Originally posted by Bosse de Nage
How would such a tax be best put to use?
There are at least two areas that I belief are always good ways of 'helping the less fortunate'.
The first and foremost is education. In Zambia we are still badly in need of more schools and more and better teachers and facilities.
The second is health. Tackle the worlds worst killer diseases, and general health for poor people makes a massive difference in the world. Something as simple as treated mosquito nets has made an enormous difference in many places, but more still needs to be done - a vaccine for malaria would be nice. A vaccine or cure for AIDS would be nicer still.
There are plenty of other worthy causes. Far too much aid goes in the wrong places and is given for the wrong reasons, but a lot of it does do a lot of good.
The one place however that it could probably do the most good, is the one place that Robin Hood isn't going to put it - paying people to pressure governments to change their policies in favor of poor countries.