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Bill Gates (the .001%) Joins the 99% for Robin Hood Tax
One of the world's richest and many of the poorest agree on something, but the Obama administration is holding out.
The world's second-richest man and a group of American nurses on the frontlines of the Occupy Wall Street protests came to the G20 summit in Cannes, France this week to advocate for the same thing.
Bill Gates backs the financial transactions tax. (Photo by Tristan Nitot)
Bill Gates came because French President Nicolas Sarkozy asked him to give G20 leaders recommendations on how to raise funds to meet the needs of the world's poorest. Among Gates' proposals: a small tax on trades of stocks, derivatives, and other financial instruments, also known as a financial transactions tax (FTT), Wall Street speculation tax, or the Robin Hood tax.
According to an advance copy of Gates's report, "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."
"It is very plausible that certain kinds of FTTs could work," Gates told the Guardian. "I am lending some credibility to that. This money could be well spent and make a difference."
Gates has a net worth of $59 billion. So forget the 1 percent, he'd be in what, the top 0.001 percent? Meanwhile, representatives of the 99 percent were outside the summit security zone, plugging the same idea.
National Nurses United, the largest union representing U.S. nurses, came to France from the Occupy Wall Street protests across the United States where they have been providing first aid for the encampments. In Cannes, they dressed in their scrubs and joined nurses from Australia, France, Ireland, and Korea. This global group then administered an FTT saline drip to an ailing world economy — represented by a man painted in full body art as the Earth.
"The economic decline is literally making our patients sick," said one of the U.S. nurses. "We see more and more children with conditions related to poor nutrition and stress." The solution, according to the nurses, is a Wall Street tax that could generate the revenues needed to address human needs.
Bill Nighy, an actor famous for his roles in "Love, Actually" and other British films, jumped right into the world economy's hospital bed and posed for photos. "People around the world are dying of illnesses that should have been eliminated hundreds of years ago," Nighy said, noting that a new Wall Street tax could help raise the money required to stop those scourges.
One of his contributions to the campaign for such a tax in the UK was a video that went viral, in which he plays a banker trying to argue against the idea. Ultimately, his character can't find a good reason why not to raise huge amounts of money for the things people need through a tiny tax on financial transactions.
Back inside the summit venue, there's a frenzy of last-minute lobbying going on to try to line up a group of G20 governments to launch a “coalition of the willing on FTT.” The Obama administration isn't expected to be on the list.
But RoseAnn DeMoro, National Nurses United's executive director, said, “Nurses don’t give up on people and they won’t give up on this.” The union also spearheaded a rally in Washington, DC today, with more than a thousand nurses and their allies targeting opponents of the Wall Street tax in the Treasury Department and Congress.
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54 Comments so far
Show Allspot on, vp!
taxing "evil" only legitimizes evil.
Actually, taxing evil discourages evil. But you already knew that. It's clear what your goal is.
How would it discourage evil?
Its like EPA penalties...just part of the cost of doing business as usual.
Restoring FDR's New Deal financial industry regulations will be faster and more effective seeing how they were refined and tested for 75 years and a transaction tax law will take time to figure out how to keep it from having loopholes.
This would be the same as "taxing production discourages production" or "rewarding sloth encourages sloth". The robbing for the hood tax would help poor people by making more of them.
Got it.
Oh joy, 18th century economics rears its ugly head.
21st century economics can be found in Greece.
Seriously, the economics never changes. You water what you want to grow and you trample on what you want to wither. Withered plants are not hiring.
Except none of your explanations in any thread you posted in had an ounce of "economics" in them, just pure ideology (which is indeed based on 18th century economics). As far as I can see, you actually seem to avoid in-depth economic discussions. I think that's because you're just completely clueless about it.
Imo that's all for the better. There is no point in discussing this with ignorant ideologists. I did it for about ten years on different forums, but it's tiring and utterly pointless, although I learned a lot about what techniques people use to ignore reality...but after a while you just don't find interesting to see the same avoidance techniques, logical fallacies, rhetorical tricks or general factual ignorance repeated endlessly,
You have learned that when you cannot defend against the logic, you attack the credentials of the proponent. That wasn't in my economics class.
