Myners also downplayed talk of a Tobin tax on financial transactions. âThe Tobin tax continues to be reviewed by the IMF, but it needs universal adoption or trading will gravitate towards other financial centres,â he said. âIt is not imminent.â http://www.cityam.com/news-and-analysis/myners-we-donât-want-obama-plan
Ms. Public has little to say in things requiring international coordination (and G7 won't do here, Mr Brown - see the Simon Johnson's interview: "if they do it at the full G20 level, they may get some traction". The IMF would not be easily persuaded by appeal to authority and high-pressure techniques (so do not fear those celebs). They need rational arguments, some decent number crunching, they would even select your most math-ridden stuff that you send them (have you tried BTW?) You see, Sir, advice, however good, is almost costless And we can always do both - crunch numbers for the IMF and educate the public at the same time (incl. US Congressmen) using e.g. Wikipedia, as some of us have been doing... If we have no time or indeed skill for it, then we should at least hire someone. They certainly did hire someone - Boyd Reimer is their full-time content shifter! If left for a month or so unopposed, he will eventually remove each and every anti-tax argument... as he did before we showed any interest in this most visited and linked page on the trans-tax in the world... http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Tobin_tax&action=history Here's his latest removal: Reason for removal of Keynes personal life info Note to the person who added info about Keynes personal life: Not myself, but a different editor, cautioned us about the length of this article. (see this edit)... This Wikipedia policy on article size states that if an article is too long then some personal computers experience technical difficulty in opening it. That's why editors should be aware of "priorities of relevance" even in footnotes. I propose that information about Keynes personal life is not relevant enough to the Tobin tax to be included. I suggest that this content would be more appropriate in a different article in Wikipedia, perhaps in the article on Keynes himself.Boyd Reimer (talk) 12:51, 24 January 2010 (UTC) And to undersdand why the fragment was removed, just have a read:0 While proposing to tax others (Americans), Mr Keynes himself enjoyed speculation to the fullest, running an early precursor of a [[hedge fund]]. As the Bursar of the Cambridge University King's College, he managed two investment funds, one of which, called Chest Fund, invested not only in the then 'emerging' market US stocks, but also periodically included commodity futures and foreign currencies, albeit to a smaller extent (see Chua and Woodward, 1983) . His fund achieved positive returns in almost every year, averaging 13% p.a., even during the Great Depression, thanks to very modern investment strategies, which included inter-market [[diversification]] (i.e. invested not only in stocks but also commodities and currencies) as well as [[shorting]], i.e. selling borrowed stocks or futures to make money on falling prices, which Keynes advocated among the principles of successful investment in his 1933 report ("a balanced investment position [..] and if possible, opposed risks.") According to Ziemba and Ziemba (2007) Keynes risk-taking reached 'cowboy' proportions, i.e. 80% of the maximum rationally justifiable levels (of the so called [[Kelly criterion]]), with overall return [[volatility]] approximately 3 times higher than the stock market index benchmark. Such levels of volatility, responsible for his spectacular investment performance, would be achievable today only through the most aggressive instruments (such as 3:1 leveraged [[exchange-traded fund]]s). His pronouncements on the speculation-curbing transaction tax should be therefore taken as merely [[normative]] ideas, good for others, but not for himself. He instead chose modern [[speculation]] techniques practiced today by [[hedge funds]], which are quite different from the simple [[buy-and-hold]] long-term investing. (SEE BELOW TWO FOOTNOTES)</ref><ref>Chua, J. H. and R. S. Woodward, 1983. The investment wizardry of J. M. Keynes. Financial Analysts Journal 39 (3), 35-37, URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4478643</ref><ref>Ziemba, Rachel and William Ziemba, 2007. Good and Bad properties of the Kelly criterion" in: Ziemba R. and W. Ziemba, 2007, "Scenarios for risk management and global investment strategies", John Wiley & Sons, p. 29-31.</ref> I guess it took the author some time and research before he could discredit their chief scientist so spectacularly And now this splendid example of 'tu quoque' is gone forever... so I'm preserving it at least here
Can you put this information back, or at least a condensed version of it? As far as I understand Wikipedia, your submission should be just as good as any from this Reimer guy. Moreover, this Reimer is violating the Wikipedia editing policy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Paid_editing_(policy). Reimer is a professional web designer and he's clearly doing this on behalf of someone else. His website is www_convergingvisions.ca. His profile: Let's expose this paid hack and get him banned from Wikipedia.
Charities are hurting in this recession and the social-cause globalists are frustrated over lack of progress at the Copenhagen climate conference. It's a perfect storm brewing for coalition around a serious fight to pass a FTT. The grass roots Tea Party type campaign should not be under estimated. The mass public will believe the FTT advocates are correct and call on politicians with petitions and more to pass a FTT. You can't challenge it on technicalities, their message is very simple. Wall Street is making money in inappropriate ways and you are struggling so you or charities deserve to get back some of that money - and only a tiny fraction 1/10 of the UK stamp tax rate now. The only way to defeat a serious campaign like that - and let's see how noticeable it is - is for government officials to use other solutions to fix these problems and assuage populist anger. Good thing it's not a direct referendum. This public rage is greater than general rage against tax increases. Are sure you don't want to fight this charity/celeb/economist campaign?
ZS, it certainly makes sense to consider your audience. I was speaking more about replies to articles in the media, from celebrities, etc., not to the likes of the IMF. Obviously they should be better equipped to have a more technical discussion about things. No, the public doesn't have much say in things requiring international coordination, but we do (in theory) have a say in things here domestically. If the US is against this, then it won't be passed internationally either, so we need to continue to fight this the best way we can. RG, I'm not saying we shouldn't fight the celeb's, but that we have to be smart about it. I just don't think attacking them or threatening a boycott is the best way to go about it.
http://www.businessweek.com/news/20...anking-proposals-as-wrong-for-u-k-system.html If you read this article it seems Brown is pulling info from thin air and delusional. He still dismisses Obamas plan after today and thinks Obama is moving closer to a transaction tax. Read what Brown says and tell me he is not seeing things or hearing voices that are not there
Brown is a bully. Simple as. Like a spoiled child he goes on until he gets his way. Or he doesn't. And finally he will be booted out when he faces the UK electorate. I will have a nice glass of champagne when that day comes.