http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ab850536-1818-11df-91d2-00144feab49a.html âRobin Hood taxâ seen as stealth levy By Vanessa Houlder and Chris Giles A celebrity-backed campaign for a âRobin Hood taxâ on banking transactions has been condemned for promoting a âstealth taxâ that would hit unintended targets while leaving the banks unscathed. The criticism by Mike Devereux, director of the Centre for Business Taxation at Oxford University, comes at a time when proponents of the idea claim there is âa growing movementâ to introduce a financial transaction tax in the US and elsewhere. A coalition of charities, aid agencies, green groups, church groups and unions launched a campaign this week for a âtinyâ tax of just 50p on every £1,000 of speculative transactions that could raise as much as £250bn a year internationally to fight poverty, reduce deficits and tackle climate change. Its call for all political parties to support the idea of taking from wealthy banks to help the poor was backed by a three-minute film, directed by Richard Curtis and starring Bill Nighy as a cynical City banker sitting in a Canary Wharf office who eventually concedes that the idea has merits. Publicity over the launch was sustained by claims of vote-rigging in an internet poll that involved one of Goldman Sachsâ computers. Public support and opinion polls showed that the tax might actually be âa unique thing â a popular taxâ, the coalition said. It added that its campaign is backed by âfinanciers and hundreds of economistsâ, citing influential figures such as Lord Turner of the Financial Services Authority who have spoken out in favour of transaction taxes. Proponents argue that much of the tax would be paid out of banksâ profits or be passed on to employees. But Mr Devereux said banks would pass on a global tax to their customers. It would be a stealth tax because no one would know who was actually worse off as a result of it, he said. âProbably the only thing we could be sure about is that it is not the banks.â Other concerns include the risk of damaging the liquidity and depth of financial markets and opening up avoidance opportunities. Ian Young, of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales, said: âThe worry is it would send the market makers off established markets down alleys and into back streets where the tax wonât apply.â The international political momentum behind a global financial transactions tax has risen over the past year but remains extremely low, commentators said. Although the campaigners place great hopes on the International Monetary Fund report on the subject of financial sector taxation, due in April, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, managing director of the Fund, has already made it clear that he sees no future in such an idea. Speaking to the Financial Times from the World Economic Forum in Davos last month, he challenged leaders who called for such levies to raise taxes domestically. âIf you donât have the political will to do it [at home], forget about it. If you have the political will, just do it,â he said. That does not mean the banking sector will escape additional taxation. But the levies under consideration are designed explicitly to offset the implicit support banks receive from taxpayers. The decision in principle that could be taken by the group of 20 world leaders at its summit in June is bound up with global discussions on banking regulations. Experts predict that the outcome, if there is one, is almost certain to look more like national deposit insurance than a Robin Hood tax on global banking activities.
In-house logfile analysis is exactly the way to perform a sensitive vote in which the website owner has a vested interest. So the only vote-rigging which goes on just happens to be on the NO side, exactly as reported by the YES-side proponents, with exclusive monopoly access to the voting stats. When was it last time when you short-changed your Tesco cashier ? Yes, we do believe in 90% of the turkeys voting for Christmas! And the greatest irony is that merry men also apparently include some really overzealous novice activists, working in a manner similarly crude to that Goldman "loop voter" (which would have been done via a bot-net using one of their low-impact "iceberg" algos if that was an official order from above, not a spontaneous grassroots initiative. They would probably even prey on the positive bias of the website owner, by voting YES in their "billions" I do not complain here about that little known fact that "Your comment is awaiting moderation" is visible only to the original poster (cookie setter), while others cannot see it. (I know it because once you remove the cookie, or when you access their website via a filtering web proxy such as Proxomitron, your comment is not shown, even if others' comments posted below/after yours are already visible... so yours will never be visible - they decided your arguments are "too inconvenient" Happened to me twice, regardless of size). No, I mean something much less subtle. While they kept on accusing banks of vote rigging in the Guardian, some of those honest, badly wronged do-gooders tried to hijack the main Wikipedia article on the Tobin tax in the most crude and visible manner possible: Revision as of 20:40, 12 February 2010 by Cretog8: (Undid revision 343602297 by Quarktheory12 (talk) rvt linkspam) The undone revision was (and you will enjoy it): There is a website where you can vote for the bankers to give back our money, as well you can subscribe to news on the robbing the rich to give to the poor campaign. You can do this at :[http://robinhoodtax.org.uk/] And yes, they did put it into the lead section [see Revision History at: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php...=historysubmit&diff=343605030&oldid=343602297 ] This was the equivalent of the Goldman's "loop voter", equally harmless, unlike the real sophisticates from the Ministry of Truth who hired Reimer to do his daily dose of Wiki distortion... Did you know? It's a done deal, because "Feb 5, 2010 - "Paul Volcker, the influential mind behind President Barack Obama's dramatic banking-reform proposals, spoke in its favour." BTW, there's a good interview with the man in the FT (no mention of anything more relevant to trading than Glass Steagall 2.0, "too big to fail", OTC being moved to organized exchanges, and leverage controls), see "Transcript: Interview with Paul Volcker, URL: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/780d9d64-175d-11df-87f6-00144feab49a.html