Your wish is granted. Good luck with your progressive economic theory. I just work and pay taxes. Get your grant application in early...
If you don't have the credentials, they can't be attacked. So, put up, or shut up.
Seriously, your first statement is right out of Adam Smith and Calvinist thought. Maybe you don't believe humans should evolve in their morality and ethics. Why not make it a capital offense to be poor? That would solve your "procreation" problem.
One step at a time. If a transaction tax will slow down Wall Street speculation, crimp computer traders who make millions moving electrons back and forth over nanoseconds, reduce "flash crashes" in the stock market, and meanwhile raise substantial revenues for domestic spending needs -- all at the expense, mainly, of over-compensated Wall Street swine -- I'm all for it.
No, it's certainly not the ultimate solution. But it's a good step in the right direction. Overturning the entire economic and political system is a delightful idea, but as the practice of trading in company stocks has been around since, oh, at least the Dutch East India Company in the 1600s, and greed-driven speculation in commodities has been around since at least the Tulip Mania in the Netherlands (1636-7), I'm not counting on that whole "system" disappearing anytime soon. It will have to be a step-by-step process.
Given that, and in the interim, I'd be quite pleased to see the U.S. adopt the tax structure and universal health care policies of the Netherlands, which has apparently learned a thing or two since the 17th century. I suspect the Dutch already have this trading transaction tax?
DONNY: Intelligent post, well-argued.
??????
The tax WON'T SLOW DOWN WALL STREET SPECULATION !!!!
Only structural reforms like restoring FDR's New Deal regulations will do that just like they did for a half century. Investment bankers can still legally do everything they could legally do when they crashed the global economy.
The transaction tax is step 3, not step 1.
One step at a time. If a transaction tax will slow down Wall Street speculation, crimp computer traders who make millions moving electrons back and forth over nanoseconds, reduce "flash crashes" in the stock market, and meanwhile raise substantial revenues for domestic spending needs -- all at the expense, mainly, of over-compensated Wall Street swine -- I'm all for it.
~♦~i think when we come to terms with the fact that the economy has failed, utterly failed the overwhelming majority of earth's citizens, we might be wise to wonder why we yet feel connected to the financial health of a house of gambling or speculation. last week the stock market experienced a day of gains and the evening news-that's-important-and-all-about-the-rich-and-famous presented an economic "expert" to interpret for us. "should we expect a spurt of confidence that will bring job growth?" asked the host. the expert warned that it might take some time before the über-rich would feel secure enough to begin hiring. "hang on there, main street, trust us! we got your back!" wall street speculators make money for themselves; creating jobs does not concern them. i agree we need to focus on infrastructure, especially safeguarding the ecosphere. we may have to create our own currency because these guys excel in the art of not sharing. anyway, the wall street wizards are deeper in debt than a new college grad.~♦~
'No, it's certainly not the ultimate solution. But it's a good step in the right direction. Overturning the entire economic and political system is a delightful idea, but as the practice of trading in company stocks has been around since, oh, at least the Dutch East India Company in the 1600s, and greed-driven speculation in commodities has been around since at least the Tulip Mania in the Netherlands (1636-7), I'm not counting on that whole "system" disappearing anytime soon. It will have to be a step-by-step process."--Donny-Don
~♦~life is a journey to be experienced so as long as we live there can be no "ultimate solution." if the earth's resources were inexhaustible, taxing the rewards of greed might be a step in the right direction, but if the destination is to maintain an arrogant, destructive life-style for humans only, it's already proven a killer philosophy. glad you mention dutch east india company. we might say the business "ethics" on wall street follow that example to a tea! life thrived on this continent flong, long before jamestown. vampie capitalism is not a part of nature. ~♦~
The Dutch East India Company (Dutch: Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie, VOC) was a chartered company established in 1602, when the States-General of the Netherlands granted it a 21-year monopoly to carry out colonial activities in Asia. It was the first multinational corporation in the world and the first company to issue stock. It was also arguably the world's first megacorporation, possessing quasi-governmental powers, including the ability to wage war, imprison and execute convicts, negotiate treaties, coin money, and establish colonies.
