1. Standard membercadwah
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    13 May '10 20:11
    The Robin Hood Tax is a tiny tax on banks, hedge funds and other finance institutions that would raise billions to tackle poverty and climate change, at home and abroad.

    It can start as low as 0.005 per cent – and average 0.05 per cent . But when levied on the billions of pounds sloshing round the global finance system every day through transactions such as foreign exchange, derivatives trading and share deals, it can raise hundreds of billions of pounds every year.

    http://robinhoodtax.org.uk/

    YouTube

    What do you think? Viable?

    I'm all for it.
  2. Standard membersh76
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    13 May '10 20:252 edits
    Originally posted by cadwah
    The Robin Hood Tax is a tiny tax on banks, hedge funds and other finance institutions that would raise billions to tackle poverty and climate change, at home and abroad.

    It can start as low as 0.005 per cent – and average 0.05 per cent . But when levied on the billions of pounds sloshing round the global finance system every day through transactions such ...[text shortened]...

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

    What do you think? Viable?

    I'm all for it.
    Levied by whom?

    Administered by whom?

    Enforced by whom?

    Spent by whom?

    "This tax on banks – not you or I" (from their home page) is a completely ridiculous assertion. Where do they think banks make their money? Banks make their money from people. If they pay higher taxes, they simply pass on the tax to the consumer.

    How could anyone even take this proposal seriously? It's not even a proposal. It's an airy-fairy pie-in-the-sky concept.

    Let them come back to me when they have a proposal with some substance.
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    13 May '10 20:291 edit
    Originally posted by cadwah
    The Robin Hood Tax is a tiny tax on banks, hedge funds and other finance institutions that would raise billions to tackle poverty and climate change, at home and abroad.

    It can start as low as 0.005 per cent – and average 0.05 per cent . But when levied on the billions of pounds sloshing round the global finance system every day through transactions such ...[text shortened]...

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

    What do you think? Viable?

    I'm all for it.
    I have an even better idea, since we exhale CO2, why not have a monitor attached to us that counts the number of times we breath each day and then tax us on that? After all, carbon emissions are destroying us all and we produce it when we exhale, but hedge funds and finance institutions are not. Granted, they may be stealing all our money but at least they are not producing that dreadful CO2 pollutant which, I might add, is a necessary component for life to exist on earth as we know it.

    So if CO2 is a pollutant and we are denendent on it for our survival, what does that make us?
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    13 May '10 20:31
    Originally posted by sh76
    Levied by whom?

    Administered by whom?

    Enforced by whom?

    Spent by whom?

    "This tax on banks – not you or I" (from their home page) is a completely ridiculous assertion. Where do they think banks make their money? Banks make their money from people. If they pay higher taxes, they simply pass on the tax to the consumer.

    How could anyone even take thi ...[text shortened]... -the-sky concept.

    Let them come back to me when they have a proposal with some substance.
    Wait till they pass cap and trade and then they will turn their attention to other ways to rape the taxpayer. However, they may want to lay low for a while after all of our energy costs more than double.
  5. Standard memberno1marauder
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    13 May '10 20:40
    Originally posted by sh76
    Levied by whom?

    Administered by whom?

    Enforced by whom?

    Spent by whom?

    "This tax on banks – not you or I" (from their home page) is a completely ridiculous assertion. Where do they think banks make their money? Banks make their money from people. If they pay higher taxes, they simply pass on the tax to the consumer.

    How could anyone even take thi ...[text shortened]... -the-sky concept.

    Let them come back to me when they have a proposal with some substance.
    Surely you are not as ignorant of economics to accept the platitude that businesses are always able to pass on 100% of the incidence of a tax onto the consumer? Even if they were in this case, the consumers in this case are overwhelmingly wealthy individuals and institutions.

    It sounds like a good proposal to me which might reduce the incentives in the financial system to push risky securities (one of the main causes of the financial crisis of 2008 which lead to the Great Recession).
  6. Standard memberno1marauder
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    13 May '10 20:41
    Originally posted by whodey
    Wait till they pass cap and trade and then they will turn their attention to other ways to rape the taxpayer. However, they may want to lay low for a while after all of our energy costs more than double.
    Don't you ever tire of posting such obvious lies and nonsense?
  7. Standard membersh76
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    13 May '10 20:48
    Originally posted by no1marauder
    Surely you are not as ignorant of economics to accept the platitude that businesses are always able to pass on 100% of the incidence of a tax onto the consumer? Even if they were in this case, the consumers in this case are overwhelmingly wealthy individuals and institutions.

