>>Again, Bernie gets this.

But does "only" Bernie get this?

I've said before that the entire speculative arm of banking is parasitic, scooping money from people doing productive business, in exchange for nothing of value. The scoopers would say that they force efficiency, but if this breed of "efficiency" carves $ from one or both sides in a productive business transaction, why is this useful for the participants? This is especially true of currency where (for example) the daily NZ$ churn exceeds the annual GDP. A small tariff on currency transactions will make little difference to people actually purchasing goods or services internationally (and who already pay fees and shaved rates to the transacting banks) but will end speculative buying and selling microseconds apart to try to scoop a profit from changing rates. I can't see why the citizenry has to maintain systems capable of handling bloated currency transacting by trolls expecting a share of every cart crossing a bridge the troll did not build and does not own.