In 1619, Jan Pieterszoon Coen was appointed Governor-General of the VOC. He saw the possibility of the VOC becoming an Asian power, both political and economic. On 30 May 1619, Coen, backed by a force of nineteen ships, stormed Jayakarta driving out the Banten forces; and from the ashes established Batavia as the VOC headquarters. In the 1620s almost the entire native population of the Banda Islands was driven away, starved to death, or killed in an attempt to replace them with Dutch plantations. These plantations were used to grow cloves and nutmeg for export. Coen hoped to settle large numbers of Dutch colonists in the East Indies, but this part of his policies never materialized, because the Heren XVII were wary at the time of large, open-ended financial commitments.
In 1621 Coen led a punitive expedition against the Bandanese in East Indonesia, who had been trading with the English. He decimated the population and resettled the survivors.
You are absolutely right but I don't see how it would hurt anything. It would be a clear and concreate demonstration to the PTers that deficients can be addressed with revenue generation that doesn't harm business. At least one could hope.
True
It seems that the divide between the "me" people and the "we" people goes all the way to the top. Some people were just born with the tendency to deliver things only to themselves, at any cost. Those people (i.e. sociopaths) now hold sway in our economic and political system.
The Me/We label is the best thing we have as a "tool" of sorts. It's easy to understand and best of all, the majority of Me-firsters also believe in Jesus who was nothing if not a We person. So it should be easy to shame them into the correct behaviors.
Gates would not have been able to convince Obama to agree with a transaction tax even if the two had jet pooled to Cannes.
Obama realizes that he won't be the first politician to amass a corporate funded billion dollar campaign war chest if he agrees with a transaction tax.
KJ ---- I would suggest a look at the following link ---- www.cassiopaea.com/cassiopaea/psychopath.htm Then tell me about shaming them. They know no shame, it is not within their conceptual grasp. dh
Never gonna happen. Just like raising taxes on the rich, or eliminating the cap on SS taxes, or ending subsidies to the oil industry. All four things make sense, would generate massive revenue, ending the "deficit problem," go a long way toward shoring up the economy and narrowing the growing income disparity. Thus, ain't ever gonna happen. ANYTHING that is logical and fair and would benefit all Amereichans instead of just the 1% will never happen, as long as this country is a Plutocracy that serves only the 1%. Which is probably why good old Bill is all for it.
it's useful to remember that raising revenue is one thing; spending it properly is another. i'm noticing that most of these zillionaires are focusing on raising revenue only, without addresing much policy in the way of redistributive justice or economic security for their people. Gates would be first in line to defend the economic practices that landed us in this mess to begin with. He helped pioneer half of them.
This reminds me of the lotto scam. Many states for moral or religous reasons, did not want lotto. So the lotto companies promised to give a percentage to the school systems of the state. So as schools are cutting costs and services, what happened to the lotto billions that were slated for education? Are the 6 figure school board members giving themselves bonuses, as we cut education for our children.
Bill Gates actually worked for a living and his brilliance created many jobs. Now if he'd just bring them all back to the US, it would be a gigantic gesture. I'd like to see tax relief for companies willing to bring manufacturing back to American soil, and tax the hell out of the ones that still choose to be unAmerican by giving our jobs way away. I would say Americans were heavily prepared at one point to invest in the Fair Trade concepts, doing fair share taxing, and charging criminals in Wall St as needed back in the 80's....but that sort of looks unlikely now. Americans need help because we gave away the store, and then gave money where money was lied about. Shameful. At least BG has the right heart ...almost.
Errr. Read up on Bill and MS. Really. Microsoft is one of the biggest pioneers of employing temps in IT thus depressing wages, just to mention one thing about his brilliance creating many jobs. Not even mentioning the fact that he is a very large force behind the educational reforms that are taking away people's jobs and decreasing their pay, much more than any jobs his "brilliance" might have created.
Also, economic nationalism will get you no friends. Microsoft, for example, practically forces its products on many governments (in addition to the more directly illegal crap). The "American people" have nothing whatsoever to do with those kinds of profits and their taxes do not belong there at all. Same with a lot of other American (and of course other international) monopolies. You can't have it both ways. If nothing of the raw materials, the labour, the research or the consumption is in America, what right do you think you have for taxes on profits?
