At least there is a complete clarity on who are the real masters of the universe.
"The British government is clearly not interested in even exploring the option of seeking consensus on the tax [on financial transactions]." Is not this dandy!

"The tax would reduce the excessive risk-taking that brought the world's financial system to its knees. Campaigners also estimate that a small tax could raise billions without having a negative impact on the prosperity of the sector."

Please explain exactly through what mechanism this tax would in any way reduce risk-taking? Risk taking is the method by which profit is made in the financial sector.

So, "campaigners" estimate that the tax could be raised without having a negative effect on the profitability of the sector. How did they reach this "estimate"? If I remove £1 from you in tax, that reduces your wealth by precisely £1. If I tax the financial sector by an extra £50 billion a year, that will reduce their profitability by £50 billion. Except of course they will move off-shore so they do not need to pay it. I do not need a Nobel Prize in economics to understand that these taxes are utterly destructive and stupid. The EU wants to introduce them to reduce the hegemeny over financial markets enjoyed by the UK.

Anyway, the idea that it's a Robin Hood tax is a bit misleading. It's not taking money from the rich to give to poor people, or middle income people: it's taking money from corporations so that the state can have it. It's not the same thing.

the tobin tax would only help this country if it was applied globally, otherwise we would lose tax revenue and our public services would suffer, less people would be employed in the UK or bank's would provide incentives for there staff to move abroad either way UK public services suffer - we would really have to hate our country to support this.

in addition bank's invest heavily in technology a transaction could be executed in hong kong at a flick of a switch - that's no kidding.

In many ways, this is no surprise. We have the EU and the Euro. Everyone says how great it will be. Meanwhile, many in the U.K. say it'll never work.

Now, how many EU members have either gone bankrupt or will soon? How angry is Merkel that Germany has to pick up the tab for all of these bailouts? Did she and Sarkozy base their "bailout committee" on the Congressional "Super Committee" in the States?

The point is no politician (and almost no economists) will publically admit that this global debt can never be repaid. This means more posturing, soundbites, summits and photo ops that mean nothing. If the EU Central Bank can't cover these bailouts, does this mean that the Fed will do it? Many European banks did get Stateside stimulus funds when they were released.

Either the funds come from somewhere. Or, everyone who should go bankrupt does.

Its unbelievable that this Coalition is so out of step of with the rest of the World and Europe. The Tobin Tax is a necessary measure to keep the Bankers in line. At the moment Bankers have a license to print money and not even this Govt can stop them but an International Agreement could.

If you're not with Robin Hood, then you're with the Sheriff of Nottingham. But we knew that..

Two fingers to the EU over yet another tax.

Could the moderators please remove the advertisements which are appearing on the blog. Thank you

My God.. Jesus what a bunch a knee jerk know nothings...

The Tobin tax would be a disaster.. it makes market volatility worse, and the costs would fall on us the people not the banks themselves..

Lastly across Europe we would pay 80% of the total tax base and it would go straight into the southern Euro debt hole.

Do you really hate your own country and fellow citizens so much?

"Do you really hate your own country and fellow citizens so much?"

Actually, I really hate banker, financiers and bond traders - who are citizens of Global Finance, and who display not a shred of loyalty towards this nation's civil society. So, in essence, screw em. Bring on the tax.

Of course the French and Germans are in favour of this tax - it would fall largely on this country.

The idea that introducing it across the EU would go anywhere meeting the need for international agreement in order to avoid transactions being switched to countries which do not have a Tobin tax is simply daft. The transactions currently undertaken in London would be moved to Switzerland and New York.

In short, this is a very, very silly idea.

Of course the Torys don't want this tax , their funded by the bloody bankers/financial sector who created this mess.

Bring it on and up it to 5%

“could raise between €31 billion and €50 billion each year”
From where? The magic money tree?

@Marcus

No from taxing some rich people, i beleive this is mentioned in the article...

@Mark

Dont you think the Adam Smith Institute may have some vested interest in slamming this tax?

Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Finland, and Norway are routinely held up as successful states in global polls, and they're all high tax economies with some of the strongest unions you'll find anywhere.
Global capitalism is in crisis, what's new?

"If all else fails the left want to create a new Tax. Well my friends socialism has failed, the EU has failed, and the Eurozone has failed."

Yeah, Capitalism is working out great!

A financial transaction tax, applied to all exchanges globally will effectively end speculation, large bonuses to a few people in finance, rich becoming richer & hollowing of nations and economies. Here is how. Say, depositors put 100 million pounds in a bank. The bank can loan out 100 million pounds, to a firm, say engaged in manufacturing. It will make a debt instrument, say a bond for this. That bond can be sold again for 100 million pounds or more, if the interest payable by the manufacturer is higher than interbank rate. Such bonds from different banks can be mixed creating more instruments of higher denominations. Some of those in the mix will be loans / mortgages made out to the homeless, - which will never be paid. All the while, the financial paper floating around will be way more than the initial 100 million pounds- 10X, 100X , 1000X or more of 'paper money'. Moment a default occurs, viz. like the US homeloans in 2008 onwards, the ponzi-like pyramid will collapse. Then debts, bailouts etc will be required, along with austerity involving closures and job cuts. Now, moment a transaction tax is put, there is a brake to the amount of financial paper that can get produced. Roughly, a 0.01% tax will restrict the multiplication of financial paper to 100X or less, assuming other prudent oversight measures are present. In such a case there is a cap to unimaginable profits from speculation, to bonuses of people in high finance, and to hollowing out of nations. The tobin tax, therefore, should bother only 'City' and Wall-street types. Tell you what the 30 or 50 billion that Eurozone expects to make by levying the tax, is nothing- the 'city' and 'wall street' hordes will pay twice or thrice that amount in bribes just to have the licence to create paper money without any underlying economic activity continued, by means of unfettered financial transactions!