Should We Tax the Banks?

British activists have launched a major campaign to push Gordon Brown’s government into adopting a “Robin Hood Tax” on financial transactions—a tiny tax that could raise hundreds of billions for public services and for tackling poverty and climate change. The campaigners unveiled a brilliant little sketch featuring British actor Bill Nighy as a squirming banker. 

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Posted by alexxarian  on  02/15  at  03:31 PM

Oh... My... God! This is effectively a new way to positively channel the vast power that the human machinery has created. If this gets adopted it will become a self-reinforcing loop. This would really change the world drastically.

Posted by CygnusX1  on  02/15  at  06:16 PM

So let's do it let's get organised!

The trouble is, these breathtaking ideas normally take off like a cheap Helium balloon that abruptly sinks and sags and descends into oblivion, (after only a couple of months). Of course you do realise that Gordon Brown came up with this novel idea as well, (..yawns), yet there's not a lot that new about it? Tax the merchant bankers! (I'm sure they used this skimming technique in Superman 3 or was it 4?)

The question is how do we sell it to the bankers? This is a gross violation against their freedom for unbridled selfish greed, and who are we to violate this trust we have with them? (Notice how Goldman Sachs is an anagram of "sacks of Gold man"!)

We need some more big names on the list, such as Barack Obama and the senate, a few more European leaders, (whose names escape me presently), and perhaps even Kim Jong il or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad would like to participate also?

On a more serious note we can only try can't we? Who knows it may be a world changing policy if we do take it seriously, so tell all of your friends and families and colleagues etc. Let's keep this balloon floating.

Posted by Mike Treder  on  02/15  at  07:03 PM

You know what this means, don't you? It means the richest people in the world might have to wait a few *hours* longer to get their next yacht than they would in the absence of this tax. Is that really acceptable?

Posted by alexxarian  on  02/16  at  08:40 AM

@Mike, you're right, it isn't. Why don't all non-bankers just commit massive suicide in one big ritual of sacrifice to the high priests of Mamon? I'm sure they would be very happy if the rest of the world left them literally alone.

Posted by Mark Plus  on  02/16  at  11:58 AM

The bankers will just go on strike and vanish to their remote doomsteads, like in "Atlas Shrugged," and leave the rest of us to perish from the absence of their life-giving powers.

Posted by Edward Miller  on  02/16  at  07:41 PM

@Alexxarian, but they need someone to build the yachts.... or at least someone to build the robots to build the yachts.

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