A Robin Hood Tax. Brilliant idea or load of old hogwash?
Bill Nighy appears on PM tonight. He writes in the Daily Telegraph, and there's a piece in The Guardian.
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Wonderful!......I mean Bill Nighy, as well as the Tax! It's all so simple.
Oh, if only.....
*flies up into Cloud Cuckoo Land*
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Like it - but there's bound to be a catch.
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Excellent! And such a great performance - the squirming, the evading, the eyebrow lifting ....
If we all voted Yes?
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I hope others will sign up to the 'movement'.
http://robinhoodtax.org.uk/
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Thanks, Big Sister - I'm in, and spreading the word ;o)
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Brilliant!
I read somewhere that there's so much trading in just "foreign exchange", that is in speculating between dollars and sterling, Swissfrancs, etc,. that an amount equivalent to the entire Earth's total assets is traded every three weeks or so....
I'll take 0.05% of that quite happily.
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Brilliant idea!
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Excellent idea! And isn't Bill Nighy fantastic!
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The comments in the Telegraph weren't so positive. What does that say about the differing readership profiles I wonder?
I reckon the institutions will fight this as vehemently as the Tobin Tax which this resembles closely.
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I would think it was a good idea if it REALLY was going to help the poor of the world. However, with all the charitable giving of the past two or three decades and government overseas aid etc, we still have just as many poverty stricken people in poverty stricken countries. At what point are we allowed to wonder if all this giving is working? and why isn't it? Perhaps one for Mr Geldof
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Joe, I refer nyou to the answer given elsewhere
;-(
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Mm, Ellie, a few familiar names in the comments section - but I think this tells us more about the Daily Telegraph readership than anything else. December's daily circulation figures were on average 703,249. I wonder how many of its readers are, or were, employed in the financial sector or its near relatives?
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CM (11)
Thanks.
Mmm...Not convinced about the theorem of population growth. No doubt it has something to do with it but, I also believe corruption, wars, bad administration and programs...and perhaps just a vested interest by by whoever in keeping the status quo. I get the feeling that if population growth stopped, the people left would still be kept in misery until governments were forced to change this. A truism throughout history over anything that REALLY tends to REALLY benefit mankind. However, I guess the leaders swanking about in their top notch Mercedes and 4x4 entourages coming and going from palace to palace are grateful for as much charitable giving as they can get.
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The case against helping the poor
N.B. The opinions expressed therein are not necessarily those of the referrer. Food for thought.
Shanthi
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AFAIK, probably the biggest problem with aid donations is ensuring the right aid gets to the right people at the right time.
Quite often, the areas that need aid are geographically huge, and the people typically live in relatively small, scattered settlements. As if the logistics of delivering the aid weren't bad enough, there's also the question of "interruptions" to the delivery - sadly often from militia groups that would like to keep the lion's share of the aid for themselves, or at the very least control its distribution so their allies are rewarded for their loyalty whilst their antagonists are given very little or nothing. Not to mention political interference - local/national politicians who impose restrictions on the delivery or distribution of aid to suit their own purposes. Then factor in scale - in the recent Haiti earthquake, there weren't enough tents available in the entire world to house all those who needed them.
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I've just signed up, Big Sis.
What an extraordinary sum a 0.05% tax would raise. But would it be real money, or just the fictional sqillions that banks create on paper as they gamble with our hard-won?
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and, if the World economy could really benefit from this 250 billion annually, how would it be administered? How would we want to share it out? How would some countries, with despots with a taste for gold taps, wives in Versace and art locked away in cellars in charge, keep it out of their greedy mitts?
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Just spotted this on the website:
"This lunchtime we noticed some strange voting. Hundreds of 'no' votes in just a few minutes. We decided not to act. To watch from a high tree and try to catch the culprit in the act. And half an hour ago he or she returned. And this time it was thousands. Watch this space for more... In the meantime we have reset the voting counter to discard all these illegitimate votes. Stronger guards are stationed at the gates. Keep voting (fair) people"
I wonder who that could be?
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This is just a tax. More socialism, more waste more value destroyed and people let down.
No value is created by the tax - its just more TAX for government to waste.
Its a nasty con.
