The Banks' New "Tobin Tax" on Risky Trades

President Barack Obama disclosed for the first time at his news conference last night that his administration is weighing a brand new fee for banks that conduct "high risk," "far-out transactions" and pose systemic risk because they are too big to fail.

The idea of a new fee is a reformulation of the old Tobin tax on speculative currency trades offered by economist James Tobin about three decades ago.

Variations of the Tobin tax on financial trades through the years were targeted to help poorer countries; the "too-big-to fail" tax now proposed is meant to help poor taxpayers who are now the lender of last resort for reckless banks.

And once again, just as the Tobin Tax ignited controversy years ago, the idea of a new too-big-to-fail fee raises this issue: what bureaucrat determines what trade is high risk?

And is this new Tobin-style fee an easy way out, is it a sign of battle fatigue with the banks, who have fought the government for decades to set aside more in their capital cushions to back risky transactions, as they are fighting now?

Laissez faire markets led to laissez-faire booking on Wall Street, who back in 2004 pushed then Treasury Secretary John Snow to water down capital cushion rules. Investment banks then levered up their balance sheets worse than a Las Vegas-style hedge fund, as high as 44 to one, meaning, one dollar for every $44 in borrowing.

And the i-banks chucked all sorts of nonsense into their capital cushions, including money they expected to get down the road for servicing mortgages even though payments weren't in the door yet, and things like the excess money they paid to buy other companies, called "goodwill."

The president endorsed the new fee by saying banks ought to donate to a "kitty" every time they presumably engage in high-risk transactions, the new kitty now being proposed as an industry-backed "Financial Company Resolution Fund."

Sheila Bair, head of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., plans to raise this new proposed fee in prepared testimony today in Washington before the Senate Banking Committee.

The president said the fee would be similar to the fees that more than 8,000 banks pay the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. to guarantee deposits.

While not giving details on what trades would be assessed the fee, the president suggested complex instruments such as credit derivatives might get hit with the fee.

Derivatives are the ticking time bonds many believe led to the implosion of Wall Street.

"So if you guys want to do them, then you got to put something into the kitty to make sure that if you screw up, it's not taxpayer dollars that have to pay for it," the president said in response to a question at the press conference. "It's dollars coming out of your profits."

According to Bloomberg, Bair will say in testimony today that the government should impose "assessments on large or complex institutions that recognize their potential risks to the financial system," and that "this system also could provide an economic incentive for an institution not to grow too large."

The Tobin Tax first proposed decades ago was to be assessed against all currency trades made across borders. The fee was meant to penalize on short-term speculation in currencies and fund UN projects for poor countries.

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Part One: Pre-Ignition Check
1. It's All About the Car
2. What are you packing
3. 10 Things You Must Never Bring On A Road Trip
4. Saving the Benjamins (and Lincolns and Washingtons too)
5. The Ultimate Road Trip Music, Movies, and Books
6. What Is (And Isn't ) A Road Trip