Peter Zylstra-Moore

2010
Financial Transaction Taxes:
Making Finance Work for the Real Economy

The recent collapse of the American housing market caused a domino-effect of subsequent

stock market and banking collapses, eerily reminiscent of the Great Depression. An enormous

fiscal stimulus combined with government bailouts for failing institutions appears to have at least

prevented the crisis from deepening. With the collapse, public criticism of Wall Street and the

recognition of real class conflict have become almost in vogue. Unfortunately, this crisis is not

really unique but rather the most recent incarnation of an increasingly volatile and internationally

focused financial sector. While some form of fiscal stimulus and institutional bailouts were

necessary to lessen the impacts of the crisis, these measures in themselves do nothing to guarantee

that something like this will not happen again. The financial sector needs to be re-regulated. One

way of doing this is to tax financial transactions. Financial Transaction Taxes are an achievable

and beneficial, progressive and stabilizing tax that ought to be publicly popular in a real social

democracy.

This paper first looks briefly at the increasingly crisis prone nature of deregulated finance.

It then examines the need for a Financial Transaction Tax (FTT) as one important tool in re-

regulating finance. It will look at the benefits of imposing a financial transaction tax as a

mechanism for increasing the cost of short-term transactions and therefore encouraging more long-

term financial activity, and as a mechanism for collecting the necessary tax for recapitalizing

failing institutions, and stimulating economies during recession. Because the US has repeatedly

been near the centre of financial institutional failure, this paper will predominately focus on what

this tax could look like in the US. It will also consider a number of criticisms of this tax and the

practical possibility of gaining public and political support for a Financial Transaction Tax. Finally
this paper will examine democratic failures in the media and political systems rather than lack of

public appeal as the strongest reasons FTTs have not been implemented.

Instability and Neoliberal Deregulation

Throughout the neoliberal era, deregulation combined with the un-bordering of finance and

floating currencies have arguably caused a significant increase in both banking and currency

collapses. Compared to the record during what is known both as the Keynesian era and the golden

age of capitalism these numbers are astounding. In developing countries where the movement of

financial monies can actually dwarf the size of the economy, the result is incredible financial

instability. From 1945 to 1971 there were only 17 banking and/or currency crises in developing

countries. From 1973-1997 there were 95 crises, an increase of almost six-fold.1 Many of these

countries faced economic and employment declines similar to those of the Great Depression,

however because these depressions mostly affected the world's poorest populations they received

little media attention. Beginning in 1999 with the American Stock Market Bubble, and leading into

the most recent economic crisis it would appear that the proverbial chickens of our financial

policies are finally coming home to roost. Even where currencies are not collapsing, constant

revaluation of currencies has left businesses in Canada, for example,2 with drastically changing

profit margins. This has only fuelled further business departure to Asian countries where

currencies are often controlled and more predictable (and where the heavy hand of the state

silences labour).

Obviously, increased financial liquidity allows for a more temperamental economy marked

1 Eichengreen, Barry and Michael D. Bordo, Crises Now and Then, National Bureau
of Economic Research, 2002, available at
http://faculty.oxy.edu/mcintyre/Econ495-F04/Eichengreen+Bordo-Crises-
NBER-w8716.pdf
2 Managing the exchange rate was ranked the biggest problem(28%) problem for
improving exports for Canadian businesses, see Canadian Manufacturing Sector
Trends and Challenges,
http://cmte.parl.gc.ca/Content/HOC/committee/391/indu/reports/rp2663393/indu
rp05/en/09.html
by booms and busts. As Keynes suggested, financial markets are not about fundamentals but rather

about outguessing market sentiment through, “anticipating what average opinion thinks average

opinion to be.”3 Highly liquid financial markets “promote speculative trading practices that distort

pricing, resource allocation and investment, creating imbalance between financial and real activity,

and thereby contributing to macroeconomic instability.” They accomplish all this while still

remaining privately profitable for speculators.4 It may be easy to make a profit by taking money

from a country with low interest rates and moving it for a day to a country with high interest rates,

but it is not in most cases beneficial to either economy. The system is built so that people who

have the resources to play and even manipulate the market can make incredible short-term gains.

For example, it was recently revealed that Goldman Sachs knew that its mortgages were over-rated

and so it sold securities for these mortgages which allowed it to continue to benefit from the

housing market bubble while it grew, and not be on the hook for the failed mortgages after they

collapsed.5 As markets prioritize short term investment, businesses also are forced to prioritize

short term profits in order to keep investment.