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Hogwash! Nighy stick to acting. Anyone who really thinks that the banks won't find a way to pass this on to all of us lives in cloud-cuckoo land. If it sounds too good to be true it is!
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funnyJoedunn, a very good question, over the last 50 years the West have given some $2 trillion in Aid, and what good has it done? Precious little, the countries in receipt of Aid 50 years ago are the same in need of even more Aid now.
Aid is just international welfare, and no one thinks welfare is a solution.
Unfortunately we have ignorant luvies peddling this failed policy so they can look good, and the media, like the BBC being politically in favour of Aid doesn't hold them to account, so we end up blowing billions a year just so the chattering classes can feel good in their Islington diner parties.
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Brilliant if you want to lose the financial market business to Asia. Does anyone seriously think that those lovely socialists in China would turn down the opportunity to cash in and centre financial markets in Asia? They've bought up UK gold at a bargain price thanks to Gordon Brown, they've taken most of our industry, now they'll get the financial business.
And another blow for private pension funds of course, who make millions of financial transactions. No effect on public sector pension funds who will of course pass the cost on to the taxpayer.
And how will the banks and investment companies fund the tax - yes they'll just pass it on to thee and me.
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10. funnyJoedunn - poverty isn't something that gets cleared up once and for all, it is part of life, part of capitalism, part of people's greed. This is just a way of getting some of the ill gotten gains and giving them back.
NO Geldoff please, had quite enough of Gombeen man shouting at everyone about giving money from his obvious position of wealth, [same with Cowell et al]. Geldof's daughter arrived at the Make Poverty History concert in Hyde Park in a pink helicopter. Need I say more?
Do they know it's Easter?
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Does your banker guest really expect us to believe that there are technical obstacles in the way of taxing millions of tiny transactions? They seem perfectly able to charge consumers for every smidgen of activity on their accounts, so I am not buying it.
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It's impractical to tax thousands and thousands of little transactions?
Well how do businesses charge and collect VAT?
I think it should be an No. 10 e-peition too Big Sis.
Where does this proposed tax fit with British values, the sort of British values that Brown was considering celebrating in our Great Britishness Bank Holiday?
Where does the bank bail out sit with British values of fair play? Broken Britain doesn't have fair play?
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Guys,
heard interview with somebody from 'The Banker'. Please note that at all stages of a deal a contract exists. At the moment some contracts are subject to both Stamp Duty, and VAT. It really is simple to put 50p on every £1,000 of a trade. This is a brilliant proposal, and I wish it every success. There is no downsides whatsoever.
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On the face of it I'm in favour. If someone has a rational argument against it I'd be happy to read it. Nothing I've read so far qualifies. That response by the chap from 'The Banker' was 'phoned-in' in every sense.
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21. IMOORE - and I suppose the poor of the world are poor because they're lazy goodfornothings who don't deserve welfare or anything and should get up and get a job blah blah blah.
'We' end up blowing billions a year? How's that exactly? To find out what good it's done perhaps you should visit some NGO websites where you will find out about children going to school, having vaccinations, getting clean water from a well for their village [not taps like you turn any time you want just because you were born in a rich country].
Then there's basic tools to enable people to grow their own food since they can't just buy them on their credit car [like you can because you were born in a rich country]. And let's not forget that poor countries grow rather a lot of OUR food now; bought any veg from Egypt or Kenya lately? Or that during the whole Band Aid spectacle of hypocrisy Ethiopea exported more food to the rich countries than it received in aid from them.
Spoken like a person who has many benefits and no compassion. Have you always despised those less fortunate?
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Why do we always hear about the tax the banks contribute to the economy in "normal" times only. Do I not recall that the costs of supporting them recently has wiped out their tax contribution for the last 10-20 years?
we are rightly annoyed at the £1 million in unjustified MP expenses but what about the trillions to support the banking system?
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"poverty isn't something that gets cleared up once and for all, it is part of life, part of capitalism, part of people's greed. This is just a way of getting some of the ill gotten gains and giving them back. "
Funny its mostly countries that put in socialist Governments when they got independence who are basket cases now.
Rather than a tax put on financial services there should be a tax for anyone being a member of a Union or any left wing party to pay for their disastrous economic policies that have beggared nations.
