Global Sherwood

At a recent UN summit meeting, French President Mikolas Sarkozy and Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero have suggested a "global financial tax on all transactions."
Apparently as many as 60 nations have stood up in support of this; but for some reason, there is (somewhat expectedly) some heavy opposition, even though it is an excellent idea.

Now I'm not an economist by any means, but it doesn't take a whole lot of brainpower to understand that there is something severely wrong in the world when 80% of the world's wealth is owned by only 20% of the world's population, or that there is a problem when over a billion people (15% of global population) is expected to live on less than a dollar a day. One man somewhere can literally afford to wipe his ass with a wad of $100 bills, while millions live on the streets, unable to afford a roof over their head.


But nobody wants to help, everyone looks to someone else to fix the problem.
Sure enough, the major corporations in the world are the ones who are in the best position to make a positive change, and are unfortunately the last people who are ever going to do so, because its all about profit, "every dollar counts". A company reeling in billions in profit "can't afford" to part with a few hundred thousand dollars to help those who can barely scrape together a bowl of rice for dinner.


But its not just the big companies; for as little as $40 a month ($1.30 a day), John Everyman can sponsor a child through World Vision, which contrary to what many believe, doesn't just help one child out of a billion, but help the entire community, and everyone who as anything to do with that child.
(I learned about how World Vision actually helps thanks to Alex Day's vlog, more specifically this post: Cabbage. Watch his other stuff as well, though, he is hilarious, and an all around excellent bloke.)
Aside from World Vision, there are thousands of other charities to whom John Everyman can donate whatever he can spare, and unlike businesses, this is a situation where every dollar does count.
Even without an organised charity, John Everyman can simply drop a few loose coins into the hat of the homeless guy he usually just ignores. Money that he'll forget about, and find a week later at the bottom of the washing machine could be the difference between the homeless guy having a meal or not.

But John Everyman has no money to spare, because it's "the big corporates' job."

Now I ain't even gon' act holier-than-thou.
I didn't go to Jacob with 25-thou', but I do generally conform to John Everyman's thought process that "I can't spare the money," or "helping one child won't make a difference." I don't donate to any charity, and I usually just shake my head when someone comes to me and says "spare a dollar?".
The reality is everyone living above the poverty line can afford to help those who don't.


And so, to have a real impact, we need something to be enforced, beyond our control.
We need France/Spain's suggested Robin Hood Tax.

Now I don't know how they plan to implement it; all the sources I've read have only suggested "a tax on every financial transaction," which to me suggested that employers get taxed when they pay employees (no doubt they'd look for a loophole to pass the tax onto the employee, but I digress), and the employee is taxed when they spend their income.

For the ease of argument, lets assume that everyone spends all their income in some way or another (spending, investing, whatever.) So the tax they give can simply be calculated as a % of their income.

Okay, now lets use an easy tax of 0.5%. This works out to 1% tax per person, 0.5% taxed from the person, and 0.5% taxed from the company that employs them (or bank that pays them interest, or tenant that pays them rent, etc, etc.)

The average income in Australia is $50,000 a year (rounded). So, that's $500 of tax per person per year, but only $250 taken from the person.

If you earn $50,000 a year, having $250 less PER YEAR is not going to impact on your quality of life at all. You won't even notice it.
$250 a year is $20.83 a month, $4.80 a week, $0.69 a day.
NOBODY earning $50k a year will notice have 70 cents less each day. And of course, earning less means losing less. I earn $36,000 a year; I'll be out 50 cents a day.

On the other hand, lets look at how this affects how much money is raised.
Australia has a population of 21,431,800 people. $500 is raised per person (based on average salary, $250 from employee and $250 from employer).

21,431,800 x 500 = ....

Australia, alone, will raise $10,715,900,000 per year.

Almost 11 billion dollars per year, at the expense of less than 70 cents a day for the people it affects. And that's just from Australia, a relatively small (population-wise) country compared to the likes of America, Japan, and Russia.


$10,715,900,000 for people who are lucky to have a bowl of rice for a meal. At the expensive of 1/5th of a coffee each day.

Tell me that's a bad idea?