If increased liquidity leads to faster growth, we may choose growth over stability.

However, after comparing the competing evidence around liquidity and growth, Robert Pollin,

Mark Shaberg, and Dean Baker concluded that once research is controlled for outliers, “no

statistical evidence exists at all to support the claims that countries will enjoy faster economic

growth through more liquid stock markets.”6

3 Keynes, John Maynard, The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money.
New York: Harcourt Brace & World, 1936, pg 156
4 Baker, Dean, Marc Shaberg, and Robert Pollin, SECURITIES TRANSACTION TAXES
FOR U.S. FINANCIAL MARKETS, pg 530,
http://college.holycross.edu/eej/Volume29/V29N4P527_558.pdf
5 How Goldman Secretly Bet on the US Housing Market Collapse,
http://therealnews.com/t/index.php?
option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=4406
6 Baker, Dean, Marc Shaberg, and Robert Pollin, SECURITIES TRANSACTION TAXES
FOR U.S. FINANCIAL MARKETS,
http://college.holycross.edu/eej/Volume29/V29N4P527_558.pdf
 The assumed correlation of economic freedom with growth is highlighted yearly in the

Heritage Foundation's Index of Economic Freedom. Their 2009 report is meant to reassure that

despite the current situation, economic freedom still means growth.

In a period of slowing economic growth in many parts of the world, popular pressure for
governments to act to fix the situation can be enormous. In responding to such pressure, it is
vital that leaders understand the real causes of negative economic developments and
undertake actions that will fix them rather than exacerbate them. If intrusive government
regulation has contributed to an economic problem, it is unlikely that still more government
regulation will cure it. If excessive taxes have stifled investment and entrepreneurship,
increasing tax rates is unlikely to spur economic growth. If the monetary supply has been too
loose or credit too easily available, lowering interest rates is unlikely to be the magic fix the
public demands.
—Executive Summary, 2009 Index of Economic Freedom

What the Heritage Foundation doesn't do is take their own measures of Economic Freedom and

compare them with actual or predicted growth. The 7 countries described as 'free' were predicted

by the conservative International Monetary Fund (IMF) to decline at an average of -4.54%, the 23

'mostly free' countries were to decline at -3.99%, the 53 'moderately free' countries at -0.92%, the

67 'mostly unfree' countries including China and India were expected to grow at 2.31% and the 69

'repressed' countries were expected to grow at 1.65%.7

Markets are important when they allocate capital efficiently to where it can be used to

produce more combined surplus. However, as history often demonstrates, markets can often be

driven by 'animal spirits' leading to excessive fluctuation highlighted by booms and subsequent

busts. Excessive fluctuations in the market can be more representative of speculative activity then

real changes in supply and/or demand. Though history has substantiated that some form of

regulated market economy is in most cases the most efficient means of efficiently organizing

production and consumption8, it is becoming equally clear that more and freer markets can very

7 Miller, John. Economic Freedom's Just Another Word For Crisis Prone.
http://www.dollarsandsense.org/archives/2009/0909miller.html
8 They are efficient in organizing supply and demand through the price system,
however they are oftentimes also inefficient in that huge social costs remain
external to the current price system.
often reduce overall efficiency.

A Financial Transaction Tax

A Financial Transaction Tax (FTT) has been proposed by various groups to reduce short-

term, speculative transactions and to provide a source of highly progressive taxation income to

lessen the impact of market failures.

Keynes initially suggested a financial transaction tax to mitigate the “predominance of

speculation over enterprise.”9 As James Tobin suggested in reference to a currency tax, because the

FTT would occur with every transaction it would penalize short term transactions, while having

little effect on longer-term investment.10 This tax would pose serious risks for people gambling on

minute, hour or day length financial market bets, with very little effect on transactions over a

longer period.

There are three strong factors influencing market volatility: “the underlying behaviour of

the non-financial economy; the herd behaviour of financial market participants; and the attempt by

participants to dig out of financial crises once they have already occurred.” If the FTT curbs

speculative and predatory financial transactions and causes the economy to prioritize longer term

growth over short term profits it should improve the non-financial economy. Increasing the costs

of financial transactions would reduce the short term herd behaviour of financial market

participants. Though increased market costs could reduce liquidity during crises when liquidity is

actually needed this would be offset by the fact that the financial market is itself smaller (because

of less dead weight short term transactions). Liquidity could also be increased during times of

crisis and recession by decreasing the FTT during recessions and increasing it during periods of