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Great idea, as others have said, everything is possible if enough thought is given to it. If you agree, go on the robin hood tax site and sign up! I've not done anything that's gone viral before so here's hoping!
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Want a solution to bailing out banks without new taxes? Simple get them to pay their bonuses into a fund, any bonuses to employees come from the interest on the fund. In the event of problems, the funds capital is used to prop up the bank.
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19. ManInAShed - 'More socialism' no call it compassion, or perhaps justice. You should get out of that shed more. Actually, over here socialism isn't a dirty word [yet] like it is in your country, there are many who would welcome a return to socialism, but that would depend on the Labour Party returning to socialism, which is unlikely. No doubt they would win the nest election if they did.
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Do not underestimate the enormous power that will be deployed by the financial institutions to resist absolutely any genuinely effective effort to reform them and reduce their power.
It is important to remember that any concession that is made by them to the growing trend towards a more moral and less socially destructive way of doing business is also a move away from the ideological belief, increasingly held by the UK and other Western Governments, in the free-market. Don't forget, this near religious faith in the market has turned some banking corporations and their leaders into some of the most powerful economic entities on the planet.
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Well done Mr Nighy and cohorts... Best idea since it was last postulated by Tobin himself. We live in hope!
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30. At 5:59pm on 10 Feb 2010, IMOORE wrote:
'Funny its mostly countries that put in socialist Governments when they got independence who are basket cases now.'
Name some. Or is that just your opinion not based on any facts?
Right wing Americans have really come in here in numbers lately...
You'll have noticed from the majority of posters here that we rather like this idea.
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Yet another absolutely diabolical and stupid idea.
The National Socialist party of GB have spent the last 12 years demoting manufacturing and promoting the finance industry as the main bread winr of the nation. They put all their eggs in one basket and the handle came off.
While the finance industry should have been regulated in many ways over that period, it wasn't. The major part of the uk's depression has nothing to do with the credit crunch or sub prime lending in the US. It has more to do with GB, financial pundits and the Bank of England.
Many people were suprised by the recession and its depth. I wasn't. I predicted this as long ago as 2002, even some of the causes and I wasn't the only one. Most of the causes are still hidden and the prospects for a full recovery are very dim.
While the government continues to allow the asset stripping of UK manufacturing, the future is very grim.
It may not seem obvious to the general public, but a risk averse fnancial sector is no use to anyone. All the comments about gambling are plain stupid as most forms of financing and investment ARE gambling.
A risk averse finance industry would not invest in any business during these uncertain times.
This idea is just another example of the envy culture that has sprung up over the last 12 years or so.
Just because the mob think it, doesn't make it so.
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Was John Bird not available?
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
Bill Nighy knocks the banks, but I bet he's enjoyed strataspheric house price increases over the years. How does he think this happened? This smacks to me of self promoting hypocracy.
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Great idea. But isn't it simpler to just tax the bank on more of its profits? If the aim is to cream off the easy money banks are making, that would be easier to do.
Some technical problems with the RHT are:
Implementation: they are going to LOVE the tax authority scrutinising every transaction.
International considerations: As it is most transactions "take place" in offshore locations: London-based mutual fund/hedge fund etc "advises" (tells!) Bermuda "associated" management company office buy this, sell that. Bermuda does it. Tax = 0, profit stays in bermuda till year-end when accounts are "balanced". Tax in UK? er.. well.. you know, we think of the shareholders, blah...
Finally trading: Nowadays, many, many trades are automated and take place in computers at a rate of millions (yes!) per second. Each trade makes minute profit/loss but net effect is huge, like a swarm. If each of THOSE transactions were hit with a tax, the effect would be to slow trading dramatcally. If I mention that traders (and lawyers) are now arguing about how close they can site their computers to the (stock and commodity exchanges because of the disadvantage of the extra microseconds it takes for trade info to move between a trader's computer and the exchange, you will see how this automated trading behemoth has evolved. Taxing individual trans would have an interesting effect!
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While I agree that the banks need to be restrained from building wealth that does not really exist (Emperor's new clothes banking) and then leave ordinary tax payers to pick up the bill thereby stealing from the poor, I do not think that the Tobin tax or Robin Hood tax is the way to go. The problem is that taxes are highly addictive to Governments so they are hardly going to constrain a socially useless activity that they derive huge revenues from.
