Re: [socialist-econ] Bernstein: Globalization: Restrained or reshaped

Excellent piece on managed globalization that can benefit everyone from America's best economist.

Sent from my iPad

On Jul 28, 2016, at 6:38 PM, John Case <jcase4218@gmail.com> wrote:

Globalization: Restrained or reshaped

Jared Bernstein

Well, the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia hasn't exactly opened with the show of unity organizers hoped for, as some of Bernie Sanders's delegates loudly expressed disappointment with both the primary process and the presumptive nominee. On the former, the primary process, they've clearly got a point. On the latter, Hillary Clinton's candidacy, Sanders himself is asking them to quiet down and get behind her, which, at least according to one new poll, is precisely what 90 percent of his supporters plan to do.

With that backdrop, allow me to offer what might, given the rocky start in Philly (and Philly is, of course, where Rocky got started), seem like an unlikely forecast: I expect that by the end of the DNC, the underlying differences between the two parties' political and policy approach to this current, anxious moment will be bracingly clear. Differences like divisive vs. inclusive, "you're on your own" vs. we're in this together, government's the problem vs. government must offer solutions, vagaries vs. specifics, bombast vs. planning, and finally, restraining globalization vs. reshaping globalization.

In a moment, I'd like to discuss that last bit, about globalization. But I do think there's a good question as to where the electorate is at on all those differences. Trump's play — scare the crap out of everyone so that the swaggering strong man looks better than his more thoughtful, analytical opponent — may be a smart one, but a lot of it depends on whether you believe America's better off insulating and hiding behind walls and tariffs than engaging with the rest of the world.

Okay, that's some skewed rhetoric on my part, but I'm solidly on the record as simply not believing that globalization can be stopped or even particularly slowed. It can be reshaped, however, and there are different ways to go about that.

First, what's globalization? For one, it's international trade. Global trade volumes — imports plus exports — have grown from 25 percent of global GDP to 60 percent today. In the United States, that same metric has grown from 10 to 30 percent (with imports a larger share than exports over almost that whole time, i.e., trade deficits — I'll get back to that). But globalization is more than just trade. It's immigration flows, financial flows, cultural flows, geopolitics, which these days, includes terrorism, and basically, the idea that nations are increasingly involved with each other across many dimensions of life.

To be clear, this is not some breathless endorsement of all the above. To put it mildly, there are upsides and downsides to globalization. In the United States, there's cheap goods — Walmart wouldn't exist without the "China price" — but that leads to head-to-head wage competition which, given our large and persistent trade deficits, has hurt many non-college-educated workers and their communities. Financial connectedness produces great liquidity and low borrowing costs, but also systemic connections that, in the absence of adequate oversight, can create downturns that are both rippling and crippling. Immigration creates substantial cultural and economic benefits, particularly in countries with slow-growing labor forces, but unmanaged, its tensions are increasingly evident in national politics, with the recent Brexit vote exhibit A, and Trump's xenophobia, exhibit B.

So, how does this all map onto what I believe is a crucial difference between the two parties in this election? Can globalization be restrained; can it be reshaped?

Trump, nostalgically in my view, believes we can go back to a simpler time when all the global tensions engendered by those dualities noted above didn't exist. But while a country can leave the E.U. or try to keep out refugees, all those container ships are not about to drop their anchors. Financial transactions will proceed apace. It's instructive in this regard to watch the British post-Brexit vote, but before the exit itself, which has yet to be triggered. From where I sit, they seem to be saying, "Okay, let's figure out how to respect the vote while doing as little damage as we can to our nation's global integration."

In other words, it's easy to whack globalization at the level of Trumpian abstractions. What this means in practice is a lot less clear. It's the vagaries vs. specifics problem I noted above.

What I expect to hear from the DNC this week is less about restraining globalization than reshaping it. As Hillary Clinton recently put it, "Even if the United States never signs another trade deal, globalization isn't going away." I can't overemphasize how true I believe that is.

Trade, immigration, financial integration — none of these are inherently good or bad. But when you ignore them — when you either fail to manage them or do so from solely the perspective of corporate or investor interests — then you set the table for precisely the populist negativity regarding globalization that is so evident today.