    It sounds like a good proposal to me which might reduce the ...[text shortened]... ties (one of the main causes of the financial crisis of 2008 which lead to the Great Recession).
    What is the proposal?

    Who administers the funds? Isn't that a necessary threshold question?

    I don't want people I have no say in electing administering my tax dollars.
  8. Standard membersh76
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    13 May '10 20:50
    Originally posted by no1marauder
    Surely you are not as ignorant of economics to accept the platitude that businesses are always able to pass on 100% of the incidence of a tax onto the consumer? Even if they were in this case, the consumers in this case are overwhelmingly wealthy individuals and institutions.

    It sounds like a good proposal to me which might reduce the ...[text shortened]... ties (one of the main causes of the financial crisis of 2008 which lead to the Great Recession).
    Perhaps not 100%. but a heck of a lot more than 0%, which is what the page says (or implies).

    In any case, ability spread costs of injury among all consumers is a key concept behind strict product liability tort law. The same concept applies to taxation.
  9. Standard memberno1marauder
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    13 May '10 20:57
    Originally posted by sh76
    Perhaps not 100%. but a heck of a lot more than 0%, which is what the page says (or implies).

    In any case, ability spread costs of injury among all consumers is a key concept behind strict product liability tort law. The same concept applies to taxation.
    If so, strict product liability tort law is not based on sound economic theory.
  10. Standard membersh76
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    13 May '10 21:04
    Originally posted by no1marauder
    If so, strict product liability tort law is not based on sound economic theory.
    The cost of an injury and the loss of time or health may be an overwhelming misfortune to the person injured, and a needless one, for the risk of injury can be insured by the manufacturer and distributed among the public as a cost of doing business.

    Escola v. Coca-Cola Bottling Co., 24 Cal. 2d 453, 462 (1944)
  11. Standard memberno1marauder
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    13 May '10 21:081 edit
    Originally posted by sh76
    The cost of an injury and the loss of time or health may be an overwhelming misfortune to the person injured, and a needless one, for the risk of injury can be insured by the manufacturer and distributed among the public as a cost of doing business.

    Escola v. Coca-Cola Bottling Co., 24 Cal. 2d 453, 462 (1944)
    Nobody ever claimed judges were experts in economic theory. The idea that any costs incurred by any business can be automatically passed on to its customers is economically absurd.
  12. Germany
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    13 May '10 21:13
    While the principle might be a good one, it cannot work in practise because banks operate globally, and there is simply no global administration to collect and enforce such taxes, like sh76 already remarked.
  13. Standard membersh76
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    13 May '10 21:13
    Originally posted by no1marauder
    Nobody ever claimed judges were experts in economic theory. The idea that any costs incurred by any business can be automatically passed on to its customers is economically absurd.
    Why, though?

    If an entire industry is afflicted by the same cost of doing business, couldn't or wouldn't they all raise prices over time to compensate? It may not happen all at once, but why wouldn't the market eventually work it in as a cost of manufacturing the product of service?
  14. Germany
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    13 May '10 21:191 edit
    Originally posted by sh76
    Why, though?

    If an entire industry is afflicted by the same cost of doing business, couldn't or wouldn't they all raise prices over time to compensate? It may not happen all at once, but why wouldn't the market eventually work it in as a cost of manufacturing the product of service?
    It depends on the kind of position the players have in the market. If the producer is a monopolist or oligopolist, it might make sense to not (fully) pass on the tax to the consumer.
  15. Standard memberno1marauder
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    13 May '10 21:24
    Originally posted by sh76
    Why, though?

    If an entire industry is afflicted by the same cost of doing business, couldn't or wouldn't they all raise prices over time to compensate? It may not happen all at once, but why wouldn't the market eventually work it in as a cost of manufacturing the product of service?
    Only if demand was inelastic and the market non-competitive.
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