9 Keynes, J. The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money. New York:
Harcourt Brace & World, 1936, pg 160.
10 Tobin, James. Prologue, in The Tobin Tax: Coping with Financial Volatility,
New York: Oxford University Press, 1996, xi.
growth.11

It is important that the tax rate is not so high that financial transactions simply move to

where there is no such burden. However, the London Stock Market is no small market, and it

charges a 0.5% fee on stock market transactions. Most economic analysts support the copyright

system though it results in around a 100 percent price increase compared to the 0.5% raise of the

stock tax in the UK.12 A small tax such as the one proposed would simply be raising the cost of

financial transactions back to 1980's levels.13

Of course with any tax there is the possibility of evasion, and as in other cases the risk is

weighed against the benefit. In the case of the UK's stock tax, dealers are made responsible for

collecting the tax, and if ownership of the asset is registered through the filing of the tax, 0.5% tax

does not seem all that high to guarantee ownership.14 Baker suggests going beyond the UK in

enforcement. “For example, we can give workers an incentive to turn in their cheating bosses by

awarding them 10 percent of any revenue and penalties that the government collects. There are

surely many clerical workers in the financial industry who would welcome the opportunity to

become millionaires by turning in their bosses.”15

With currency transaction taxes, also known as Tobin Taxes, collection could be effectively

implemented “if (the tax) was applied to the interbank payments made to settle foreign exchange

transactions rather than to the trades that define the transactions.” Financial institutions could be
11 Baker, Dean, Marc Shaberg, and Robert Pollin, SECURITIES TRANSACTION TAXES
FOR U.S. FINANCIAL MARKETS,
http://college.holycross.edu/eej/Volume29/V29N4P527_558.pdf, pg 533.
12 Dean Baker, Effective Currency Transaction Taxes, CEPR,June 2001,
http://www.cepr.net/documents/publications/tobin_tax_2001_06.pdf
13 Baker, Dean, Why Do We Avoid the Financial Transactions Taxes?
http://www.albany.edu/~bd445/Eco_466Y/Readings/Why_Do_We_Avoid_Financial-
Transactions_Taxes.html
14 Baker, Dean, The Benefits of a Financial Transaction Tax, December 2008,
http://www.cepr.net/documents/publications/financial-transactions-tax-2008-
12.pdf
15 Baker, Dean, The Cost of Business on Wall Street, The Guardian, April 27,
2009, http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2009/apr/27/wall-
street-economy-financial-transactions-tax
responsible for the tax when it went through a clearinghouse, which has been effectively

centralized because of real economies of scale. As long as the tax was not so high that it

undermined these economies of scale, implementation would not be difficult. A tax of 0.1% would

be negligible when currencies were held for the medium and long term but “for speculators

flipping currencies weekly or daily, it would amount to an onerous tax of 10 to 50 percent on their

investment.”16 This tax on the spot market would have to be coordinated with a similarly weighted

tax on derivatives (as was mentioned earlier), since more money may be speculated upon than ever

need be exchanged.17

There has been growing support for some kind of FTT and if the US (and Canada) would

get on board, international harmonization would not be impossible. Given their repeated financial

crises at the hands of speculative international investors, much of the developing world has for

years, argued in favour of currency transaction taxes and other FTTs. The UK already has a stock

trades tax and Gordon Brown has recently argued for international FTTs. Former Chief Economist

for the World Bank, and Clinton Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers has also supported the

concept of FTTs. International harmonization might allow for even stronger tax rates on

currencies for instance where medium term stability is even more important.

One of the criticism's of the Tobin Tax on currency transactions, or other forms of FTTs is

that they simply cause financial speculation to shift from one area to another. In the UK example,

the stamp tax that applies directly to stock shares, allows stock speculation to move to futures or

options and/or to other assets. A broader and more comprehensive tax, where the fee structure is

scaled according to “the expected life of the asset so the disincentive to trading will be roughly

16 Schmidt. R. 1999. "A Feasible Foreign Exchange Tax." Ottawa, Canada: North-
South Institute,
http://www.globalpolicy.org/component/content/article/216/45996.html.
17 Schmidt. R. 1999. "A Feasible Foreign Exchange Tax." Ottawa, Canada: North-
South Institute,
http://www.globalpolicy.org/component/content/article/216/45996.html.
equal across markets” is important in curbing speculation. Dean Baker has proposed for stock

trades a 0.5% fee, for currency transactions a fee of 0.1%18, for bonds 0.01 % fee for each year

remaining until maturity, for futures a 0.02 % fee on the notional value of the underlying asset, on

options a 0.5% fee on the premium paid for the option, and on interest rate swaps a 0.02 % fee on

the asset value per year until its expiration.19 These figures of course are estimates that are meant

to equalize the tax rate across financial transactions. They obviously can and may need to be

adjusted. What is important is that they are broad enough to cover all financial transactions, and

are equalized in terms of relative cost. It is also important to tax according to value of the asset

(not the profits) to emphasize that it is especially short-term risk taking not profit-making that is

being penalized.

