Comments on: A Robin Hood Tax would work. Trust me, I used to work for a hedge fund

By: Philip Jones

Philip Jones — Sun, 26 Nov 2017 12:31:42 +0000

I agree with Margaret King wholeheartedly. It is absolutely a complete and utter disgrace that the banks have so far gotten away with it. Traders are not genuine risk takers, but are often incorrectly referred to as ‘wealth generators’. Genuinely innovative people create jobs and prosperity, not the traders on the stock exchange floor, who are simply using their enormous wealth advantage for small short term financial gains but on a massive scale. Buying and selling commodities or shares might be a much less attractive proposition for these so called ‘smart, clever, and tremendously talented people’ if they had to consider a tax on profits.

The bookmaking industry does not like genuinely innovative betting exchanges such as Betfair whose customers are charged a small commission, but only on winning gambling profits. If traders were forced to pay a small charge too there wouldn’t be a contradiction would there?

By: Berit Pegg-Karlsson

Berit Pegg-Karlsson — Sat, 25 Nov 2017 10:56:05 +0000

Totally agree. Thank you for your action.

By: Margaret King

Margaret King — Fri, 24 Nov 2017 01:23:22 +0000

In my very strong opinion, ANYTHING that would make these people pay for what they did would be a step in the right direction. Their bail-out cost BILLIONS, leading to cuts in public expenditure, etc., while they continued to act as if nothing had happened! THEY were the ones who should have suffered, not the innocent members of the public suffering cuts to services which could have caused (and maybe DID cause) ACTUAL AVOIDABLE DEATHS!

By: tom schuller

tom schuller — Thu, 23 Nov 2017 19:25:37 +0000

V interesting article. It’s great to see a Tobin tax argued for by someone who knows about it from the inside. But why call it a Robin Hood tax? this implies ‘robbing’ the rich etc; whereas in fact it’s about creating a more efficient, less volatile and better economic system, whilst at the same time generating funds for redistribution etc. Don’t we need a new name?

By: w.d.williams

w.d.williams — Thu, 23 Nov 2017 18:46:12 +0000

not before time this should have been done long ago there a people who were involved who have never been prosecuted for malfeasance in a public no one has been taken to court or had the proceeds of these crimes taken away this is the only tax that will work because it is on every transaction the French and others have done it why not us

By: David Oram

David Oram — Thu, 23 Nov 2017 18:22:27 +0000

Would be great if it would work but would it. Derivative trading would simply move to other countries or loopholes would be found. Remember the tax Gordon Brown levied on share trading with a net result that day trading effectively died off and the envisaged tax revenue that was predicted was never realised.

I do agree that the Banks have not cleaned up their act, the regulators continue to fail to regulate and we will end up hitting another crisis at some point. But I am unsure what the answer is and we missed a trick on not jailing some of the Individuals who were either being dishonest or were grossly negligent.

By: COUNTRY BUMPKIN

COUNTRY BUMPKIN — Thu, 23 Nov 2017 12:30:23 +0000

Good old Robin eh. Most MP’s could not give 2 hoots about the public, only in it for what they can get out. They are the ‘Rogues’ Why are you all so focused on Foreign Aid?? There is one that really need amending. MP’s are too close to the city and it ops in my opinion. As for World Crash, believe it was orchestrated as the poor were at long last starting to have a decent standard of living in their countries??

By: nhsgp

nhsgp — Thu, 23 Nov 2017 11:40:49 +0000

Most importantly the majority of these over-the-counter (OTC) derivative trades are now put through a central clearing system – the London Clearing House (LCH) owned by the London Stock Exchange. This makes implementing an efficient and hard to avoid transaction tax of the sort levied on shares far easier to plumb into the system.

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Not when you just switch to Block chain or CBOT and avoid the transaction charge.

Why not put a 1% tax on transactions at ATMs? After all, people who use cash must be drug dealers, dodging income tax cash in hand etc. What’s not to like?

Ah yes, people would notice the tax.

By: nhsgp

nhsgp — Thu, 23 Nov 2017 11:39:10 +0000

So what the hell has your socialist welfare state done with the Trillions of pounds people have entrusted to it for their old age?

Ah you’ve spent the lot. On top of that you’ve hidden the debts off the books.

Should have taken the capitalist route like Norway and invested the money.

How do you solve a socialist problem of 12.5 trillion pounds of state debt and no assets?