The wild stock market gyrations of recent days reflect legitimate economic concerns, including the long-term debt and political dysfunction in the United States as well as the growing debt crisis in Europe. But the dramatic market swings are doubtless made worse by programmed stock trading in which millions of shares of stock are bought and then sold for quick profits in minutes or even fractions of a second.

At the same time the volatile stock markets reflect real concerns about the U.S. and global economies, congressional leaders are announcing the names of 12 people to serve on a super committee tasked with finding solutions to the long-term debt crisis in the United States and crafting a plan expected to cut spending, reform the tax code and, possibly, increase some taxes.

One idea gaining some support that addresses both issues making headlines this week is a stock trade transaction tax. In addition to raising an estimated $175 billion or more for the U.S. Treasury, a financial transaction tax would also reduce market volatility.

Computerized trading now dominates Wall Street activity. By some estimates, high-speed, programmed trading represents 65 to 70 percent of the 7 billion shares of stock traded daily in the various U.S. markets. One recent report revealed that 70 percent of stocks purchased on an average day on Wall Street are held 11 seconds. Since some stocks are held for months or years, the 11-second average reveals that many shares are held for a second or less before being sold.

To what used to be considered the average investor, that’s crazy. But what used to be an average investor — someone who bought stock and held it — is no longer the norm. The “average” investor now, meaning those whose activity dominates the stock markets, is the program trader or complex computer models that buy and sell huge blocks of shares of stock in minutes or seconds, making big profits on tiny price swings — up or down — per share.

These newly dominant players on Wall Street make billions of dollars a year in profit. But they are not investing, they are gambling — some might say gaming the system.

Some computerized trades are based on making split second trades, where computer speed is so critical that computers located in closer proximity to the stock exchange computers, meaning across the street, have a trading advantage over computers sending buy or sell orders from the other side of New York City or the other side of the country. It’s gaming the system and should be stopped.

Global financial concerns can explain some market volatility, but high-speed trading, as well as the classic investor emotions of fear and greed, explain more. Experts say computerized trading exaggerates market swings.

The appeal of a financial transaction tax is that it would dampen some market volatility, while also raising an estimated $175 billion or more a year to help trim the federal budget.

It would not supress investing; it would curtail casino-style speculation in the stock markets.

A transaction tax would have very little impact on the old-fashioned investor because the proposed tax would be just a fraction of a cent per share bought or sold. Most people who buy and sell stocks or hold stocks in a 401(k) account would see virtually no impact. But the high-speed program traders now dominating Wall Street activity would have to weigh the impact of that tiny, per-share tax on their bets buying and selling millions of shares quickly.

Given its dual benefits, a transaction tax should be one of the many ideas expected to be part of a deficit reduction and reform package.