Instead, we need to demand socially useful banking. So the world's governments need to legislate against and stop the socially useless banking and then moderately tax the socially useful banking activities such as investing in development projects and venture capital for entrepreneurs. High banking taxes should then not be necessary because some of the high taxes are going to be for a nation's risk mitigation of the highly leveraged socially useless investment vehicles of individual banks. Obama has got it right by limiting the banks' activities. I hope other governments follow suit.
This isn't a socialist argument. Socially useless bankers have nothing to do with Capitalism as they produce nothing. They are outside of the Capitalist system. Those banks that have engaged in socially useless banking have been stealing from the Capitalists and they need to be stopped by governments.
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El Ghazali said A man who is being delivered from the danger of a fierce liondoes not object whether this service is performed by an unknown or an illustrious individual. Why therefore do we seek knowledge from the famous? One could add, "or opinions on matters outside their sphere". To introduce a Tobin tax unilaterally (forget the emotive name) would be economic suicide.
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What's up with the tremulous mods now? Why should they be worried by my saying Geldof's daughter arrived in the Make Poverty History concert in Hyde Park in a pink helicopter? It's been reported in the media. Or was it my referring to him as Gombeen Geldof? Well he is, as anyone who's Irish will know. Sue?
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When will people realise - every cost a company incurs is paid by the customer. The only income of a company comes from customers therefore every cost paid by the organisation is also paid by the customer. If the banks increase their costs as a result of this ill-thought tax then it will become less competitive in the market. If you wish to direct funds towards particular causes then ask the customers directly. Do not fool yourself that it is the banks who are paying. It is YOU that pay.
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Brilliant idea!
.....and as for the nice person from "The Banker", like those of the Lower House in Westminster you just don't get it do you?
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Brilliant film. Richard Curtis is a genius and Bill Nighy is just too wonderful for words.
I've signed up and I'd like to proffer a suggestion: can we have an "all in favour wear Lincoln green" day?
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Because the size of the tax is so tiny, we should ask ourselves why it might be that noticeable resistance is already starting to emerge to the idea. If past proposals are anything to go by, this resistance will be expected to grow in size and sophistication in direct proportion to any growth in popularity the movement may enjoy and, I predict, will eventually overwhelm any influence the idea may have gained with government.
I think the reason this idea will eventually be marginalised and eventually dumped, despite it being an apparently modest proposal, will not be so much because it challenges profits, but because it establishes a principle that challenges a doctrine that has slowly been allowed to underpin the UK financial sector - that the freedom to make as much money as is technically possible in as many ways as can be humanly devised is now - in the financial industry at least - utterly sacrosanct.
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RE:36
Dotty,
Don't confuse socialism with social concience, compassion or justice.
Socialism is a dogma and cares not about the human being, who is simple an individual and therefore evil (PT).
The current labour government is socialist and always have been.
All this slam the rich nonsense helps none and fixes nothing. Much of it is based on lies and is part of the red flag politics currently practiced. (Wave a red flag over hear and nobody will notice the real issues). The 'rich' make good scape goats, who cares about them, eh?
But bullying is bullying, it affects people the same way wether they are well off or not. Bullying some one because of an accident of birth, or because of the way circumstances took their life, is still bullying wether the accident is that the person is of jewish decent or was lucky enough to go to public school.
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Well, the banker interviewed tonight seemed very similar to Bill Nighy, but unlike in the film Eddie didn't seem to have time to challenge his two objections:
(a) was that there are "lots of small transactions" in the City - how small? In the thousands, surely? And what's the problem with tracking them? Just as in a sale transaction, a VAT liability is incurred at 17.5%, in a share or currency transaction or swap a tax liability at 0.05% would add to credits on the nominal ledger. It might need some lead time to implement on all systems and some scrutiny to show that off-system deals aren't taking place, but is certainly feasible, and at that low rate there's really no incentive to avoid it.
(b) it puts whichever market adopts it at a competitive disadvantage - sounds more serious and surely covering all the major financial centres would be better, but do we actually have evidence of that? If there were "viscosity" in the markets, we're told huge speculative bubbles would self-regulate before they turned into the massive risks and losses we've seen. Risks and losses which required diversion of government money from public services and investment that keeps the real economy going. I think I'd rather invest or trade in a country where the government regulates properly.
