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Timmy elsewhere

Just wanted to repeat these phrases:

The cause of my demand is their latest nonsense on the Robin Hood Tax. You know the one, that Richard Curtis thing where if we just took pennies off every financial transaction then we’d have hundreds of billions to make kittens fart rainbows stuff?

The IMF has just released a new report and the TUC is frotting itself into a stupor, for they say that, look, look, the report shows that it is possible!

5 thoughts on “Timmy elsewhere”

  1. Yes, it’s an interesting day. They’ve announced the reunification of the Frankish Empire, the rest of Europe being vassal states. At least they won’t have to fight over Alsace and Lorraine again. Apparently New Frankdom is to be paid for with the Tobin Tax. It’s sure to be grand.

  2. The paper itself does suggest that the Tobin Tax (FTT) is practical, but not that it is advisable. This from Page 6 of the paper itself:

    “FTTs raise a number of policy concerns. FTTs have been found to be an inefficient instrument
    for raising revenue because, along with the revenue that they generate, they also reduce the
    value of securities, increase the cost of capital to users, and lower liquidity in financial markets.
    Concerns have also been raised about their efficacy in regulating financial markets and
    preventing bubbles: there is no convincing evidence that FTTs lower short-term price volatility while asset bubbles have been found to be caused more by excessive leverage than excessive numbers of financial transactions. Further, it has been pointed out that the real burden of an FTT may fall largely on final consumers rather than, as often seems to be supposed, earnings in the financial sector.”

    Rather odd that the paper should go on to describe the practicalities of such a self-described bad idea…

  3. …Rather less odd though is the idea that TUC et al read a report which basically says “it’s possible but it’s a rubbish idea” and run about frantically shouting “it’s possible! it’s possible!”

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