The FTTs provide a progressive source of revenue. There has been significant public

uproar in the US over the bank and financial institution handouts in light of their insolvency in the

US. If these institutions had been allowed to fail, the subsequent collapse in liquidity would

probably have caused a depression, and so tax-payer dollars were marshalled in support of bailouts

to what were only a few years earlier some of the most profitable businesses in the US. They were

recapitalized while the bank lending rate was dropped to almost nothing and as the stock market

began growing again, have turned these handouts into incredible profits through the same type of

speculation that caused the crisis. Public uproar broke out again as the banking sector handed out

record bonuses to their executives after receiving bailouts from tax-payers.

If implemented, the money for these bailouts could come from FTT revenues. The FTT is

a progressive tax in that it targets the richest Americans. Though middle income Americans hold

18 Dean Baker, Effective Currency Transaction Taxes, CEPR,June 2001,

http://www.cepr.net/documents/publications/tobin_tax_2001_06.pdf
19 Baker, Dean, The Benefits of a Financial Transaction Tax, December 2008,
http://www.cepr.net/documents/publications/financial-transactions-tax-2008-
12.pdf
stock, it is often insubstantial. Moreover they are likely to hold stock in the long term rather than

actively trade. Thus the burden of the tax will fall on the institutions and richer short-term traders

who directly affect booms and bubbles.20 Taxing the rich is especially prescient given that between

1975 and 2003 “the average real income of the top quintile of American households increased by

more than $57,000 (64 percent) between 1975 and 2003, while the average real income of the middle

quintile increased by about $8,000 (23 percent) and the average real income of the poorest quintile

increased by $853 (less than 10 percent).21

This tax not only targets the offenders, a very small tax starting at 0.5% would provide a

significant source of revenue for the US. If this rate would not affect volume or prices it would

generate 132.1 billion dollars annually. If it would lead to a 75% reduction in volume of financial

transactions or prices it would generate 99.2 billion dollars, and at a 50% reduction it would

generate 66.1 billion.22 This would generate the kind of revenue to ensure that the banks can pay

for their own bailouts, while at the same time reducing speculation and therefore the overall need

for bailouts.

Taxes on currency transactions could provide significant aid funds towards poverty

reduction, avoiding and counteracting the effects of climate change, the stabilization of currencies,

and many other worthy causes. With over a trillion dollars being exchanged daily, even a small tax

of 0.1% significantly effected volume would generate over a hundred billion dollars annually.

Again a significant decrease in the volume of exchanges would allow for more stability in the

currency market.

20 Baker, Dean, The Need to Tax the Wealthy,http://www.cepr.net/index.php/op-

eds-&-columns/op-eds-&-columns/the-need-to-tax-the-wealthy/
21 Bartels, Larry, Economic Inequality and Political Representation,
http://www.princeton.edu/~bartels/economic.pdf, pg 2.
22 Baker, Dean, Marc Shaberg, and Robert Pollin, SECURITIES TRANSACTION TAXES
FOR U.S. FINANCIAL MARKETS, pg 553.
http://college.holycross.edu/eej/Volume29/V29N4P527_558.pdf
Gaining Support for the Tax:

Critics of the FTT point to the possibility of overly high tax rates leading to the movement

of financial activity elsewhere, or to the cheating incentive any tax provides. Critics also cite

improper coordination of the FTT as an argument against taxation. They argue that in a global

financial marketplace finance will move to where it is unregulated. In reality however, it is not an

international race tot he bottom but rather the richest countries and especially the US and Canada

that are holding this back. FTTs are not new and have been implemented to a significant extent in

most countries across the world including major financial markets in Japan and the UK.23 It is clear

from these examples that it is not much of an inhibitor in the case of long term transactions.

Part of the problem is simply that with increasing competition in industrial and consumer

goods, given the mobility of corporations and the comparative advantage in wages in most

developing countries, developed countries' most profitable corporations are increasingly financial.