"Did you know? It's a done deal, because "Feb 5, 2010 - "Paul Volcker, the influential mind behind President Barack Obama's dramatic banking-reform proposals, spoke in its favour." It's funny articles keep mentioning Volcker being in favor of the Tobin Tax. I remember a piece from late last year where Volcker said he was "instintively opposed" to a Tobin Tax, etc. I think it was from a German newspaper IIRC. I did post it on this board. Anyway this tobin tax is dead so it doesn't really matter anyway -Guru
IMF head sees need for finance system 'insurance levy' http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100129/bs_afp/imffinanceeconomytax This is from a few weeks ago but I don't remember reading it then. "ARIS (AFP) â The head of the International Monetary Fund said on Friday that he would propose an "insurance premium" for the financial system so as to cover any eventual new crisis." This insurance premium, together with accumulated funds, should mean the financial system can cope with any future crisis without having to ask for a bailout from the taxpayer, he said. "We are going to submit fairly detailed proposals on this ... in the weeks ahead, in April," he said, referring to a regular IMF meeting in Washington that month. So I guess we know whats going to be in the IMF report due in April (LOL). I guess Gordon Brown knows as well so he's trying to take credit for coordinating a 'global banking levy.' I guess they are know referring to it as a banking levy and not using the term insurance but it's still the same animal. This should put the Tobin Tax, FTT, Robin Hood Tax, to rest for good Can't wait until the April IMF report followed by Brown losing the election -Guru
NYTimes cover story today on Goldman and Morgan helping Greece deceive investors and the EU with off balance sheet questionable transactions is going to become a big story in my view. If we enter Meltdown 2 over this and these banks are found guilty over Enron-type deception or fraud I fear it could cause us to give back our hard fought advancements. The anger for banks will be much much greater than with Meltdown 1.0. Implicated banks could be closed like Drexel or Enron. No amount of public relations will help banks if this happens as feared. US progressives, EU anti-Americans and trust busters will be joined with Robin Hood Tax people and it will be difficult to debate. I hope the NY Times reporting is off. Read some of that story's comments. Greece probably couldn't use EU banks to cooperate on this deception. All of this sounds even worse than Enron and banks got off way too easy then - as it was pre-Meltdown 1.0. This is going to be the stick that breaks the banks backs. You can't count banks out yet because Greece also shows that governments use banks to cheat taxpayers and investors and they have sugar-bowl non-GAAP rediculous accounting.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qyawPOO875I about 1:45 in, Boehner against TT and raising tax. Its older but didnt see it posted. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9d0wCKlcVbg Sid Leiken also against the DeFazio bill. Also, the Robin Hood tax people have a youtube account, im not going to link to it as it will drive views up and bring them to attention.
Too late to edit but I want to add this aswell, http://***.ft.com/cms/s/0/07141834-1741-11df-94f6-00144feab49a.html Another article with no details but thought these were worth posting. "But a prime minister who believes that he saved the financial world in 2008 is not easily deflected" " insurance is the least-worst option. Mr Brownâs idea is interesting" Brown really is a spotlight whore. ----------------- Then theres this http://***.bobsguide.com/guide/news...n:_International_banking_levy_on_the_way.html "British prime minister Gordon Brown has suggested that support is growing for a global banking levy and that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) may be willing to implement such a tax before its next meeting in April." This part is confusing, "He told the Financial Times that Barack Obama's recent proposals on how to regulate the US banking sector through the separation of retail and investment banking had helped lead to a shift in political opinion on the introduction of such an international tax" Is he refering to a bank tax or making a [weak] link to his FTT, I assume not as the article makes no mention of it other then the robin hood tax at the end but only in passing. --------- Theres also another article showing that Korea isnt going to follow the rest of the world. http://***.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/biz/2010/02/123_60729.html
Sid Leiken is running for the House this year against DeFazio. Maybe we should donate to his campaign: www.sidleiken.com.
Nice find. I would but went to donate page and " I am a United States citizen or an individually lawfully admitted with permanent residence status" I am in Canada.