Atomsk ----- It is an American based company. It uses infrastructure paid for by the American taxpayer. It uses talent trained by American education ---- I do not recall hearing that Mr. Gates himself was foreign educated. The company began and grew here. I think all of the above gives the US citizen the right to taxes on MS profits.
You don't know half of it obviously :-/ It very often force-sells overpriced worthless shit through sheer power games and corruption to foreign governments (educational systems etc) and does everything to discourage and hinder acquisiton from other (free) sources. You have no idea how much power Microsoft can have in smaller countries.
Damn, if IBM in 1978 paid me to buy someone else's operating system, destroy the hell out of it, and then license it back to them and the rest of the world, I'd be worth $59 billion dollars now , too.
phineas,
You will probably worth more if you had also invested in hedge funds and stocks market. More than likely you won't be here bitching since you will be one of the 1%. Money corrupt, the more you have the more corrupt you will be. :-)
In that case, I'm clean as a whistle!
The illegal monopoly the government allows Microsoft to maintain is a tax on everyone who buys a PC.
Bill Gates is a monopoly wielding bully who once thought that 64kb of memory was all anyone would need, dismissed the internet in his autobiography, gave $10 million to the Seattle based Discovery Institute (proponent of intelligent design) and was clueless in 2008 at Davos (along with the rest of the elite) just months prior to the financial collapse.
If competition existed, any company that developed and marketed Vista would no longer exist.
http://imranontech.com/2007/02/20/did-bill-gates-say-the-640k-line/
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2010/05/bill-gates-more-profit-than-prophet/56982/
It was 640kB, not 64 :-)
But still, Bill is the single most annoying "philanthropist" in the world. It is just way too fucked up that such a person has so much power in education and other areas. He has no credentials at all other than his success, which was not really based on his personal qualities. Unless luck is a personal quality.
Edit: just looked at your second link now, and it's a nice collection :-) But people should just look at his old videos in which he imagines the future of his business. Awesome proof of his professional (technological, not business, I have no idea about that) incompetence.
It would seem that Bill Gates realizes that he is looking at the process of change. It is a good first step and the breadth of criminality, the greed and dehumanization faces something never before seen: people awakening, realizing globally that solidarity in turning things around with a planet that has entered a process of exponential change means systemic change. The spirit and content of change will evolve and can no longer be controlled by fear.
This is not to say that the delusional plan of attacking Iran will simply melt away or that that there will never be another 'false flag' intended to terrorize us. How we respond has never been so important as it is now.
In legal terminology it would seem that the Occupy movement is, among other things, essentially voicing a growing populist 'cease and desist' order on various practices.
.0001 %
Is this based on income, or net worth? The article doesn't mention what Gates racks up in a year, but my, admittedly Microsoft, calculator says 1/150,000,000 (based on net worth and the richest guy in the world also lives in the US) is
6.6666666666666666666666666666667e-9
or
6.6666666666666666666666666666667e-7%.
so he's in the 0.0000007%
Gates realizes as does Buffet that his oligarch pals are eating our seed corn and destroying a broad based consumer economy in the US. Most of them don't care and have a seething hatred and contempt for the "middle class" in the US. The poor and destitute are being put in prisons as being poor is increasingly criminalized or militarized. Gates and Buffet are considered traitors to their own class.
"Most of them have a seething hatred and contempt for the "middle class" in the US."
Another Common Dreams comment monkey showing where the real hatred lies. Only a deluded and bitter person would claim to know the inner feelings of "most of them." It's the same person you see on the street yelling and swiping at demons. There's a psychological term for those who transfer their own anxieties and fears onto others.
There's a psychological term for any personality. What's yours?
There's one for most of the 1% - psychopath.
Many people here seem to have a deep hatred for others who are successful. My doctor makes around $300k/yr, he's in the lower end of the 1%. He's one of the most caring, decent persons I know. A community leader, old hippy (gray hair still down to the middle of his back), and a member of the 1% club.
Many of the comments here assume people in the 1% group are (quote):
"psychopath"
"Evil"
"sociopaths"
"piece of retarded shit"
"self-absorbed idotic assholes"
etc...