Concretely, this means completely reorienting how we write trade agreements. Environmental and labor standards must come before, not after the deals are signed. In the interest of reducing our trade deficits, currency manipulation must be attacked head-on, through enforceable rules. Investors must have their own skin in the game when it comes to resolving disputes, not that of the rest of us. Financial oversight, along with its cousin, international taxation, must be jointly implemented in order to shut down havens that support tax avoidance and inadequate market regulation. A small, international tax on financial transactions would be helpful in this regard.

Academic research shows that immigration (unlike imbalanced trade) has not been anywhere nearly as hurtful to native populations as popular wisdom maintains. Either way, people who have been persistently underemployed or suffered real wage stagnation — and there are many who continue to suffer these trends — must have much more robust economic opportunities. This implies robust social safety nets that don't just catch people who've been hurt by globalization, but relaunches them with work supports, ranging from wage subsidies, health and child-care assistance, and a direct job when labor markets are persistently soft.

That, in turn, implies the need for a responsible fiscal plan that raises ample revenue to support an agenda that is complementary to globalization.

The days when elites in either party could simply scold those who were skeptical of globalization as not appreciating its benefits are thankfully behind us. Many people in advanced economies believe they've been hurt by expanded trade with low-wage countries, and many of them are right about it.

One side offers them a false nostalgia. The other side seems to have finally realized it can't get away with offering them the next, allegedly improved trade agreement as a solution to their problem. This week, once the factious dust clears, I'll be listening closely for a resonant agenda that reshapes globalization. I'll let you know if I hear it.

John Case
Harpers Ferry, WV

The Winners and Losers Radio Show

7-9 AM Weekdays, WSHC-Listen Live, Shepherd University

Sign UP HERE to get the Weekly Program Notes.

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Socialist Economics" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to socialist-economics+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to socialist-economics@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/socialist-economics.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/socialist-economics/CADH2idLCpwQYJMx1T5ph6CeVCkd4ZkVsvvM0VMMse5LQ7G2nJg%40mail.gmail.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

Donald Trump destroyed by Stephen Colbert

Bernstein: Globalization: Restrained or reshaped

Globalization: Restrained or reshaped

Jared Bernstein

Well, the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia hasn't exactly opened with the show of unity organizers hoped for, as some of Bernie Sanders's delegates loudly expressed disappointment with both the primary process and the presumptive nominee. On the former, the primary process, they've clearly got a point. On the latter, Hillary Clinton's candidacy, Sanders himself is asking them to quiet down and get behind her, which, at least according to one new poll, is precisely what 90 percent of his supporters plan to do.

With that backdrop, allow me to offer what might, given the rocky start in Philly (and Philly is, of course, where Rocky got started), seem like an unlikely forecast: I expect that by the end of the DNC, the underlying differences between the two parties' political and policy approach to this current, anxious moment will be bracingly clear. Differences like divisive vs. inclusive, "you're on your own" vs. we're in this together, government's the problem vs. government must offer solutions, vagaries vs. specifics, bombast vs. planning, and finally, restraining globalization vs. reshaping globalization.

In a moment, I'd like to discuss that last bit, about globalization. But I do think there's a good question as to where the electorate is at on all those differences. Trump's play — scare the crap out of everyone so that the swaggering strong man looks better than his more thoughtful, analytical opponent — may be a smart one, but a lot of it depends on whether you believe America's better off insulating and hiding behind walls and tariffs than engaging with the rest of the world.

Okay, that's some skewed rhetoric on my part, but I'm solidly on the record as simply not believing that globalization can be stopped or even particularly slowed. It can be reshaped, however, and there are different ways to go about that.

First, what's globalization? For one, it's international trade. Global trade volumes — imports plus exports — have grown from 25 percent of global GDP to 60 percent today. In the United States, that same metric has grown from 10 to 30 percent (with imports a larger share than exports over almost that whole time, i.e., trade deficits — I'll get back to that). But globalization is more than just trade. It's immigration flows, financial flows, cultural flows, geopolitics, which these days, includes terrorism, and basically, the idea that nations are increasingly involved with each other across many dimensions of life.

