tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5972739420349387167.post1950831122170320366..comments2023-09-22T10:30:26.544-07:00Comments on BANKING ON ECONOMICS: BUBBLE & TAX (squeak!)ROBERT MCDOWELLhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07998963662141879105noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5972739420349387167.post-11019231303449425932009-08-27T06:00:35.681-07:002009-08-27T06:00:35.681-07:00from FT: “If you want to stop excessive pay in a s...from FT: “If you want to stop excessive pay in a swollen financial sector you have to reduce the size of that sector or apply special taxes to its pre-remuneration profit,” says Lord Turner. He proposes higher capital requirements will be the FSA’s main tool to eliminate excessive activity and profit, but that a tax on transactions on a global level may be an additional option. Aides to Alistair Darling, UK Chancellor of the Exchequer, said no such taxes were under consideration. Mr Darling insists that the banking industry in London should continue to play a leading role in global finance.<br />Angela Knight, chief executive of the British Bankers’ Association, also defended the financial industry’s role in the economy saying the sector was a main provider of jobs and tax revenues and could be undermined by the wrong kind of taxes or regulation. The FSA chairman also said that parts of the financial services sector had grown “beyond a socially reasonable size”, including derivatives and hedging and aspects of the asset management industry and equity trading.<br />This is opening up (again) a wide range of issues that have been suppressed for years. But, we do not yet have the modeling tools or the official data to know precisely what we are talking about. Arguably, the whole schmozzle will be another even more remote populist distraction from other already quite remote populist distractions?ROBERT MCDOWELLhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07998963662141879105noreply@blogger.com