More from the New Yorker

http://www.futureofcapitalism.com/2010/01/more-from-the-new-yorker

James Surowiecki on the administration's plan to tax banks: "There is one plausible argument for why the tax is not a good idea, namely that with the financial sector still shaky it's a mistake to be taking tens or even hundreds of billions of dollars out of it. There is, after all, something a little odd about the government planning to take billions in capital out of the banks less than a year after it insisted—appropriately—that the banks had to raise billions in capital if they wanted to stay in business....The problem is that this argument would hold a lot more water if the big banks weren't about to pay out tens of billions of dollars in bonuses to their employees, tens of billions of dollars that they could instead keep as retained earnings in order to bolster their core capital."

by Editor  |  Jan 14, 2010 at 10:40 am Related Topics:  Banking, Capital Markets Regulation, Taxes receive the latest by email: subscribe to the free futureofcapitalism.com mailing list