Chicago protesters seek tax on exchanges to fund jobs

The Chicago Tribune reports:

Stand Up Chicago, a coalition planning a protest against economic inequality Monday, wants to levy a $1.4 billion tax on trading at the city's biggest financial exchanges to fund a jobs program.

Calling CME Group Inc. and CBOE Holdings Inc. "giant casinos" that fuel the kind of "excessive risk-taking" it says brought on the financial crisis, the group is floating a 25-cent-per-contract tax on the two exchanges.


Such a tax would generate $1.4 billion in yearly revenue and help create 40,000 jobs for the unemployed in the city, the group said in its jobs plan blueprint, available on its website.

The socialist demonstrators are probably not experts on futures trading. Maybe the exchanges should move out of Chicago to avoid the sight of those demonstrators.