nonsense about the Banking industry. I wouldnt mind if you stated clearly that you are referring to the Fred Goodwins of this world - right at the top of the tree and completely immune from their own poor judgement. The average trader working on a trading desk works incredibly hard for many hours a day and are extremely clever individuals. The pressure of the work is something which  very few will ever experience and most of us simply couldnt cope if we did. I personally know of 3 traders in their 20,s in recent years who have went to the top of tall buildings and jumped because the pressure crushed them.
Its more of a days work than you or I are ever likely to do, and it is what keeps this capitalist sytstem we enjoy living in operating.Bankers bonuses - good luck to them. I wish I was clever enough to do it.If you work under the systems your employer has devised for you to work under, and you can demonstrate that you have generated x millions of income for the employer, then you can argue that you are entitled to a cut.If you dont get it, you go and do the same for an employer who is more generous. Same as any other workplace, just more zeros on the end of the figures. I dont mind, but then I dont do the politics of envy.
It goes wrong when you get the likes of Fred the shred being allowed to rise to the top unchecked, mostly because he and the retarded, corrupt politicians of the day have their heads up each others jacksies, therefore the normal checks and balances are swept under the carpet.
There are millions of people in the financial industry worldwide - you shouldnt tar them all with the same brush.
Getting back to the transaction tax.Bank shares are curently on the floor, worth around 10% of what they were 5 years ago.
And the tax would be theft on a grand scale from the UK PLC.
Simply moving money from this country to other countries. Countries who have got deep in the shite, because they have been spending money they havent earned for decades and now the chickens have come home to roost. Its their mess and their problem. Let them work harder, generate their own growth and pay their own debts.
They dont tend to work as long and hard in those countries as we do in this country. They have nicer lifestyles etc. so they are going to have to change that imo, and start grafting harder and longer so they can afford to pay the bills.Thats how it works,and the sooner they learn that lesson the better.

[johnnygo]

whats the odd £13 billion here or there am sure the CON/DEMs can claw that back in no time with  the odd 5000 job losses here the odd RAF base closer there 50p on fags 10p on a pint  hell why not 25p on a gallon of fuel . am sure we can give them more than just a petty 13 bill 

I don't know about that. They will have to cough up for more coppers now too so your figures might just be a bit under!

[Varche]

whats the odd £13 billion here or there am sure the CON/DEMs can claw that back in no time with  the odd 5000 job losses here the odd RAF base closer there 50p on fags 10p on a pint  hell why not 25p on a gallon of fuel . am sure we can give them more than just a petty 13 bill 

Set aside the fact that these bankers earn a living gambling not actually doing an honest days work and despite what some people may think are actually fundamentally responsible for MOST of the mess the West is in now,   A transaction tax wouldn't mean the closure of bases, tax on cigs, petrol etc although the main parties in the Uk will continue to keep taxing those items more - that is a given.

What it will mean is less profit for the banks. On the face of it they can afford to stump up this money. Any downside?
-Smaller bankers bonuses
-smaller dividends paid on bank shares
- say a 5% drop in bank share value
- and perhaps the only one that would affect most people an impact on the value of their pension pot when they retire as most UK pensions have exposure to bank shares.

I am not saying I agree with a transaction tax and it going to the EU. but it isn't as bad as it sounds.

Varche - you seem like a nice bloke and normally quite intelligent with it, but tbh you talk the biggest load of nonsense about the Banking industry. I wouldnt mind if you stated clearly that you are referring to the Fred Goodwins of this world - right at the top of the tree and completely immune from their own poor judgement. The average trader working on a trading desk works incredibly hard for many hours a day and are extremely clever individuals. The pressure of the work is something which  very few will ever experience and most of us simply couldnt cope if we did. I personally know of 3 traders in their 20,s in recent years who have went to the top of tall buildings and jumped because the pressure crushed them.
Its more of a days work than you or I are ever likely to do, and it is what keeps this capitalist sytstem we enjoy living in operating.Bankers bonuses - good luck to them. I wish I was clever enough to do it.If you work under the systems your employer has devised for you to work under, and you can demonstrate that you have generated x millions of income for the employer, then you can argue that you are entitled to a cut.If you dont get it, you go and do the same for an employer who is more generous. Same as any other workplace, just more zeros on the end of the figures. I dont mind, but then I dont do the politics of envy.
It goes wrong when you get the likes of Fred the shred being allowed to rise to the top unchecked, mostly because he and the retarded, corrupt politicians of the day have their heads up each others jacksies, therefore the normal checks and balances are swept under the carpet.
There are millions of people in the financial industry worldwide - you shouldnt tar them all with the same brush.Getting back to the transaction tax.Bank shares are curently on the floor, worth around 10% of what they were 5 years ago.
And the tax would be theft on a grand scale from the UK PLC.
Simply moving money from this country to other countries. Countries who have got deep in the shite, because they have been spending money they havent earned for decades and now the chickens have come home to roost. Its their mess and their problem. Let them work harder, generate their own growth and pay their own debts.
They dont tend to work as long and hard in those countries as we do in this country. They have nicer lifestyles etc. so they are going to have to change that imo, and start grafting harder and longer so they can afford to pay the bills.Thats how it works,and the sooner they learn that lesson the better.

Hi Albs, You will be pleased to know I am a nice bloke and reasonably intelligent with it. In that respect we are no doubt very similar.

You cover a lot of ground in your reply. I will just answer a few of your points.

