Bill Nighy and the Banks

[ItsGrimUpNorth]

I hope more and more voices are added to the clamour

ItsGrim, I wouldlike to thank you for pointing out the article to me, I don't really give a shit if it is written by Bill or anyone else but the fact that someone non financial has written it makes it way more palatable and better in laymans terms. i.e thickies like me.

I had no idea about the Robin Hood tax, just thought it was another excuse for taxing those on the higher tax brackets (of which I guess dh is, but he isn't a banker, works long hours, travels for 3 hours on top of that etc etc) and how it then escalates further down the scale to everyone being taxed more. I now understand the Robin Hood Tax and think it couldn't be a better idea - this isn't taking from individuals it is taking from transactions in banks where they have made a fortune in hours! 0.05% is bugger all it just means some bonuses might be slightly curtailed (£5 mill anyone?). It isn't going to upset that many people as far as taxing people too much AND it is a mere drop in the ocean to any large financial corporation. And it is only the banks, who we have all bailed out and yet had nothing in return from. Seems to me its a win win whilst not affecting too many of the everyday people!

Spread the idea, FiggyRolls. And let those banks lament that tiny tax. And watch the enormous, fantastic benefits that tax will provide.

Bibbity - I think having someone non political in the driving seat gets it out to more people, personally I think all politicians are self serving wankers and don't want to listen to any of them. I actually wonder how the labour party is going to go anywhere with someone like Ed Milliband whose mere voice makes me want to eat my own ears. And don't get me started on the other boys on the right - if they were truly pretty it would be fine to look at with the sound down but they are all just a little bit off the mark for that . Give me an actor any day that I can swoon at................

'personally I think all politicians are self serving wankers'

Really? All of them? Every single one?

Especially as Jeremy Beadle is dead (rip).

I don't think Bill actually came up with the concept!

Abr1de - yep pretty much, I am sure they all start off with the best intentions................

This tax won't impact banks because the charges will just be passed on. In many cases the transactions won't even involve a bank but charges will be incurred anyway.

Let's take another example. My pension. I hold a number of unit trusts, all index trackers, on which i pay a fee of 0.05% per annum. Lets say I rebalance all these unit trusts once a quarter as my views change. Rather that paying 0.05% + bid-offer costs, under the Robn Hood Tax I will instead pay 0.05% + bid/offer costs + 0.40% robin hood tax. That extra 0.4% is coming straight out of my pension.

That might not seem much for one year but after 30 years that additional tax would reduce my pension pot by around 15%. That's an extra 15% tax on my pension pot that when I retire it will suffer income tax already. Most people in this country need a larger pension not a smaller one!

If you want to go after banks at least use something that hurts banks. This hurts businesses, people saving for their retirement, those investing in stock and shares etc etc

siasl - that is where this needs tweeking as quite frankly that 15% should come from the banks profits rather than from their customers. That is where the impact should happen and the idea is a good one but would need severe legislation to ensure what you are talking about doesn't happen otherwise they might as well just tax us all right now.

I do not think you can accuse Mervyn King of being some uninformed raving left winger nor Joseph Stiglitz.

If it takes our top banker to admit that the main culprits of our present crises have been an unregulated banking system yet it is the public servants, the poor and disabled who are undeservedly taking the heat. It is unbelievable that these bankers are hardly being touched.

Let's say we have a man in Bill Nighy totally unqualifed to comment on this, and yet this campaign makes me far more inclined to take him seriously than any of our 'expert economists' who first failed to identify our crisis for what it is, then continually fail to present such simple and fair solutions to solve it.

so regulate the banking system more tightly
split retail banking from investment banking
increase capital adequacy requirements
whatever

something that does not directly penalise investors, pension holders and businesses

and don't get Bill Nighy to either dream it up or attempt to lecture people about it.

All the people who are experts in the banking field I have heard/read about on this idea of a robin hood tax have said that it is a bad idea that would damage market liquidity and the banking secotr as a whole. I also don't see how this could be implemented unilaterally by this country as I suspect it would go against EU rules nor could it be effective if only applied in this country and as an idea it appears to have very little global traction.

It was the 'experts' who got us into this mess.

We need the bankers to be made to listen to non-experts. And made to answer to non-experts - i.e. us, the public, who bailed them out.

All this 'ooh, you are far too stupid to understand, we know what we are doing, you keep looking the other way while we get on with things' is exactly what caused the problem in the first place. Bollocks to that.

Of course they'd like us to go away and shut up. And of course they'd love high profile figures such as Mr Nighy to go away and shut up. Tough shit. They raided our purses, they have to answer to us now.

Except the politicians and the regulators are doing their normal crap job of kow-towing to the banks. So they've taken our money, they are shutting down our libraries, our sure start centres, our services for disabled children, our jobs - and wtf do we get in return?

I just don't see where you get Bill Night "lecturing" from. Proposing an idea is hardly lecturing.

Plus it's very common for campaigns to recruit famous faces to aid exposure. It works.

And as for the sneering "Run along. You couldn't possibly understand the enormous complexities of this issue," attitude - now, that's galling and revolting considering the total mess, nay fuck up, the banks made.

But the banks aren't on their knees, are they? Nope. But public services are. That's where the publics money should have gone. Our money saved the banking system. Damn right there should be reform. But the banks rule.