To be clear, this is not some breathless endorsement of all the above. To put it mildly, there are upsides and downsides to globalization. In the United States, there's cheap goods — Walmart wouldn't exist without the "China price" — but that leads to head-to-head wage competition which, given our large and persistent trade deficits, has hurt many non-college-educated workers and their communities. Financial connectedness produces great liquidity and low borrowing costs, but also systemic connections that, in the absence of adequate oversight, can create downturns that are both rippling and crippling. Immigration creates substantial cultural and economic benefits, particularly in countries with slow-growing labor forces, but unmanaged, its tensions are increasingly evident in national politics, with the recent Brexit vote exhibit A, and Trump's xenophobia, exhibit B.

So, how does this all map onto what I believe is a crucial difference between the two parties in this election? Can globalization be restrained; can it be reshaped?

Trump, nostalgically in my view, believes we can go back to a simpler time when all the global tensions engendered by those dualities noted above didn't exist. But while a country can leave the E.U. or try to keep out refugees, all those container ships are not about to drop their anchors. Financial transactions will proceed apace. It's instructive in this regard to watch the British post-Brexit vote, but before the exit itself, which has yet to be triggered. From where I sit, they seem to be saying, "Okay, let's figure out how to respect the vote while doing as little damage as we can to our nation's global integration."

In other words, it's easy to whack globalization at the level of Trumpian abstractions. What this means in practice is a lot less clear. It's the vagaries vs. specifics problem I noted above.

What I expect to hear from the DNC this week is less about restraining globalization than reshaping it. As Hillary Clinton recently put it, "Even if the United States never signs another trade deal, globalization isn't going away." I can't overemphasize how true I believe that is.

Trade, immigration, financial integration — none of these are inherently good or bad. But when you ignore them — when you either fail to manage them or do so from solely the perspective of corporate or investor interests — then you set the table for precisely the populist negativity regarding globalization that is so evident today.

Concretely, this means completely reorienting how we write trade agreements. Environmental and labor standards must come before, not after the deals are signed. In the interest of reducing our trade deficits, currency manipulation must be attacked head-on, through enforceable rules. Investors must have their own skin in the game when it comes to resolving disputes, not that of the rest of us. Financial oversight, along with its cousin, international taxation, must be jointly implemented in order to shut down havens that support tax avoidance and inadequate market regulation. A small, international tax on financial transactions would be helpful in this regard.

Academic research shows that immigration (unlike imbalanced trade) has not been anywhere nearly as hurtful to native populations as popular wisdom maintains. Either way, people who have been persistently underemployed or suffered real wage stagnation — and there are many who continue to suffer these trends — must have much more robust economic opportunities. This implies robust social safety nets that don't just catch people who've been hurt by globalization, but relaunches them with work supports, ranging from wage subsidies, health and child-care assistance, and a direct job when labor markets are persistently soft.

That, in turn, implies the need for a responsible fiscal plan that raises ample revenue to support an agenda that is complementary to globalization.

The days when elites in either party could simply scold those who were skeptical of globalization as not appreciating its benefits are thankfully behind us. Many people in advanced economies believe they've been hurt by expanded trade with low-wage countries, and many of them are right about it.

One side offers them a false nostalgia. The other side seems to have finally realized it can't get away with offering them the next, allegedly improved trade agreement as a solution to their problem. This week, once the factious dust clears, I'll be listening closely for a resonant agenda that reshapes globalization. I'll let you know if I hear it.

John Case
Harpers Ferry, WV

The Winners and Losers Radio Show

7-9 AM Weekdays, WSHC-Listen Live, Shepherd University

Sign UP HERE to get the Weekly Program Notes.

Bernstein: Trump’s negativity is wrong. Real paychecks are growing.

Trump's negativity is wrong. Real paychecks are growing.

Jared Bernstein

Conventional wisdom, for what it's worth, holds that once the nominating conventions are over and both sides get their bounces, most people's votes are well along to being solidly locked down. The state of the economy matters a lot at this point as well. Typically, that would matter less in an election like this one, where the incumbent isn't running. But this time may be different, as a key part of Trump's case is that the economy is in terrible shape, and Hillary Clinton, like President Obama, believes that while serious structural problems exist, there are ongoing, favorable trends that can potentially be built upon.

I'd like to briefly get into one of those trends: wages. Wage growth has accelerated of late, and not just for those at the top. Meanwhile, low inflation has meant that these faster nominal gains have turned into significant real gains.

