debating progressive politics in Europe and beyond
For too long we have entrusted financial markets as engines of growth and prosperity, ignoring the fact that a huge part of financial activity is speculative, unrestrained and based on flawed projections of the world. The myth of credit-based growth has gone bust, with 1.6 trillion euros of taxpayer’s money washing down the sink of [...]
There’s been a lot of discussion about the need for concrete demands from the #AmericanAutumn #OccupyWallStreet protests. I just want to toss up the wholly unoriginal idea of a tax on financial transactions, originally proposed by James Tobin (he focused on international transactions, but the distinction is no longer meaningul). I’ve seen a sign advocating [...]
The ‘Tobin tax’ has once again appeared in the headlines having been proposed by the European Commission and opposed by the US. This column argues that such taxes are more feasible than most think when they are linked to legal enforceability, and that the burden would be disproportionately borne by high-frequency traders that provide liquidity [...]
You might be interested in supporting the campaign for a financial transaction tax organised and supported by a variety of groups and stakeholders. As far as I am aware the petition website is open for business for another week so show your support if you haven’t done so yet.
Culminating in the current economic crisis, neoliberal restructuring has led to growing social disintegration and increasing exclusion from societal participation. This indicates a profound social and a latent political crisis, as reflected by, partly tremendous, electoral gains of the extreme right in many European countries. Reawakening nationalisms and increasing xenophobia, racism, Islamophobia and sexism characterise [...]
Although the global economic crisis was triggered by the foregoing financial crisis, the more deeply rooted cause appears to have been the global imbalances, created by uneven developments in qualitative, knowledge-based competitiveness and the weakening thereof (primarily due to the marketifying of education in some developed countries). And, secondly, by the uneven development of cost [...]
Ten areas of financial reform are regarded as being essential to re-establish the two basic functions of the banking sector, namely, extending credit to households and the business sector, and connecting investors to entrepreneurs. Pure trading and speculating should, meanwhile, be discouraged to the maximum degree possible. The project of seriously re-regulating the financial sector [...]
The German SPD and Austrian SPOE announced yesterday that they intend to use the new Citizens Initiative instrument to campaign for a Europe-wide financial transaction tax if the predominantly conservative EU governments do not introduce such a levy until the autumn. SPD Chairman Sigmar Gabriel and the Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann announced that they would [...]
Today the Campaign for a 0.05% Tobin tax was launched by a series of NGOs under the label “Robin Hood Tax”. Here is what they are about: The Robin Hood Tax campaign is a movement bringing together dozens of organisations that work to reduce poverty in the UK and overseas, and campaign to tackle climate [...]
Have Gordon Brown, Nicholas Sarkozy, Angela Merkel and other EU leaders dropped their support for a Tobin tax, or will they press home the idea in the near future? This question is crucial, particularly now that there are widespread plans for ‘budget cuts’ amongst EU member states, including possible rises in VAT in the UK. [...]
The BBC’s Business Editor Robert Peston has announced on his blog that the UK Treasury plans a windfall tax on banks, most likely to be announced next Wednesday in the Pre-Budget Report. Even though the details are not decided yet the reasoning for the one-off tax, that is likely to target bonus payments, is clear: [...]
The battle-lines are already drawn up over when to begin withdrawing the stimulus measures that appear, for the moment, to have averted the widely feared global economic meltdown: on the one hand the inflation and deficit hawks who cannot wait for monetary policy to return to normal, and for fiscal policy to reign in the [...]
All Content