Quote from Fox-Mulder:top economies scrapped plans for a universal global bank tax [/B]
Great news from the G20 side then! And unilateral adoption by Germany is unlikely given that this tax is particularly susceptible to circumvention (see the Swedish example for instance). As for the UK 'conservative' coalition, they are surely not talking about a FFT, because they already have it... And this UK SDRT Tax is toothless, replete with exemptions for derivatives, institutions, and OTC stock subsitutes (but they do manage to tax foreign residents
On a lighter note, you've probably noticed that Robbin' Hoodies output now includes a video where they employ some very unusual tax collection officers - a bunch of actual robbing hoodies operating in an underground car park... and if you think that this black and white arthouse movie was
the absolute nadir of the debate, well... I once spared you a 'comedy' programme pushed onto the unsuspecting public (probably using the muscle of the robinhoodtax.org domain owner - UK charity Comic Relief) where an activist 'comedian' Mark Thomas made the BBC Radio 4 audience... vote for the transaction tax (yes, really!), a motion which passed with a majority support (just like it did in the European Parliament and with similar consequences

. But the story doesn't end there - that innocent middle class Radio 4 audience, whipped up by Mr Thomas, reached Kristallnacht hatred levels, when in the next episode of People Manifesto they jointly proposed the world-changing idea of... applying electric shocks to traders' genitals in order to reduce our 'excessive' testosterone levels (which quickly evolved into outright castration, enuch bankers, and then eventually to total electrocution...) This 'final solution' came complete with proper scientific backing, with a Cambridge neuroscientist John Coates, PhD (a 'former=failed' trader) making an unlikely comparison between the 'cocky', 'horny', 'aggressive', 'overconfident', 'manic', testosterone-propelled city traders on a winning streak to actual charging bulls (and other animals...) Just imagine the impact of this hmm... electrifying news on the most 'manic' of them all - the high-frequency traders...

Seeing that the Greek riots are now subsiding and the death toll among their bankers is unlikely to rise any further as a result of this one, I'm now preserving for posterity this great... manifestation of the human mind... where science meets politics:
http://w258.wrzuta.pl/audio/32YTUv5...of_4_excerpt_with_electric_shocks_for_traders
[ source: Mark Thomas' People Manifesto, BBC Radio 4, URL:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00qckmd/episodes/2010 ]
And in case you wondered what, apart from the testosterone level, determines your profitability and survival chances, feel free to peruse the (publicly funded) research by the aforementioned John Coates, PhD on the predictors of success among high-frequency financial traders... wait, he's not interested in length of that particular digit
http://www.neuroscience.cam.ac.uk/directory/profile.php?jmc98