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If ever there was a reason showing how the low taxes we currently have cause pain and suffering and damage our economy it is this....
The New York Stock Exchange, after 2 Centuries, 2 Centuries mind you... has lost it's independence... 2 Centuries of History, kaput. gone. changed...
It is now owned by.... IntercontinentalExchange Inc.
Who? IntercontinentalExchange Inc.! Uh .... who is that? What? You don't know who the IntercontinentalExchange.Inc is? Oh, my, where have you been?
Right here. I've been right here. And I don't know very much about who the IntercontinentalExchange Inc. is... So, please, enlighten me...
Well, the IntercontinentalExchange Inc didn't exist when you were learning about finances. If anything, it was known as the Continental Power Exchange when it was taken over by Jeffrey Sprecher, ICE's founder, in the waning years of the Clinton Administration. But wait till you see what it has done!
Then in May 2000, IntercontinentalExchange (ICE) was established, with its founding shareholders representing some of the world's largest energy traders. The company's stated mission was to transform OTC trading by providing an open, accessible, multi-dealer, around-the-clock electronic energy exchange. The new exchange offered the trading community better price transparency, more efficiency, greater liquidity and lower costs than manual trading.
In June 2001, ICE expanded its business into futures trading by acquiring the International Petroleum Exchange(IPE), now ICE Futures Europe which operated Europe's leading open-outcry energy futures exchange...
In 2003, ICE partnered with the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX) to host its electronic marketplaces...
In 2007, it acquired the New York Board of Trade (NYBOT).
Again in 2007 it acquired ChemConnect (a chemical commodity market).
Again in 2007 it acquired the Winnipeg Commodity Exchange.
Again in 2007, it lost its $9.9 billion bid for the Chicago Board of Trade to the Chicago Mercantile Association.
In January 2008,ICE partnered with TSX Group's Natural Gas Exchange,expanding their offering to clearing and settlement services for physical OTC natural gas contracts...
April 2010 ICE bought CCX's owner Climate Exchange PLC for 395 million pounds ($622 million). Climate Exchange PLC also owns the European Climate Exchange (ECX)....
In 2011, ICE and NASDAQ OMX Group joined forces to bid against Deutsche Börse after the latter announced a $9.5 billion deal to merge with NYSE Euronext. The two U.S. bidders ultimately withdrew after their bid encountered regulatory antitrust resistance. The proposal, would have brought nearly all U.S. stock listings under a merged Nasdaq-NYSE.....
Oh, and did I say the ICE was based in Atlanta? No wonder you didn't recognize the name IntercontentalExchange Inc. But you probably are familiar with the letters ICE...
IntercontinentalExchange plans to fund the cash portion of the acquisition with a combination of cash and existing debt. It added that the addition of NYSE will help it cut costs by firing lots and lots of people.
So 2 centuries of independence comes to an end. Bought up by a company barely twelve years old.....
How? By having tremendous amounts of ICE profits that are untaxed. Prior to this decade, we had taxes siphoning a large part of this cash back into our economy and back into paying off our national debt. Now we don't, thanks to the Republican Tax Cuts passed by a Republican Congress and signed by a Republican President.
These companies make money almost tax free...
This purchase of $8.2 billion, is simply the extra money this ICE exchange had left over after expenses, money that normally would have gone into taxes. It is also leveraged by loans approaching interest rates of 0%.
This $8.2 billion will create no new jobs. It will cost jobs. Had that $8 billion been taken in taxes as it would have been at any other time since the Great Depression, that $8 billion might have gone to hiring more firemen, hiring more policemen, hiring more air traffic controllers, hiring more teachers, hiring more accountants, hiring more IRS agents, hiring more SEC investigators, all of which shop at grocery stores and buy more cars...and more houses.
The Republican policy of not taxing the wealthy at higher rates, not only yields the mis-allocation of valuable investment, but also the elimination of more jobs.
Here is a direct example of why NOT taxing the wealthy at very high rates, cost America jobs instead of create them...
The philosophy that "Taxes are good" applies when used on the top earners... The higher the tax rate, the better for everyone else. If you want a thriving economy, having multiple stock exchanges is better than one person controlling all. And what better way to achieve that, than tax away all ICE's profits.....
That money needs to flow through our economy and can't. Because it is getting wasted buying up companies by other companies that are simply being allowed to keep, ...way too much money.
200 years. Gone, just like that....
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