A Tobin or Tobin-like tax is only one form of regulation, but it's an improvement on what we have at present.
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It is an excellent idea.
For too long the British economy has been completely unbalanced. Not enough attention has been paid to manufacturing and spreading commercial activity around the whole of the UK. The City and the South East have become totally dominant and banking and financial services of all sorts have provided too much of our GDP.
A widely spread Tobin type tax could produce billions of pounds without damaging the companies required to pay it because the take on each transaction would be tiny. The money gathered in this way could be used to encourage and support manufacturing and commercial activity elsewhere to balance the financial activity in the City and South East and/or for environmental and welfare projects.
Some companies would move out of the UK but most would stay for quite some time as the financial infrastructure in London is difficult to find elsewhere. In addition, many financial institutions would note measures being taken in other countries to hit just these financial institutions considered responsible for the current crisis. That would reduce their motivation to move.
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Having just heard your man from the banking magazine saying that this tax would be too complicated to work and too many transactions to make it workable. Can I inquire as to whether he has ever heard of e-bay and the millions of transactions they do very successfully every day. It's pay back time!
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In the 1960's New York placed a deposit insurance tax on all deposits, and overnight the banks created the Cayman Islands as a banking centre, becoming the 5th biggest in the world. To this day, money moves there overnight, and back next morning, thats why The Robin Hood tax will fail. Concentrate instead on the types of bank trades which Bill rightly described as contributing nothing to society, for example, short selling. Ban those, and part of the problem is solved, tax them and they move on!
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This tax is supposed to stop the allegedly socially nil value speculation? Then if you set it at a level that does stop this speculation, there will be few receipts since the activity will cease or be greatly reduced. If you set it at a level that doesn't then what have you acheived over just taxing bank profits a bit more?
This is just a pipe dream. Money is not created by this. It will come from somewhere, bank profits, bankers pay (unlikely since they set it), or from our financial services charges on consumers.
And derivatives are not socially useless anyway. One example are gas and electricity futures. Companies who need gas and electricity for their business are more efficient if they can hedge their exposures to future prices. Indeed most derivatives fulfill a similar function, making economic activity more efficient. It is the mis pricing of these instruments that creates financial crises. A very complex subject that should be given due respect, not trivialised and reduced toi simplistic narratives of good and evil
The Telegraph readership differs from the mainstream view presented here because of the simple fact that they understand what financial instruments actually are. How many commentators here would pass an FSA exam in derivatives? This is the entry level for participating in the market.
To make a real world analogy, it might be an idea to syphon off a tiny percentage of the petrol as it travels from your fuel tank to the engine. Who would notice? Free petrol!! It might be possible as well to pour some sand in the engine to reduce emissions. All fine so long as you dont want to go anywhere.
Programmes like PM would do better to educate people about how these financial instruments actually work than to spread dhallow narrative. Anyone would think you were a PR dept for a political party!! But sadly this would require the journalists to learn about what they are reporting first, so thats a non starter! As soon as they learnt and realised the reality they would b*gger off to better paid jobs in the city!!
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How much lower can we go? With a straight face, R4 interviews Bill Nighy, a competent actor but not a noticeably eminent expert on finance or tax, about ways to tax the banks. What next - Jordan on QE? This is possibly the most ridiculous proposal I've ever heard. Quite apart from the problem of defining a transaction, you cannot hope to squeeze that amount of money (and where did that figure come from?) out of financial institutions without huge unintended consequences. As Obama and his hopelessly naive finance team are discovering, if you try to tax transactions, or liabilities, the first person to suffer is the punter. US banks are already saying that additional taxes will force them to shrink their balance sheets, meaning there is less money to lend. Is that what was planned? But hey! Let's have Stephen Fry as Chancellor and Cheryl Cole as Governor of the Bank of England and all our problems will be solved. (And, on that subject, why hasn't Bono been called in to deal with Ireland's financial troubles?)
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// 'Funny its mostly countries that put in socialist Governments when they got independence who are basket cases now.'
Name some. Or is that just your opinion not based on any facts? //
Ghana, at independence Ghana was a rich country, after ten years of Nkrumah's 'scientific socialism' the country was bankrupt and the constitution destroyed. Now where did Nkrumah get his socialistic ideas from? From British lefties on the streets of Camden.
