GordonTheGekko
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So did Obama vote no at G20 summit?
Quote from GordonTheGekko:
So did Obama vote no at G20 summit?
Quote from tomdavis:
I doubt there was a formal vote. Ten of the G20 nations have already said "no" to the FTT: the US, Canada, Mexico, the UK, Australia, China, India, Russia, Saudi Arabia and South Korea. Several other countries (e.g. Brazil and Argentina) indicate only conditional support. The most they would get is 7 or 8 votes in favor of the FTT. The last thing Sarkozy or Merkel would want is a formal vote. That would only serve to memorialize their defeat.
There has been a lot of discussion lately about introducing new financial sector taxes to raise revenue for various purposes, as well as to discourage excessive risk-taking. Ideas include taxes on financial assets, combined profits and remuneration, and financial transactions. A financial transaction tax (FTT) has been widely advocated as a good way of raising additional resources for development.
FTTs already exist in many countries, where they generate significant revenue, so they are clearly technically feasible. According to the IMF, 15 G20 countries have some form of securities transaction tax. In the seven countries where the IMF estimates revenue, these taxes raise an estimated $15 billion per year.
The general recommendation for an efficient tax is a low rate on a large base. This broadly holds true for FTTs as well. Across different instruments, the tax could be sized to reduce potential economic distortions, so that the tax on equities would be slightly higher than the tax on long-dated bonds, short-dated bonds, swaps, and futures.
Some modeling suggests that even a small tax of 10 basis points on equities and two basis points on bonds would yield about $48 billion on a G20-wide basis, or $9 billion if it were confined to larger European economies. Other FTT proposals offer substantially larger estimates, in the $100 billion to $250 billion range, especially if derivatives are included.
The G20 countries will continue discussing the FTT. For those that choose to adopt it, I urge you not to use all of the proceeds as general revenue. It is critical that a portion of the money raised be reserved for investments in development.
Quote from TPCS:
Here is the part of Bill Gates' G20 report that outlines his support for a FTT (pg. 13 of the report at www_gatesfoundation.org/g20/Documents/g20-report-english.pdf). It would be a good idea to figure out where he gets his numbers from.
Quote from Explorer:
In addition to those ten, Japan said at this G20 that it would need to know more before it decides, and I'm pretty sure Italy has expressed reservations about capital flight in the past.
Quote from Explorer:
Also add Indonesia to the nos:-
Financial transaction tax that requires financial transactions (in banks, stocks and bonds) to be taxed. Indonesia opposes the plan as it is still developing its banking intermediary function and retail investorsâ interest in investing in debt and capital markets
http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2011/10/18/ri-healthy-despite-worsening-global-economy-g20.html