Colin Stark <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>At 09:00 AM 12/22/98 -0500, Neva Goodwin wrote:
>>A comment on the Tobin tax, which I have always thought was a
>>great idea, and I hope it still is -- but I was recently at a
>>talk by George Soros in which someone asked him about this.
>>He replied that he had intended to push it in his new book, but
>>that, after looking into it, he concluded that it was no longer
>>workable, because there are many novel forms of currency
>>trading and international transactions --
>
>I am no expert in finance (though I do have an MBA)
>
>But I totally support the Tobin tax and have done for several years. I
>recently saw a one-hour program on CBC Anne Petrie where several experts
>including Tobin suppported the feasibility and justice and effectiveness of
>the Tobin Tax.
>It is the responsibility of the People to make these decisions (currently
>vested in so-called Representatives), not the Experts, be they called Tobin
>or Soros, who have individually got vested interests.
>All that is currently proposed is a debate in Parliament.
The first obvious question which occurs, is if Soros was initially in
favour of the Tobin tax but discounted it as likely to be ineffective,
does he then have a better idea? I would suggest that by comparison
with our current vacuum of regulation, even a partially effective
measure would be a substantial improvement, in part as a result of the
message it sends. Furthermore, if the proposed regime was seen to
have substantial loopholes, those could be plugged by ancilliary
measures, which could be wrapped into the initial impementation.
One of the prerequisites of a Tt system would seem to be the
establishment of an international coordinating agency to aid in
its administration. Once that is in place, it would seem to me to
provide an adequate mechanism for monitoring breaches of the spirit
of the regime, and allowing modifications of the system to thwart them.
-Pete Vincent