Or take Nyerere of Tanzania who applied a ujamaa 'familyhood' form of socialism , and in his socialist experiment of agriculture collectivisation moved 11 million people into ujamaa villages, with the result they starved and the country needed vast amounts of food aid.
Oh yes the lefties have been very good a playing the colonial guilt card, if they didn't shout so much people might just look a real reason why Africa is a basket case and find that it wasn't colonialism that was the problem, nor capitalism, but that the socialist experiment the European lefties applied to Africa destroyed their economies, and as is usual with lefties, they also can't leave alone constitutions ( as we see hear0 and they wrecked those as well.
No we should levy a tax all the lefties to correct the economic damage they have wrought on the world.
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Before the bank assisted bubble burst they were raking in record profits every year.
We've had to bail them out as their greed exceeded their intelligence.
Would it hurt them to put their hand in their pockets a little?
I'm not sure how the contributions to fight climate change though.
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All the main parties seem to be, and have so seemed for some time, scared of the power of the big banks. Perhaps this is no surprise as they handle sums far greater than the GDP of many countries. What we could use is a few people prepared to stand in the general election on a Robin Hood tax cadidate ticket: this would bring the issue to the fore in the electoral debate and the main parties would be forced to adopt a position on the idea. A hung parliament with even one such candidate having been successful might force a bit of concensus politics which could lead to action to constrain the worst excesses of the banks or if not to constrain them then to tax the banks more effectively than heretofore.
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In the days of Peter the Great many inventive new taxes were brought in to pay for his grandiose projects of opening Russia to Europe.
Many people know that he brought in a tax on beards, as old Russians had beards whereas European fashion was for a clean shave. Tokens, showing a beard and moustache on one side and the words "Money received" on the other, were issued to those who were prepared to pay to keep the old ways.
A less well known, but more appropriate to the current debate on gathering huge sums via small taxes, innovation was a decree that any legal petitions, official documents, deeds or contracts could only be valid if recorded on official paper bearing the State Coat of Arms (the double-headed eagle). The State had the monopoly on the sale of such paper and the volume of those transactions meant that the small cost of that paper accumulating daily from all over the country added up to extremely useful amounts.
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DocD and all the other 'European lefties'...I could never quite get the hang of doing air guitar to Lenard Skynard...so I guess I'm with you guys. Don't take it for granted though...They're still a good band. ;-) Joe.
PS I had this thought about taxing taxes, and then taxing the tax on taxes, and then taxing the tax on the tax that taxes, taxes and then....
Which reminds me a sketch where Chico Marx is up before the judge.
The court bailiff chimes,..."your here in court today for not paying your taxes".
Chico....Italian accent..."Say I godda brudder who lives a there".
Bailiff..."where"?
Chico..."Texas".
Bailiff..."No no, I'm talking about 'dollars'...Taxes".
Chico..."Say thats a right, Dallas Texas...Say... how did you a know I got a brudder in a Dallas Texas"?
Bailiff..."No no no, doll-ars tax-as"
Chico..."Yea yea yea, thats a right, Dall-as in a Tex-as"
Court bailiff proceeds to tear his hair out.
Chico..."Now you getting me all a confused now, maybe I just a go eh!"
;-)
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Would Bill Nighy or Richard Curtis please explain how the tax authorities could distinguish between inter-bank speculation and the millions of ordinary FX trades carried out for hard working businesses in the normal course of importing our raw materials and exporting our finished goods?
Will traders will still get their 7-figure risk-free salaries, while we pay the new wonder tax for them?
I have seen the Law Of Unintended Consequences at work so many times before.
I notice that you cannot post comments at robinhoodtax.org.uk. Why are they not open to critique?
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56. Yeehaah!
And it's one-two-three what are we fightin for
Don't ask me I don't give a damn
Next stop is Vietnam...
60. Free as a bird Joe, free as a bird
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49. Peter - 'Socialism is a dogma and cares not about the human being, who is simple [sic] an individual and therefore evil (PT).
The current labour government is socialist and always have [sic] been.'
Spoken like a true neocon. By the way, don't tell me I'm confused when you can't even write.