I don't want to oversell the case; anyone who has followed this and most who've drawn a paycheck know that there's a ton of catch-up to do. But I've long argued that the tightening job market will give working people more of the most important thing they generally lack these days: bargaining power. We're not yet at full employment, but we're getting closer, and when that happens, employers must bid wages up to get and keep the workers they need. Let me show you what I mean.

The first figure shows yearly changes in nominal median weekly earnings for full-time workers. It's very noisy data so I plotted a smooth trend through it.

Source: BLS, my analysis

The important facts about this series are:

— It accelerated smartly in the late 1990s, the last time we were at truly full employment.

— It was pretty flat in the 2000s, a period of uniquely weak job growth.

— It got whacked by the last, big recession, but it's now clearly accelerating again, though not yet at a pace similar to that of the late 1990s.

But of course what really matters to working people is the pace of real wage growth, i.e., accounting for inflation. If your pay goes up 2 percent but inflation does as well, you're not better off in terms of buying power.

Here's where the Trump economic take is really wrong, at least in these national data. (There's a relevant regional story noted below.) The table below breaks real median earnings growth down into nominal growth, a positive, and inflation, a negative. That is, real earnings growth equals nominal earnings growth minus inflation — and remember, these are medians, not averages, so they're more representative of middle-class paychecks.

Source: BLS, my analysis

The table, which uses data for the first half of the years shown, reveals that real median earnings actually fell from 2012-14, thanks to tepid nominal wage growth and faster price growth. Since then, however, wages have accelerated and inflation has decelerated, leading to solid median earnings gains in real terms.

BTW, the inflation hawks out there are using their talons to scratch their heads: Why didn't faster nominal wage growth bleed into prices? Because, as I've shown in other posts, they haven't done so for a while. The slowdown in inflation was clearly driven by tanking energy prices, with some economic slack mixed into the picture as well.

The final figure, from researchers at Goldman Sachs, tells a particularly important part of the story, bringing in both employment growth, which has also been solid of late, and a variety of different wage levels. It's a tricky figure, but it accounts for each component of earnings growth: nominal gains, employment, hours worked and inflation. The punchline is the white, diamond dot in each bar, showing the rate of real earnings growth, accounting for all its contributing sources.

That dot shows that the group making the biggest gains is the lowest wage workers, who have benefited from particularly fast wage growth. Why? Well, one reason is the many increases in the minimum wage which have taken place across the country. And remember, while he flip-flops on the issue, Trump has argued minimum wages are too high, and the Republican platform, and more importantly, Republican members of Congress, oppose increasing the federal wage floor.

Okay, some caveats to all the above. We know that real wages have stagnated long-term for many in the workforce, particularly those beset by trade competition from low-wage countries, along with millions of low-wage workers stuck in places where policymakers, at the behest of business lobbies, ignore the minimum wage. A few quarters of solid, real wage growth don't wipe out that record.

We also know that this recovery has been geographically diverse, and a more complete wage analysis, one I hope to get to soon, must examine regional differences, along with those of race and gender. I suspect it will show significant swaths of the country that have been left behind.

But these national data are telling an important story, one that is really happening and one that flatly contradicts Trump's hyper-negative rhetoric. Most importantly from a substantive, economic sense, it is a story consistent with the benefits of full employment. If we want this story to continue such that the recovery has a chance to reach many more of those who draw a paycheck, we're going to have to keep it going.

That means we've all got a job to do. The Federal Reserve must pursue smart, patient monetary policy; the federal government must do the same with fiscal policy, meaning no negative shocks. And the electorate must elect the president most likely to maintain and build on the positive trends shown above.

Okay, everybody. Get to work!

John Case
Harpers Ferry, WV

The Winners and Losers Radio Show

7-9 AM Weekdays, WSHC-Listen Live, Shepherd University

Sign UP HERE to get the Weekly Program Notes.

J.M. Keynes : The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money excerpt

Case: Ok socialists: Keynes last sentence asks a question any advocate of MORE socialism in a MIXED capitalist economy, or market socialist one, likely holds an opinion one: Is it possible, contra state authoritarian or command economies,  "by a right analysis of the problem to cure the disease whilst preserving efficiency and freedom..."

Yay or NAY?????

