Tiny Tax on Financial Trades Gains Advocates

[alp227]

Source: NYT

They call it the Robin Hood tax — a tiny levy on trades in the financial markets that would take money from the banks and give it to the world’s poor.

And like the mythical hero of Sherwood Forest, it is beginning to capture the public’s imagination.

Driven by populist anger at bankers as well as government needs for more revenue, the idea of a tax on trades of stocks, bonds and other financial instruments has attracted an array of influential champions, including the leaders of France and Germany, the billionaire philanthropists Bill Gates and George Soros, the consumer activist Ralph Nader, Pope Benedict XVI and the archbishop of Canterbury.

“We all agree that a financial transaction tax would be the right signal to show that we have understood that financial markets have to contribute their share to the recovery of economies,” the chancellor of Germany, Angela Merkel, told her parliament recently.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/07/business/global/micro-tax-on-financial-trades-gains-advocates.html?pagewanted=all

---

Protesters took part in an anti-G20 demonstration through the streets of Nice, France, on November 1. (Getty)

[RC]

1. I can see this as putting a damper on fast computer trading.

And that would be a good thing. Fast Computer trading using fast computer centers is nothing more than scamming the system and needs to be stopped. It is nothing more than high tech theft.

[CAcyclist]

2. I agree with that - excellent side effect nm

nm

[FailureToCommunicate]

3. If it actually went to "the world's poor" it would be worth enacting

...somehow that seems unlikely.

However if Bill Nighy is promoting it, I'm slightly more optimistic:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYtNwmXKIvM

[bloomington-lib]

4. I could see it going to contractors, subcontractors, subsubcontractors

and then when it gets to the poor they're offered a bag of moldy rice a food distributor had to get rid of.

[mopinko]

5. i never thought i would see the day that such a global tax

would be possible. which is the only way to make it work. but i think the day is here.