In fact finance now accounts for over 30% of corporate profits in the US.24 The financial industry

is three times as large as it was at the end of the Second World War. Speculation may be

unproductive, but it is currently quite profitable. As long as it is disproportionately profitable, it

will also have significant political clout within developed countries (especially in the UK and US).

Financialization allows developed countries to have economies that are larger than they are

productive. Adding to this, the instability of currencies and markets in developing countries forces

poorer nations to seek economic stability by holding significant reserves in the currencies of

developed countries, an incredible expense for countries with limited tax bases. This increased and

23 For a country by country list of past and present FTT's see Baker, Dean,
Marc Shaberg, and Robert Pollin, SECURITIES TRANSACTION TAXES FOR U.S.
FINANCIAL MARKETS,
http://college.holycross.edu/eej/Volume29/V29N4P527_558.pdf, pg 535-536.
24 See Charts in Mandel, Michael, A Bad Decade For Non-Financial Profits,
http://www.businessweek.com/the_thread/economicsunbound/archives/2009/03/a_b
ad_decade_fo.html, see also Baker, Dean, Testimony of Dean Baker,
http://cop.senate.gov/documents/testimony-111909-baker.pdf.
substantial demand, artificially inflates the currencies of the west, which for persons with wealth

increases the value of that wealth.25 However, for people who earn their livelihood through their

wage rather than wealth, an overpriced currency makes industry in the long run less competitive,

and so slows investment, productivity and wage growth.

The real reason for the lack of support for an FTT in countries like the US and Canada is

that short term speculation can be incredibly easy money. Switching tens of millions of dollars to a

country with a higher interest rate for a couple of hours can provide a significant profit to the

individual investor, regardless of whether it serves any productive purpose. Most persons can

recognize the difference between short term gambling and long term investment. Most persons

were outraged over the bailout of the banking sector, followed by the highest bonuses ever. It

seems that most people would be quite receptive to taxing short term transactions to reduce

instability and force the financial industry to pay for its own cleanup.

The real problem is not any particular ineffectiveness of the FTT, nor is it an incapacity to

implement them or a lack of public reception. Rather, the problem with implementing such a

taxation regime is a matter of who has the most to lose from the FTT. It is the very richest

segment of the population who not only hold stock, but are involved in daily and hourly

speculation, and the financial industry itself who have something to lose from the implementation

of the FTT.

The real problem with lack of regulation lies together with the problem of rising inequality

in almost every country world-wide. It parallels the subsidy just given to the US healthcare sector

that ranks as the most inefficient in the world. It is not about lack of public will, but who controls

the political will. Tom Ferguson in his book “The Golden Rule” recognizes elections as basically

25 Songzuo, Xiang, US Currency Hegemony Premium, China Stakes, October 20,

2009, http://www.chinastakes.com/2009/10/US-Currency-Hegemony-Premium-Why-
the-Federal-Reserve-Is-a-Currency-Manipulator.html
points when investing blocks compete for control of the state. As is recognized by the Centre for

Responsive Politics, in the last election the best funded candidate won the presidency and nine of

ten congressional races.26 When Obama was unknown, before he had even beaten Hillary, 36% of

his funding was already coming from the finance sector. The same percentage of McCain's funding

was also coming from finance.27 Obama's second largest donor was Goldman Sachs.28

This is why in the US, income tax which contributed 44 percent of government revenues

fifty years ago, contributes 73 percent today, while the share of total federal taxes paid by

corporations has fallen from 33 to 15 percent.29 Not only did corporations stop paying tax but

within income tax, the top tax rate in the US has went from 63% after the Great Depression to 94%

in 1945 to 35% in 2003.30

With markets you generally get production based on economic demand. You'd have to be

conspiratorial to suggest that a free enterprise media wouldn't respond primarily to the advertisers

who fund it, or that our corporate/elite funded leaders would not be most responsive to those that

fund their elections. Until we find mechanism's to publicly fund candidates according to

democratic will, and until we find ways to similarly reform our media, or until speculative finance

leads us into another depression that will finally mobilize the masses (still too comfortable from

the gains labour fought for in the Great Depression and following the Second World War), we will

not get any substantial re-regulation of finance. This is not to suggest that we shouldn't recognize