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37. Peter - you appear to be becoming incoherent. Don't torture yourself with the communist hordes eating the rich, it probably won't happen...
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I see my post #23 has reappeared, so the mods couldn't see anything wrong. Mere opinion you see, nothing libellous. Nice try whoever you are, I still think those who refer to mods should have their posting 'identity' added to the message - this post has been referred to the moderators by....
then we'll all know where we stand, huh?
Suppose no chance of an admission of guilt?
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A "few small transactions"?
Shooting the Money Changers
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Doc@44: Geldof probably refers to himself like that ;o)! Didn't know about the daughter arriving in a helicopter - that's incredibly bad taste and she should have known better.
Re. referrals, I think quite often it is the Mods checking libel laws and such like before allowing them to pass, which they are entitled to do. From time to time comments upset more than one person and, due to the 'refresh screen' time delay, possibly get referred by more than one poster. I'm always happy to "confess" if I refer a post - quite often it will be because it is a direct, unfounded attack.
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Crataegus Monogyna markets need liquidity to function, and much of that liquidity comes from speculators. If you didn't have speculators to carry the risk and give liquidity you would be back to booking your foreign exchange needs with the Government, and your holiday wouldn't be dependent on when you could get a flight, but when you could exchange your foreign exchange needs with another end user.
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The incidence of a tax is who ultimately pays for it.
If you tax asset manipilulations and net X billin and try to spend it on good causes, the rate of asset inflation will recoup the X billion in tax and crowd out the X billion of putative spending by increasing the spending power of the rich by ....X billion
...all by asset infaltion.
The incidence will be in the X billion of other government expenditure we'll 'safely cut' to reduce governement debt.
It's the new economic model, a sort of social class stagflation.
The economy in a 10 per cent below trend slump, and the rich increasing their share wealth by 60 per cent since last March.
We get the stagnation, they get the pay hikes
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39 has been referred to the Mods? Hey, referee are you sure you understood it fully? Do you have no pity for the Mods?
(;-)(;-)
DDL
Then, Vietnam, then EyeRaq LAnd, now Afghan(istan) Land.
Lepidus pointed out the villagers in Helmand where Nato is presently attacking have been told to leave. But there is nowhere for them to go
and it is bitter winter there. Such banal evil.
'When the war was over
I went dancing in the street
with the corpse of my dead brother
To the swank Gestapo beat'
To those who sneer and fear:
Let's
Raise the scarlet banner high
Tax away, (please), they will only recoup though, I fear.
Public ownership of finance capital. They took it from us, we should take it back from them. They do nothing but harm with it anyway.
These slogans were produced by the 'A touch of the obvious' dotorg.
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Hang on a minute; I thought we'd already established that the money that wunch of bankers half-inched was all fantasy money anyway? Never really existed in the first place? So how is a tax on this not going to be fantasy piled on top of fantasy? (Compound fantasy? I think there's an opportunity for market making here...)
In any event, I have a better idea (oh yes I do). Whoever wins the Euro-millions lottery tomorrow night must be required to buy Greece; I'm sure they will get a good deal, plenty of small change left over. On that thought - do you think it was actually the Olympics which holed the Greek economy below the waterline? I mean, what lunatic nation would possible WANT to take on such huge and burdensome debt in this post-econopocalyptic (TM) world in which we live??? Oh - now you come to mention it....
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Banks don't freely give money to charities. They donate to particular charities who are then taxced with improving the banks PR and pushing the banks agendas.
If the Robin Hood tax was raised by a corrupt government with a habit of simply giving contracts and moneys to their friends in business, then any tax raised would simply dissappear without benefit to the public in the same way as the current taxes do.
This is of course if the tax is actually levied and not avoided. The government which comes down so hard on benefit cheats etc, has had real difficulty with making any effort to regulate or enforce any policy which is meant to control the behaviour of the rich.
The only thing which would genuinely benefit society is proper ppublic owned and controlled nationalised industrys in those areas where the stability of the country would be benefitted. The NHS (without the risk of becoming the abhorent american insurance controlled system), Public Services, Police, Military, Fire Services, Transport, Utilities, and communication. This of course will never be argued for in a media which is becoming increasingly overpaid and greedy at the expemse of those it pretends to care are suffering.
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