[twoodfin]

Sorry a colorful example seems to have gone over your head: A financial transaction tax dulls the market response to new information. The primary purpose of markets is to translate information into prices.

Markets that are less efficient in that task hurt long-term retirement investors and day-traders alike.

[stouset]

> Markets that are less efficient in that task hurt long-term retirement investors and day-traders alike.

On some level this is true, but the insane quantities being siphoned out of the economy through the financial system is wildly disproportionate to the increasingly-infinitesimal gains in “price efficiency”.

As a long-term investor in the market as a whole, whether Apple’s true per-share value today is 175.01 and not 175.07 is almost completely irrelevant. Even less so the difference between 175.008913 and 175.008916.

We have long since passed a point where there is sufficient liquidity and sufficient price discovery for the purpose of buy-and-hold investment, and every extra dollar that goes to financial services in the name of more accurately determining prices is just a transfer of money from people who provide value to the economy to a class of leeches who provide nearly nothing.

[RandomLensman]

The money is not siphoned out of the economy (unless it all leaves the US/World). The money made in finance is just as any other money, i.e., it is used to consume, invest, save etc.

Btw., no-one is forced to trade incessantly, either.

[stouset]

The money technically being “in the economy” is cold comfort to the workers whose COL has steadily increased while wages have remained flat.

[twoodfin]

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA672N

[avs733]

I would caution you against assuming disagreement is misunderstanding,

A spring only suspension system responds quickly to a bump in the road. If that’s your only metric, it’s good. But a car without a damper is going to be hella uncomfortable. The shock makes it respond slower - it doesn’t mean it doesn’t respond.

[MoreSEMI]

Uuuu, While the analogy is nice, I doubt that taxes are decided upon like an engineer deciding on damping coefficients. An engineer has a specification and tries to hit that spec. I have a hard time believing that’s how taxes are set. I would like carbon taxs/credits to be decided upon that way. But if you look at the real systems it’s obvious they weren’t designed that way. Finally, you are correct that you need to be careful in choosing the metric. I think I would also question the desirability of dampinh, which it seems like the other poster was trying to say. The market being dumber is a slower response in your analogy. They want a sports car, not a rolls.

[avs733]

I wanted a sports car as a teenagers and my parents gave me a minivan. It wasn’t what I wanted but it’s likely the reason I’m alive today.

The point of governance to some extent is dealing with the tension between what competing groups of people say they want and actually need