********************

From:  John Maynard Keynes (1936): The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money by John Maynard Keynes

http://www.bradford-delong.com/2016/07/must-read-the-general-theory-of-employment-interest-and-money-by-john-maynard-keyneshttpswwwmarxistsorgrefer.html

John Maynard Keynes (1936): The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money by John Maynard Keynes:

Whilst, therefore, the enlargement of the functions of government, involved in the task of adjusting to one another the propensity to consume and the inducement to invest, would seem to a nineteenth-century publicist or to a contemporary American financier to be a terrific encroachment on individualism, I defend it, on the contrary, both as the only practicable means of avoiding the destruction of existing economic forms in their entirety and as the condition of the successful functioning of individual initiative.

For if effective demand is deficient, not only is the public scandal of wasted resources intolerable, but the individual enterpriser who seeks to bring these resources into action is operating with the odds loaded against him. The game of hazard which he plays is furnished with many zeros, so that the players as a whole will lose if they have the energy and hope to deal all the cards. Hitherto the increment of the world's wealth has fallen short of the aggregate of positive individual savings; and the difference has been made up by the losses of those whose courage and initiative have not been supplemented by exceptional skill or unusual good fortune. But if effective demand is adequate, average skill and average good fortune will be enough.

The authoritarian state systems of today seem to solve the problem of unemployment at the expense of efficiency and of freedom. It is certain that the world will not much longer tolerate the unemployment which, apart from brief intervals of excitement, is associated and in my opinion, inevitably associated with present-day capitalistic individualism. But it may be possible by a right analysis of the problem to cure the disease whilst preserving efficiency and freedom...

VISIT WEBSITE
 -- via my feedly newsfeed

Rodrik: Innovation Is Not Enough [feedly]

Innovation Is Not Enough

Dani Rodrik

http://www.globalpolicyjournal.com/blog/28/07/2016/innovation-not-enough

Innovation Is Not Enough

Dani Rodrik - 28th July 2016

GP's General Editor Dani Rodrik explores ongoing debates over technological innovation, and its consequences for productivity, employment, and equity. This post first appeared on Project Syndicate.

We seem to be living in an accelerated age of revolutionary technological breakthroughs. Barely a day passes without the announcement of some major new development in artificial intelligence, biotechnology, digitization, or automation. Yet those who are supposed to know where it is all taking us can't make up their minds.

At one end of the spectrum are the techno-optimists, who believe we are on the cusp of a new era in which the world's living standards will rise more rapidly than ever. At the other end are the techno-pessimists, who see disappointing productivity statistics and argue that the new technologies' economy-wide benefits will remain limited. Then there are those – the techno-worriers? – who agree with the optimists about the scale and scope of innovation but fret about the adverse implications for employment or equity.

What distinguishes these perspectives from one another is not so much disagreement about the rate of technological innovation. After all, who can seriously doubt that innovation is progressing rapidly? The debate is about whether these innovations will remain bottled up in a few tech-intensive sectors that employ the highest-skilled professionals and account for a relatively small share of GDP, or spread to the bulk of the economy. The consequences of any innovation for productivity, employment, and equity ultimately depend on how quickly it diffuses through labor and product markets.

Technological diffusion can be constrained on both the demand and supply sides of the economy. Take the demand side first. In rich economies, consumers spend the bulk of their income on services such as health, education, transportation, housing, and retail goods. Technological innovation has had comparatively little impact to date in many of these sectors.

Consider some of the figures provided by the McKinsey Global Institute's recent report Digital America. The two sectors in the United States that have experienced the most rapid productivity growth since 2005 are the ICT (information and communications technology) and media industries, with a combined GDP share of less than 10%. By contrast, government services and health care, which together produce more than a quarter of GDP, have had virtually no productivity growth.

Techno-optimists, such as the McKinsey authors, look at such numbers as an opportunity: There remain vast productivity gains to be had from the adoption of new technologies in the lagging sectors. The pessimists, on the other hand, think that such gaps may be a structural, lasting feature of today's economies.

For example, the economic historian Robert Gordon argues that today's innovations pale in contrast to past technological revolutions in terms of their likely economy-wide impact. Electricity, the automobile, airplane, air conditioning, and household appliances altered the way that ordinary people live in fundamental ways. They made inroads in every sector of the economy. Perhaps the digital revolution, impressive as it has been, will not reach as far.