26 Money Wins Presidency and 9 of 10 Congressional Races in Priciest U.S.

Election Ever, November 5, 2008,
http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2008/11/money-wins-white-house-and.html
27 Ferguson, Tom, Financial Regulation, Don't Get Your Hopes Up, April 17,
2008,
http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/17/financial_regulation_dont_ge
t/
28 Top Contributors, Barrak Obama
http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/contrib.php?cycle=2008&cid=N00009638
29 Beatty, Jack, The Road to a Third Party,
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/policamp/goldenr.htm
30 Top US Marginal Income Tax Rates 1913-2003,
http://www.truthandpolitics.org/top-rates.php#ref-3
the need for re-regulation and FTT's, but rather that we should recognize that the larger issue is

about democracy in our political and information systems. Obama has surrounded himself with

persons from the industries that funded him and with Clinton advisers who were responsible for

deregulating the financial system, and it seems they are getting what they paid for. In a real social

democracy coming out of increasingly regular economic crises, a financial transaction tax is an

achievable and pertinent, progressive and stabilizing response.

Works Cited

Baker, Dean Effective Currency Transaction Taxes, CEPR,June 2001,

http://www.cepr.net/documents/publications/tobin_tax_2001_06.pdf

Baker, Dean, Why Do We Avoid the Financial Transactions Taxes?

http://www.albany.edu/~bd445/Eco_466Y/Readings/Why_Do_We_Avoid_Financial-
Transactions_Taxes.html

Baker, Dean, Marc Shaberg, and Robert Pollin, SECURITIES TRANSACTION TAXES FOR U.S.
FINANCIAL MARKETS, pg 530,
http://college.holycross.edu/eej/Volume29/V29N4P527_558.pdf

Baker, Dean, The Benefits of a Financial Transaction Tax, December 2008,

http://www.cepr.net/documents/publications/financial-transactions-tax-2008-12.pdf

Baker, Dean, The Need to Tax the Wealthy,http://www.cepr.net/index.php/op-eds-&-columns/op-

eds-&-columns/the-need-to-tax-the-wealthy/

Baker, Dean, The Cost of Business on Wall Street, The Guardian, April 27, 2009,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2009/apr/27/wall-street-economy-
financial-transactions-tax

Baker, Dean, Testimony of Dean Baker, http://cop.senate.gov/documents/testimony-111909-

baker.pdf.

Bartels, Larry, Economic Inequality and Political Representation,

http://www.princeton.edu/~bartels/economic.pdf, pg 2.

Beatty, Jack, The Road to a Third Party, http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/policamp/goldenr.htm

Canadian Manufacturing Sector Trends and Challenges,

http://cmte.parl.gc.ca/Content/HOC/committee/391/indu/reports/rp2663393/indurp05/en/09.htm
l
Eichengreen, Barry and Michael D. Bordo, Crises Now and Then, National Bureau of Economic
Research, 2002, available at http://faculty.oxy.edu/mcintyre/Econ495-F04/Eichengreen+Bordo-
Crises-NBER-w8716.pdf

Ferguson, Tom, Financial Regulation, Don't Get Your Hopes Up, April 17, 2008,
http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/17/financial_regulation_dont_get/

How Goldman Secretly Bet on the US Housing Market Collapse,

http://therealnews.com/t/index.php?
option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=4406

Keynes, John Maynard, The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money. New York:
Harcourt Brace & World, 1936.

Mandel, Michael, A Bad Decade For Non-Financial Profits,

http://www.businessweek.com/the_thread/economicsunbound/archives/2009/03/a_bad_decade_
fo.html

Miller, John. Economic Freedom's Just Another Word For Crisis Prone.
http://www.dollarsandsense.org/archives/2009/0909miller.html

Money Wins Presidency and 9 of 10 Congressional Races in Priciest U.S. Election Ever,
November 5, 2008,
http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2008/11/money-wins-white-house-and.html

Songzuo, Xiang, US Currency Hegemony Premium, China Stakes, October 20, 2009,
http://www.chinastakes.com/2009/10/US-Currency-Hegemony-Premium-Why-the-Federal-
Reserve-Is-a-Currency-Manipulator.html

Schmidt. R. 1999. "A Feasible Foreign Exchange Tax." Ottawa, Canada: North-South Institute,
http://www.globalpolicy.org/component/content/article/216/45996.html.

Tobin, James. Prologue, in The Tobin Tax: Coping with Financial Volatility, New York: Oxford
University Press, 1996.

Top Contributors, Barrak Obama http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/contrib.php?

cycle=2008&cid=N00009638

Top US Marginal Income Tax Rates 1913-2003, http://www.truthandpolitics.org/top-rates.php#ref-

3