Go Get Um , Pete , this is a winner ! Good job Earl , hey Wyden we better hear from you pronto , and you better use your seniority for us , and not your Bankster budds.
[ Barry O'Bama better get on board too. He rides with the Occupy Movement , all 99% of us , or goes down to defeat without us. ]

And it's passed on to the consumer and end user, thus sinking a stagnant economy further into the abyss.

With more money for the feds to waste.

Thanks Dems.

Now. Now. We would not want to upset the "job creators" would we?

Since a good portion of the folks own mutual funds and they deal in large share transactions, of course the tax on these transactions would be funneled down the chain to the little guy.

So I don't believe his $3.00 figure or whatever it is on the individual. I bet when it all said and done the # will greater and the $ will be wasted.

PJ:

I don't support giving our government any more money. Period. They have not earned our trust.

The real problem in the markets at the moment, though, is high-frequency trading (HFT). These algorithms supposedly lend liquidity to the markets, but most quotes never trade. They are posted and removed too quickly for anyone to hit. In effect, they give the appearance of liquidity on one side of the trade or another, making real traders think a stock has pressure to rise or fall, and the momentum traders trade accordingly.

This caused the flash crash and on a daily basis, we see flash crashes (sometimes upward) in individual stocks targeted by the HFT.

They are actually PAID to make these trades, which is ridiculous. It's complicated, and hard to explain, but it's unjustifiable theft from honest traders and mutual fund managers and another example of sanctioned theft.

Burn 'em all.

Peter if you or one of your office people are reading this stop. Bring the troops home from abroad, from Europe, Asia, Africa, So. America, any place we have them. Send the 7th Fleet to San Diego and the 6th Fleet to Norfolk, or wherever you wish, but bring them home.

That will save about $150 billion annually. We don't need to pay the defense bill of those we are competing against in international commerce.

There already is a tax on transactions. When you sell a stock, you pay an SEC fee.

Good. Well, now you should pay a sales tax, too.

Just call me "Blue Boy". Because I'm going to hold my breath until this happens.

There was a small transaction tax on trades for decades, since FDR, along with the Glass Steagle act. Those were repealed by Clinton who caved to the Republican congress. Too bad. A great many things would be better if only those 2 things had been maintained.

Don Smith:It's complicated, and hard to explain, but it's unjustifiable theft from honest traders and mutual fund managers and another example of sanctioned theft.

It sounds like you know about this trading scene. I don't understand that much about it, but I do get that theft is in the picture. I am also very concerned when I hear Goldman Sachs is involved with commodities such as food.

I am commenting outside of my field here, could Congress or Federal Regulators if they were on our side of course, put a stop to HFT?

After your comment, I tried to
find out more. There is much to read about this, below are only a few excerpts.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-frequency_trading

HFT usually implies a firm holds an investment position only for very brief periods of time - even just seconds - and rapidly trades into and out of those positions, sometimes thousands or tens of thousands of times a day;

By 2010 high-frequency trading accounted for over 70% of equity trades taking place in the US and was rapidly growing in popularity in Europe and Asia. Aiming to capture just a fraction of a penny per share or currency unit on every trade, high-frequency traders move in and out of such short-term positions several times each day. Fractions of a penny accumulate fast to produce significantly positive results at the end of every day.

In September 2010, SEC chairperson Mary Schapiro signaled that US authorities were considering the introduction of regulations targeted at HFT, such as a minimum "time in force" rule, to prevent buy orders being canceled very soon after being issued. Criticisms of this proposed law are that currently exchanges allow excess message traffic to queue up at their servers' ports, where it is processed sequentially at a fixed rate and as a result poses no threat to the exchanges.[6]

Clinamen, yes, I have been watching this issue for three years. Mary Schapiro is a hapless, captured "regulator" who has no interest in disturbing the status quo.

Your quote "In September 2010, SEC chairperson Mary Schapiro signaled that US authorities were considering the introduction of regulations targeted at HFT, such as a minimum "time in force" rule, to prevent buy orders being canceled very soon after being issued." is exactly right.

She trial-ballooned it, the traders poo-pooed it, and it went away, while bloggers have been railing against this abuse for years. The excess message traffic is a total red herring. People are losing lots of money, and our markets are excessively volatile precisely because of this.

Oh, yeah, by the way, Congress could order the SEC to implement such a rule tomorrow if they chose to do so.

DeFazio is the Progressive version of Michelle Bachmann in that:

1. No-one can name a significant piece of legislation that he has sponsored or co-sponsored and is now US law.

How long has Pete been in Congress? What single piece of legislation is he known for?

To be fair to Bachmann, she has been in only since 2007, while DeFazio has been in 20 more years than her. She has 20 more years of FAIL before she equals Pete.

2. Takes every opportunity to appear in front of a television camera.

Bachmann uses Fox News; Pete uses MSNBC.

3. Can always drum up a faux self-righteous outrage during hearings

His YouTube clips are good, but hearings are nothing more than political theater with no meaningful impact on the everyday citizen.

4. Comes from a radically different political culture than the district he represents.

Bachmann is from Iowa where, like Idaho, the state is most known for a bigger than average White racist population. Pete is from Massachusetts where those who vacation in Martha's Vineyard treat the state like it is a feudal fiefdom that is obligated to keep them in political office for 30+ years (see the Kennedys).

Sure this may be a great idea, but in reality it is just another Rachel Maddow interview for Peter Defazio. This will never get passed.

Jack:

On what basis do you support such a tax? Simply because we need the money? The tax won't solve the volatility issue, because as I've outlined, most of the quotes NEVER TRADE! They just give the appearance of demand. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npcPsttR2pU Watch this.

Then imagine Goldman (TOTally hypothetical and would never happen) stuffs quotes, makes orders for clients, and then front-runs the trade with HFT by just more than the $.003 fee, they just steal money and the government gets their piece TWICE! and the investor gets a WORSE price by $.003 and STILL pay the fee on their trade.

This tax is nothing more than extortion and will not change a thing for the 99%. The game is rigged. The tax just makes it more rigged.