How We're Fighting Back

Financial Speculation Tax

Don’t be fooled, this isn’t a tax on a worker’s 401(k) plan, although some corporate types are pretending that it is. It is a very small fee on the sale of stocks, bonds and other securities, in the range of 10 cents to 50 cents per $100 worth of stock or other securities sold. It would raise billions for our economy and restore some fairness to our system. 

Right now in the U.S., there are hundreds of billions of dollars in mainly stocks and bonds traded every business day. None of these transactions are taxed in the U.S. (Working families are taxed on everything we consume and do through sales taxes.) Wall Streeters don’t pay sales taxes – or any taxes – when they buy and sell securities. That helps explain why the financial sector pays only about 18 percent of corporate taxes.

Some 29 countries already have a Financial Speculation Tax, and 11 European Union countries are negotiating about one now.

Restore Protections Against  Bank Speculation

In the mid-1990s, legislation that required banks to separate deposited funds – insured by the federal government – from riskier investments was repealed. 

The Glass-Steagall Act was first adopted in 1933.  Now, we have banks considered “too big to fail” that are responsible for the financial crisis of 2007-2009 and the losses that millions of working families have suffered, including lost jobs, lost wages and lost savings. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) is leading the fight to reinstate Glass-Steagall and reform Wall Street.

Break Up Big Banks and  Support State Public Banks

In the U.S., the state of North Dakota, with its public banking network, has been more profitable than Goldman Sachs. Why? According to Ellen Brown, president of the Public Banking Institute, the Bank of North Dakota “turns a tidy profit year after year because it has substantially lower costs and risks then private commercial banks. It has no exorbitantly-paid executives; pays no bonuses, fees, or commissions; has no private shareholders; and has low borrowing costs…It engages in old-fashioned conservative banking and does not speculate in derivatives,” which crashed the economy in late 2007.

Expand the Committee for Better Banks and Continue to Support Bank Workers Who Want a Union Voice

Despite being organized nearly everywhere else in the world, bank workers have few rights in the U.S. Big international banks point to low wages and poor working conditions here, and seek to cut compensation for better-paid workers in other countries.

Many of the abuses of the financial industry which caused the 2008 crash, including unethical actions and predatory lending, could in fact have been prevented if workers had the protection to speak with an independent voice and whistleblower protections.