Bankers don't generate. that is a word you would use with the likes of Richard Branson, Dyson and so on. They actually make things and genberate wealth. Bankers do it either by gambling or charging. If they win they get paid big. If they lose they possibly go to prison (Neeson). Even the little stuff like charging us to withdraw our money attracts outrageous charges - easy money for doing nothing. Spreads on credit card interest compared to deposit acct interest.

tarred with the same brush. Afraid so. People make no distinction between say a refuse collector and a gnome sat in the council office handling planning applications. They are all called "overpaid wasters or worse".  So I tar all bankers with the same brush.

They don't tend to work as long or as hard. That is a misnomer too. A survey showed taht South Europeans work longer and harder than their North European counterparts. Since living in Spain I can concur with this. When I didn't live here I too thought like most holiday makers that they are lazy folk who sleep all afternoon. Wrong. They do have a siesta - I do as it is so damn hot in JUly and August but then they go back to work in the evening. One of our neighbours gets up before dawn and works on his olive trees before starting his job delivering door to door gas bottles in town. Then when he finishes that he works till about 9 p.m. again on his olive trees. He has both in order to make ends meet. With unemployemnt at over 20% it is hard for some people to find a job or for the government to atx those working more.

I agree EU countries have been spending more than they earn including Britain.

We will always disagree on bankers

[Nickbat]

Bankers don't generate. that is a word you would use with the likes of Richard Branson, Dyson and so on. They actually make things and genberate wealth. Bankers do it either by gambling or charging.

Sorry, Varche, but IMHO that's a bit of an odd accusation to make, since the banking industry is a service industry like many others. Yes, they don't manufacture things like Dyson (where are his cleaners made these days?), but they are still an intergral part of the country's economy and they do generate GDP for the country.

I also notice the word "gambling" crops up. The fact is that there are many areas of our economy where people make speculative investments. I seem to recall that our lost friend Banjax runs a comic book shop. He presumably buys in as cheap as he can and then puts a mark up (his profit) on it and resells. I presume he may also buy in stock that doesn't sell. He doesn't generate as such, and the buying customer would, if he knew the original vendor, be able to buy a comic cheaper. But BJ runs a business and I heartily defend his right to do so. As for Leeson, you seem to think that he is broadly representative of banking personnel. No. He acted illegally without his employer's knowledge... and rightly paid the price for it.

Of course, there is on other aspect to banking you seem to have overlooked and that is, without them and their aggregated capital, many businesses (including manufacturing businesses) would never have started up.

Still, bankers are an easy target...even if they are the wrong target.        

[Varche]

Hi Nick.
 I know you too are a nice bloke and reasonably intelligent.

Gambling. Everybody understands the money lending side of retail banking. Shiny palaces with lots of staff good mark up on everything they do. e.g. the 4% it costs me to get money out of a hole in the Spanish wall if it isn't my own bank. Mark up on money lent.

The investment side (dark side) is where the real bad boys hang out. They don't make or buy anything tangible and then sell it on at a profit or possibly a loss. No they gamble on the price of something tomorrow or a bit further in the future. It could be coffee in Africa or oil in South America. Or altogether more complex scenarios like hedge funds.

I'll recount a true story. I invested 7000 pounds with an outfit called New Star in their tec ISA. A few years later it was worth 9000 pounds. Then came the crash and it was valued at just under 1000 pounds. Each six months they wrote and sent me a fantastically expensive pamphlet detailing how well they were doing in difficult market conditions. Now years later and several different owners later (Henderson now?) they write and say they are pleased that their choices for clients money is doing well. The total value 1600 pounds. Enough for a rainy day. I am not bitter about it as I know the risks in investing in stocks and shares but the smugness of their bumf makes my blood boil. They have of course been paying themselves handsomely for losing me money. And that is the point. They make mbillions out of outrageous charges on peoples "investments" often their pensions. The charges erode the value but although the problem is well known NO one does anything about it for fear of upsetting "my precious".

Businesses could start up with loans at preferential rates provided by the taxpayer. You don't need a bank with grand premises and grand profits that need to be made to make sensible loans. You do need banks to make none sensible loans like the Sub Prime scandal. I am sorry to repeat we are all still paying for that and will do for a very long time. I will always hate bankers for the damage they have done to the world economies.

[albitz]

Very objective.

[Nickbat]

I invested 7000 pounds with an outfit called New Star in their tec ISA. A few years later it was worth 9000 pounds.

If you hate banks so much, why did you invest rather than keep it under your mattress? You were gambling that your money would grow and grow. You got the bet wrong. We all do it, but it is still gambling.

Oh, and as for the commodity markets, there are certainly a few shysters around theses days but the roots of markets lie in the long sea voyages undertaken from the New World. Merchants needed to be sure their cargo did not devalue whilst on the high seas, so they sold the produce before it arrived, essentially before they took possession. Likweise some buyers would purchase the cargo in the hope the maret would rise and they could resell at a profit. An investment, if you like. Much the same happens today, though I am less than convinced that trading in some of the more complex and obscure financial instruments is of great benefit to the general public.   

As far as the sub-prime mortgage market in the US is concerned, a number of banks were "leant upon" by administrations like those of Carter and Clinton, in order to progress a political aim. Like the EU today, politics and the markets don't fundamentally mix.   

[Varche]

Nick - I spread my risks. Still got my hoard of gold bars, they are doing rather nicely.

[Nickbat]

Nick - I spread my risks. Still got my hoard of gold bars, they are doing rather nicely.

Cool move, Varche! 

[Sir Tigger KC]

Cameron and Osbourne must veto the proposed EU transaction tax quickly and definatly!!! ie No way Jose!!! 

If they allow this one, how long before more direct and indirect EU taxes crop up??? The EU income tax? The EU property tax? The EU fuel tax? The EU sales tax? The EU window tax? The EU TV tax? The EU road tax? The EU capital gains tax? The EU inheritance tax? and ........... The EU poll tax???!!!!