The AmericanPlatform.org Blog

This and that, as they pop into daylight.

“We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt.”
–Thomas Jefferson

************************

This from the Financial Times on 2/10/2010 about British PM Gordon Brown’s hopes for the G20 summit in Canada in June:

Last year, Mr Brown mooted a tax on bank transactions – a so-called Tobin tax – as one of a number of options to make sure the “contribution banks make to society is properly captured”.  (”Mooted” here means that he brought it up for debate).

Is this not double-speak of the highest order?  Properly capturing bank contributions to society?  It’s not a contribution at all.  It’s a tax on banks.  Contributions are voluntary, taxes are mandatory.  And what “society” does he mean?  The United States?  No, he’s speaking of the world society, as if such a thing existed.  Does he think that banks will not pass this cost on to their customers?  Maybe.  Are you OK with paying a higher fee on every transaction so the IMF can have some of your money to dole out as they see fit?  Our own government is currently passing around money from the successful to the unsuccessful while chasing “fairness”.  Now we’re to accept the same thing on a world scale?

I vote no.

Update:  4/4/2010

From the Financial Times:  Gordon Brown on Sunday said the large economies were close to agreeing a global tax on banks that would cost the financial sector billions of pounds a year but played down expectations that a deal could be struck at the next Group of 20 meeting in June.  He declined to say how much the tax might raise from UK banks, but cited the annual €1.2bn envisaged by Ms Merkel for German banks and $10bn (€7.4bn) planned for the US levy as examples.

Hide your wallet!

Update: 5/18/2010

Gordon Brown is gone, and this today from our friends to the north:

Canada will “resist” a bank tax, Industry Minister Tony Clement said Tuesday as ministers fanned out across the world to raise opposition to the proposal for avoiding another financial crisis.

“Canada is, and will remain, opposed to a tax that would penalize financial institutions that remained strong and prosperous while many of the world’s banks failed,” Clement told a press conference with Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon.

On November 9th Tim Geithner said the U.S. is also against this tax. Today AP reported “The tax is being pushed by European countries and has the backing of the U.S.” I’m just so surprised.

**********************

Why is there no outcry from the left regarding privacy and government run health care?  There certainly was regarding the Patriot Act.

**********************

“We need to work together in a constructive spirit toward this shared goal of a comprehensive peace. I believe very strongly that it is attainable … (and) that with your support we can find a way through.”–Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in a speech at a development forum in Morocco attended by Arab ministers.  November, 2009

What real evidence is there of  “this shared goal of comprehensive peace”?  Might it not be a complete myth that we are chasing?  This summit offered U.S. taxpayer dollars for a $76 million project to boost economic opportunities in Yemen, a $30 million project for vulnerable young people in Jordan, and an entrepreneurship summit in Washington next year to bring Muslim innovators together with U.S. business leaders.

*******************

Never miss a good chance to shut up.
Will Rogers, 1879 - 1935

**********************

After two years in Washington, I often long for the realism and sincerity of Hollywood.
- Fred Thompson

*********************

Were we directed from Washington when to sow, and when to reap, we should soon want bread.”
-Thomas Jefferson

*********************

“Public servants say, always with the best of intentions, ‘What greater service we could render if only we had a little more money and a little more power.’ But the truth is that outside of its legitimate function, government does nothing as well or as economically as the private sector.” –Ronald Reagan

*******************

It’ s hard to fathom anyone clapping for 16,500 new I.R.S. agents on the job.  But they are.

*******************

Trackback URI | Comments RSS