What to do about that bank tax?

January 27, 2010 | By Jim Kim

The banking industry is in a quandary when it comes to the recently proposed bank tax. On the one hand, it does seem rather unfair and may well be unprecedented in its punitive nature. On the other hand, the public is angry right now, and that anger is palpable. It was directed at Tim Geithner pretty strongly at the hearing yesterday, but make no mistake, the real target is the industry. So it would be very hard to come and oppose the tax right now, especially when at least one poll shows Americans solidly in favor of the idea. The industry doesn't want to demonize itself anymore than it already has.

So its response here will have to be nuanced. A good start may be to finally start paying itself less and somehow making that known via the PR process. Apart from Goldman Sachs (GS), we're really not seeing too many banks reducing salaries and bonuses relative to their performance, not that the public is giving the Vampire squid a break. This is really tricky terrain.

For more:
- here's the a Wall Street Journal blog item about the poll