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Italy approves 40% windfall tax on banks for 2023 as profits soar

theguardian.com

71–80 of 193 posts

Re: Italy approves 40% windfall tax on banks for 2023 as profits soar

#71
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> see if competition takes care of the "problem". We have seen: for industries with big capital requirements or heavy regulatory frameworks (enacted for everyone's safety), it just doesn't .

Which industries with big capital requirements don't have competitors?

In the US: ISP & Healthcare

Re: Italy approves 40% windfall tax on banks for 2023 as profits soar

#72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your assumption, that if without these extra taxes, more banks would be created and the industry would become less concentrated, seems untrue. The banking industry seems to be becoming hugely concentrated in every Western country, regardless of windfall taxes.

Thanks to excessive regulation

... which is there for a reason.

Re: Italy approves 40% windfall tax on banks for 2023 as profits soar

#73

Windfall taxes and bailouts aren't the policies that create a healthy banking sector. Instead they should worry about crafting better regulations and having competition for where people's savings go.

This is a one-off tax if I read that correctly...

Re: Italy approves 40% windfall tax on banks for 2023 as profits soar

#74
post #61
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately the old American disease of not ensuring competition and instead passing regulation ensuring monopolies stay in power means the "problem" is not actual solved, and is in fact made worse.

> The US is home to over 4,700 FDIC-insured banks. It’s not far off from the EU, which has 5,171, but stop and consider that the EU consists of 27 countries. The UK currently has 365 banks, and Canada has 83

These numbers have strong historical reasons. The US had unit banking leading to a gigantic explosion in banks and this number has been going down as bank merge since the end of unit banking in the 30s.

Canada on the other hand had branch banking, meaning a few insitution each covering the whole country. So Canada had very far fewer banks historically.

During the Great Depression many 1000$ of banks failed in the US and none in Canada.

Re: Italy approves 40% windfall tax on banks for 2023 as profits soar

#75

This is an old European disease. Corporate profits are often seen as an adverse result; of consumers being taken advantage of unfairly. Taxing excess profits beyond what are already high tax rates is popular amongst voters (e.g. see poll results in the UK, 2022). However, this lowers the appeal for new entrants to enter these markets to compete for these excess profits through better and more efficient products and s…

I think that's correct. I have a theory about bullshit jobs in highly regulated or profitable industries. Places like Google have a ton of employees that don't contribute anything but make work projects. Why don't they just cut the workforce in half? Because their profit margin would be too high. It's already 25% with all the bloat. Imagine if their profit margin shot up to 50%? They would likely be dragged in front of Congress to explain themselves. It's even more true for banks (who i would argue have even more bullshit jobs where people literally do nothing)

You could think this is good as it supports people but I think it's kind of sad thousands of people get up and go to work every day with no impact on anything,just waste away at a desk. This doesn't even mention the economic waste

Re: Italy approves 40% windfall tax on banks for 2023 as profits soar

#76
post #6

I dislike banks as much as anyone else. But does it bother anyone else to see rules changed around? Wouldn't it be a better approach to tell people/corporations how they're gonna be taxed?

They're not changing the rules of the game on Jane Public's family here. They're sur-taxing banks' already exorbitant profits. Oh no, the bankers bonuses will be 20% instead of 30%!

Profits are net of expenses. This is, if anything, an incentive to pay higher bonuses to bankers. So it's more like the bankers will make 500% bonuses instead of 200% and local pension funds will take the penalty.

Re: Italy approves 40% windfall tax on banks for 2023 as profits soar

#77
post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which industries with big capital requirements don't have competitors?

Anything with a natural monopoly. Utilities (water, electric, telephony/cable/data services) or where having two of something makes no sense given physical limitations (Transportation sector, etc.)

You're right but the person is talking in the context of competition and how competition doesn't reduce profit margins "for industries with big capital requirements."

Re: Italy approves 40% windfall tax on banks for 2023 as profits soar

#78
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I would much rather see regulation forcing banks to raise interest rate on deposits Regulation that increases competition would be even better. It seems like that would be the underlying problem.

What kind of competition would you like to see in the banking sector? All banks look exactly the same from this vantage point...

The fractional reserve system and its associated fiat currencies will always drive "banking" as a service in the same direction: loans that become increasingly predatory.

The root problem isn't the banks, per se, rather the problem is the underlying system that modern banks are incentivized by.

Remove usury (loans at a profit) and base the national currency on something (anything is better than nothing, but the Socialists in Germany used production, and before the 1970s the US used gold) and I think you'd see that banks as a business would radically change.

Re: Italy approves 40% windfall tax on banks for 2023 as profits soar

#79

This is an old European disease. Corporate profits are often seen as an adverse result; of consumers being taken advantage of unfairly. Taxing excess profits beyond what are already high tax rates is popular amongst voters (e.g. see poll results in the UK, 2022). However, this lowers the appeal for new entrants to enter these markets to compete for these excess profits through better and more efficient products and s…

Wikipedia doesn't list many, but the USA had one in 1980. Surprisingly the US oil companies have survived this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crude_Oil_Windfall_Profit_Tax_...
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