This week, the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute floated the idea of a national transaction tax that would raise $100 billion to $150 billion a year. The tax, at a rate of 0.1% to 0.25% of the value of the trade, would be levied on all financial transactions such as stock trades, but not on consumer transactions such as with credit cards.

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Tax On Financial Transactions

Companies are borrowing but not spending

• Companies are borrowing but not spending
  Many companies worldwide are issuing bonds to raise capital, but they are not spending that money. Most of the $2.3 trillion raised with corporate bonds this year is going toward repairing finances, or the companies are hoarding the cash, according to Dealogic. This is bad news for the economy, which needs investment to support recovery. A large part of the cash is going into mergers and acquisitions, but that does not help the economy much, analysts said. The Wall Street Journal/Real Time Economics blog (13 Oct.)

Oil Options Hit Highs as Verleger Predicts 44% Plunge

Sept. 21 (Bloomberg) -- Oil traders are paying more than ever in the options market to protect against a plunge in crude prices.

The gap between prices of options betting on a decline and those that would profit from a rise in oil widened to a record 10 percentage points, according to five years of data compiled by Banc of America Securities-Merrill Lynch. Crude stockpiles in the U.S. are 14 percent larger than a year ago and OPEC is pumping 600,000 barrels a day more than the world needs, according to the International Energy Agency.

While the recovery from the first global recession since World War II pushed oil up 62 percent this year to $72.04 a barrel in New York, growth alone isn’t likely to erode the glut by the end of next year because production exceeds demand, data from the Paris-based IEA shows. A drop in prices would penalize companies from Exxon Mobil Corp. to BP Plc and exporters Russia and Saudi Arabia.

Full Article at: Oil Options Hit Highs as Verleger Predicts 44% Plunge

Ual Corp (NASDAQ:UAUA): Upgraded to Overweight at JP Morgan; Positive comments from Barclays

Ual Corp (NASDAQ:UAUA): Upgraded to Overweight at JP Morgan; Positive comments from Barclays

Airlines and particularly Ual Corp (NASDAQ:UAUA) are getting are getting some commentary this morning:

- Barclays is out saying they think many underestimate the potential for a significant airline revenue recovery, particularly for the legacy carriers. With recovery expectations muted, they think even a relatively modest recovery would pave the way for a profitable 2010 and materially higher share prices. They continue to favor legacy airlines over low-fare carriers, with top picks DAL and UAUA, the former getting no respect lately. Among the low-fare airlines, the firm also favors ALGT and JBLU.

Firm believes current thinking on the industry revenue environment and potential for recovery is very small relative to the potential. They understand that companies need to plan for a revenue environment that remains very soft. They also understand that revenue has been headed in a single direction (down) the entire year. While it’s easy to extrapolate these negative trends for a considerable period of time, the firm urges investors to consider two things...

Full details at http://notablecalls.blogspot.com/

Bankers Beat Odds in Toxic Pay Plan

Credit Suisse has taken perhaps the most aggressive approach. Starting at the end of 2008, the bank took a significant portion of the annual bonus pool and switched it from stock to shares in a fund made up primarily of distressed assets. In essence, this means the performance of bets these bankers were originally involved in structuring will help determine whether their 2008 compensation turns into big money or big losses down the road.
Credit Suisse has said one of the reasons it decided on the pay plan was to show regulators in the U.S. and Europe it took the financial crisis seriously.

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Bankers Beat Odds in Toxic Pay Plan

US Budget Deficit- Crossing a trillion mark...Where are we headed?

Meltdown 101: How did $1 trillion deficit happen?

By MARTIN CRUTSINGER – 2 days ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — In a year of eye-popping numbers, add one more: The government's annual budget deficit has topped $1 trillion.
And with three months left in the budget year, it will actually get even worse. The administration is projecting that the deficit will hit $1.84 trillion for the current budget year, four times the size of last year's deficit. Last year's number was the all-time leader at the time, at $454.8 billion — a figure that now seems rather puny in comparison.
Here are some questions and answers about what happened to the federal budget, which began the new century with the longest string of surpluses in seven decades.
Q: Just how did we go from a string of four consecutive surpluses from 1998 through 2001 to the fix we are in now?
A: The surpluses at the end of the last decade reflected a boom-time economy, which was enjoying the longest uninterrupted expansion in U.S. history.
When the last recession began in 2001, that cut into revenues. Then the government's budget picture darkened even further after the 2001 terrorist attacks as government spending was increased to pay for wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Q: But weren't things getting better at the end of the Bush administration?
A: Until President George W. Bush's last year in office, the deficit had been shrinking, hitting a five-year low of $161.5 billion in 2007. But that was followed by the record deficit of $454.8 billion in 2008, the budget year that ended on Sept. 30 of last year.

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the European Central Bank poured 442 billion euros (375.6 billion pounds) of one-year funds into money markets

Seeking to spur bank lending and pull the economy out of recession, the European Central Bank poured 442 billion euros (375.6 billion pounds) of one-year funds into money markets on Wednesday, its biggest fund injection ever.
The massive loan, the central bank's first money market operation with a term as long as one year, immediately pushed some bank-to-bank borrowing costs to fresh record lows.
That, the ECB hopes, may give banks enough financial security for them to make more long-term loans to companies and consumers.
A record 1,121 banks rushed to take up the ECB's offer of umlimited funds at a fixed rate of 1 percent, betting they might not see such cheap money again. Recent data suggests the euro zone economy may start a slow recovery late in 2009, making the ECB unlikely to cut interest rates further.

the European Central Bank poured 442 billion euros (375.6 billion pounds) of one-year funds into money markets