On the supply side, the key question is whether the innovating sector has access to the capital and skills it needs to expand rapidly and continuously. In advanced countries, neither constraint typically binds much. But when the technology requires high skills – technological change is "skill-biased," in economists' terminology – its adoption and diffusion will tend to widen the gap between the earnings of low- and high-skill workers. Economic growth will be accompanied by rising inequality, as it was in the 1990s.

The supply-side problem faced by developing countries is more debilitating. The labor force is predominantly low-skilled. Historically, this has not been a handicap for late industrializers, so long as manufacturing consisted of labor-intensive assembly operations such as garments and automobiles. Peasants could be transformed into factory workers virtually overnight, implying significant productivity gains for the economy. Manufacturing was traditionally a rapid escalator to higher income levels.

But once manufacturing operations become robotized and require high skills, the supply-side constraints begin to bite. Effectively, developing countries lose their comparative advantage vis-à-vis the rich countries. We see the consequences in the "premature deindustrialization" of the developing world today.

In a world of premature deindustrialization, achieving economy-wide productivity growth becomes that much harder for low-income countries. It is not clear whether there are effective substitutes for industrialization.

The economist Tyler Cowen has suggested that developing countries may benefit from the trickle-down of innovation from the advanced economies: they can consume a stream of new products at cheap prices. This is a model of what Cowen calls "cellphones instead of automobile factories." But the question remains: What will these countries produce and export – besides primary products – to be able to afford the imported cellphones?

In Latin America, economy-wide productivity has stagnated despite significant innovation in the best-managed firms and vanguard sectors. The apparent paradox is resolved by noting that rapid productivity growth in the pockets of innovation has been undone by workers moving from the more productive to the less productive parts of the economy – a phenomenon that my co-authors and I have called "growth-reducing structural change."

This perverse outcome becomes possible when there is severe technological dualism in the economy and the more productive activities do not expand rapidly enough. Disturbingly, there is evidence that growth-reducing structural change has been happening recently in the United States as well.

Ultimately, it is the economy-wide productivity consequences of technological innovation, not innovation per se, that lifts living standards. Innovation can co-exist side-by-side with low productivity (conversely, productivity growth is sometimes possible in the absence of innovation, when resources move to the more productive sectors). Techno-pessimists recognize this; the optimists might not be wrong, but to make their case, they need to focus on how the effects of technology play out in the economy as a whole.

 

Dani Rodrik is Professor of International Political Economy at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government. He is the author of The Globalization Paradox: Democracy and the Future of the World Economy and, most recently, Economics Rules: The Rights and Wrongs of the Dismal Science.

 -- via my feedly newsfeed

Dean Baker: The Case for a Financial Transactions Tax [feedly]

The Case for a Financial Transactions Tax
http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2016/07/the-case-for-a-financial-transactions-tax.html

Dean Baker:

The Case for a Financial Transactions Tax, The Century Foundation: There has been considerable interest in financial transactions taxes (FTTs) in the United States and other wealthy countries in the years since the financial crisis. An FTT can be a way to both raise a large amount of revenue and also rein in the financial sector. This report examines the evidence on the potential for raising revenue through an FTT, its impact on the economy, and also the possibility of using the revenue to defray in particular the cost of higher education. The report argues:

• A financial transactions tax could likely raise over $105 billion annually (0.6 percent of GDP) based on 2015 trading volume. This estimate is roughly in the middle of recent estimates that ranged from as high as $580 billion to as low as $30 billion.
• The full amount of this tax would be borne by the financial industry, and not individual holders of stock or pension funds and other institutional investors. Evidence suggests that trading volume is elastic with respect to price, meaning that any drop in trading volume resulting from the tax would reduce costs for end users by a larger amount than the tax would increase them.
• It is reasonable to believe that the industry would be no less effective in serving its productive use (allocating capital) after the tax is in place. This means that one of the primary effects of the tax would be to reduce waste in the financial sector, reducing costs while having little or no effect on its principal purpose: to allocate capital effectively.
• The revenue raised through an FTT would easily be large enough to cover the cost of free college tuition (among other social programs), although if nothing were done to stem the growth rate of college costs, it would eventually prove inadequate.

The report also notes that the financial sector is the main source of income for many of the highest earners in the economy. This means that downsizing the industry through an FTT could play an important role in reducing income inequality. ...

VISIT WEBSITE
 -- via my feedly newsfeed