New worldwide tax on financial transactions?

08 11 2009 Brown red-faced after tax plan snub. Mr Brown floated the possibility of a new tax worldwide on financial transactions only to face an embarrassing rebuff in having it publicly rejected by the <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 />United States and other major financial players, as given in a speech to the world's most powerful finance ministers. Canadian finance minister Jim Flaherty said: "We are not in the business of raising taxes, we are in the business of lowering taxes in Canada. It is not an idea we would look at.". Mr Brown called for a new global "social contract" with the financial institutions to ensure taxpayers around the world would never again have to bear the cost of banking failure. He said that in future there must be a "just distribution of risks and rewards".

 

Labour Gov: Privatising Public Services in the name of competition whereby Stockmarkets and investors become “primary” in gaining more (profits through targets) for less and less (jobs & security). A Nation that has been lead down a path to become a Nation on “contract employment”, so necessary for a Gov having outsourced its accountability and responsibility to financial Institutions whom now control the daily economy and although static in themselves they indirectly expect/demand that ordinary people “ride the waves of change” re-rippling in ever decreasing time to keep pace with share prices on their screens. Change through competition is where Ordinary people now endlessly chase better deals else pay relatively more in not being a driver forcing high staff turnovers and redeployment as the music stops and restarts – musical chairs. When Mr Brown took over as the chancellor in 1997 he almost immediately granted the Bank of England independence from the Government while between 1999 & 2002 he sold off more than half the country’s gold reserves at rock bottom prices – at the time the Treasury insisted that the Bank of England had made recommendations however the Treasury declined to comment on whether the Bank of England was consulted over whether the gold should be sold. While greased trains run on tracks who cares about their governance and yet come a derailment through a recession questions must be raised as to accountability – would this explain the urgency of the Govs need to “Bail out the Banks”?.

Its all very well Mr Brown telling Taxpayers that they must spend spend spend in helping the Economy but is he not guilty of sitting in observance watching taxpayers being stripped of Wealth by escalating prices (through profits) to which he sits and counts escalating revenue directly from the competition he has created, thus serving to empty wallets and purses that he now somehow sees as still being full in order to spend spend spend!. All this against a backdrop of a Gov that seemingly cares little about money having expenses that provide subsidised meals, second homes, family employment, cleaning motes, the cost of a bath plugs and least not forget about Gov Pensions, bonuses, 1 year in holidays out of a 4 year elected term and the shifting of blame as to accountability/responsibility by Cabinet reshuffles etc.

 

ISSUES:

(1) Insecurity – Businesses/People(Jobs) / Rumours / Stockmarkets – sell sell sell - buy buy buy / Networking & communications (Instantaneous transactions) / Financial Flux.

(2) Credit Default Swops (CDS) – betting on failure

(3) EU – Equalization on Wealth between inner Countries (wholeness as to one).   

(4) The Labour Party - Clause IV . In not being explicit it was open to many possible interpretations and so its application was the subject of considerable dispute. (see below)

 

 

OLD NEWS

00 00 1997 Bank of England. When Brown took over as chancellor after the Labour Party's landslide victory in 1997, he almost immediately granted the Bank of England, which is responsible for setting interest rates, independence from the government. Brown also set up the Financial Services Authority (FSA).  

04 2007 Brown lost £2bn selling UK's gold. GORDON BROWN is to face questions in parliament after revelations that he disregarded advice from the Bank of England before he sold off more than half the country’s gold reserves at the bottom of the market. Insiders involved in the decision have broken ranks after an 18-month battle in which the Treasury has blocked attempts by The Sunday Times to make public the official advice received by Brown before he sold the gold. ON SALE - 400 tons of bullion in a series of auctions between 1999 and 2002, when the price was at a 20-year low. Since then the price has almost trebled, meaning the decision cost the taxpayer an estimated £2 billion. The Bank of England, which has managed Britain’s gold reserves for more than 300 years, was never asked for its advice on whether Britain should sell the gold. A senior Bank of England executive said the timing of the sale was “not debated”. The Treasury insisted last night that the Bank of England “recommended auction as the best method to achieve the programme’s objectives of transparency, fairness and value for money”. It declined to comment if the Bank was consulted on whether gold should be sold, or whether alternative forms of sale were advised to maximise revenues.

 

Clause IV –The Labour Party

00 11 1917 Clause IV drafted by Sidney Webb

00 00 1918 Clause IV adopted - part of the text of the UK labour Party constitution which set out the aims and values of the party. Part 4 reads: “To secure for the workers by hand or by brain the full fruits of their industry and the most equitable distribution thereof that may be possible upon the basis of the common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange, and the best obtainable system of popular administration and control of each industry or service”. In not being explicit it was open to many possible interpretations and so its application was the subject of considerable dispute.

00 00 1918 Nationalisation was seen by many voters as akin to modernisation and widely supported. By Nationalising the Railways for instance it would reduce the plethora of uncoordinated and competing companies.

00 00 1944 Public Ownership policy adopted by the Labour Party after winning clear endorsements – the destruction of the Evil Giants of want, squalor, disease, ignorance and unemployment (idleness)' – in the post-war election victory of 1945 which brought Clement Attlee to Power. However there existed no clear plans and much debate ensued.

00 04 1946 Bank of England Nationalised - stockholders received compensation and the governor and deputy governor were both re-appointed.

00 04 1946 Civil Aviation Nationalised.

00 00 1947 Telecommunications Nationalised

00 00 1947 National Coal Board created responsible for some 90% of the UK’s energy needs.

00 00 1948 National Health Service established

00 00 1948 Nationalisation of the Railways, Canals, Road haulage and electricity.

00 00 1951 By this date the iron, steel and gas industries had also been brought into public ownership.

00 00 1959 Labour lost the General Election. Labour Party leader Hugh Gaitskell came to believe that public opposition to nationalisation had led to the party's poor performance and announced that he proposed to amend Clause IV. The left fought back and managed to defeat any change: symbolically, it was then agreed to include Clause IV, part 4 on Labour Party membership cards.

00 00 1970’s Economic Crisis - defeats suffered by the trade union movement.

00 00 1993 Tony Blair writes a pamphlet for the Fabian Society critising the wording of Clause IV for confusing ends with means. Blair put forward a case for defining socialism in terms of a set of values which were constant, while the policies needed to achieve them would have to change ("modernise") to account for changing society.

00 00 1994 Tony Blair conference speech – announced that the Labour Party needed a new statement of aims and values and that he would draw one up and present it to the party.

00 00 1995 Special Conference - new version was adopted!.

“The Labour Party is a democratic socialist party. It believes that by the strength of our common endeavour we achieve more than we achieve alone, so as to create for each of us the means to realise our true potential and for all of us a community in which power, wealth and opportunity are in the hands of the many, not the few, where the rights we enjoy reflect the duties we owe, and where we live together, freely, in a spirit of solidarity, tolerance and respect”.

00 00 1997 Labour Elected: Mild income redistribution measures adopted such as Working Tax Credits however wealth redistribution has not been a major cause for the government and inequality of wealth has increased. The Nationalisation principle of the original Clause IV has been abandoned even given the 1983 Manifesto in which greater state ownership was proposed.In changing Clause IV Old Labour became New Labour.