The problem as I see it is not wealth, or even free-market economics. The primary problem is that America has for decades been moving towards a fascist-corporatist state, with elected officials more concerned about the well-heeled few than the common many. Look at the names of the financial institutions that were bailed out in the 1930's depression:
Wells Fargo
Bank of America
Goldman Sachs
Chase J.P Morgan
Over half of all banks failed during the depression, but the biggest one's were bailed out. Just like today. Same players. Same abuses of power. This inequality has been in the making for a LONG time. With proper controls on free-market excesses, we can bring more opportunity back to the "many." Think "anti-trust" laws except applied into every area of overt corporate and financial power, corruption, and political cronyism.
As for all the hatred of the 1% --- it's counterproductive, and is the moral equivalent of the Occupy splinter that destroyed Oakland property. Bitter, angry, violent behavior is the antithesis of what is needed to give rise to a healthy and effective 99% movement.
This is the umpteenth time I am shouting about this MORONIC name for this tax!
By now, I have little doubt that the choice of this name - "Robin Hood tax" is itself a bloody conspiracy to divert attention away from other things that might have a real effect by way of wealth redistribution: such as a much more progressive tax system with steeply increasing rates at upper income slabs, a revised property tax that would make prohibitively expensive for anyone or any family to hold far too much property, an estate tax that would bring some semblance of a level-playing field, etc. If these are put together as a package, then they can be called a "Robin Hood tax".
Remember Prop-13 in California? Repealing that law could have a greater benefit for the people there than this proposed tax. And repealing it would be much harder and would be opposed much more fiercely than would be for this tax. Just watch. This tax is going to pass, and everyone is going to make a big deal of it. This tax is needed, long overdue and all that. But its real impact will be small.
Calling a transaction tax as "Robin Hood tax" has stopped being MORONIC. It is starting to look MALICIOUS with a clear intent to deceive and divert attention away from what matters even more.
Bill Gates does not trade stocks, derivatives and currency for a living. Nor does his foundation. This particular tax will have pretty much ZERO effect on his wealth. And that should suit him just fine and it is no wonder he supports the damn proposal.
Even when implemented, it will make no real dent in anybody's profits, and pretty much ZERO dent in any rich person's REAL wealth. What will accrue will be basically fiat money, the real value of which is dropping as we speak.
But the damage seems to have been done. The "Robin Hood tax" name has stuck. But that doesn't make me any less mad every time I see someone calling it by that name.
Like I said, this has stopped being just plain MORONIC and STUPID. It looks clearly malicious and insidious, a clear attempt to divert attention from something more important. And when this tax becomes law, everyone in the media, including this lady who has written this article, will be shouting that a "Robin Hood tax" has been implemented. And a lot of people stand the risk of being fooled using the "Robin Hood" legend.
"Bill Gates came because French President Nicolas Sarkozy asked him to give G20 leaders recommendations on how to raise funds to meet the needs of the world's poorest."
Wait, this is the same Sarkozy, with Merkel, who is pushing austerity in Greece, as hundreds of thousands of Greeks demand that this austerity, cut, cut, cut, stop? The same Sarkozy who is pushing austerity, cut, cut, cut, in his own country of France?
This is the same Gates who endorses taxpayers pay for the corporatization of public education in the US? The same Gates who supposedly can't find US tech/engineer workers, and demands that Congress bring millions over from third-world Gates-authored overseas "tech mills" to work for less wages/less worker rights?
Hm, if Sarkozy and Gates are behind this, geez, what do the poor/middle-class have to worry about?!
BG's crusade to help the world's poorest citizens is laudable. Someone close to him needs to tell him to get his nose out of American education "reform" and spend his time, energy and money on issues he's qualified to address. Poverty is a good one. His only qualification as an education "reformer" is his wallet. His real motivation in this arena is privatization of the American public education system.
Ms. Anderson
I have followed the work of the Global Economy Project with interest and I am grateful for your reports.
But I fail to understand why one of the key policy institutions of the critical activist community needs to invoke the "holy" names of the very oligarchs that are wrecking the world and its people, to justify /vindicate policy proposals that are obvious. Neither is it any way guaranteed that the generated revenues will be necessarily allocated to addressing pressing social and ecological issues.
One fails to understand why you have chosen to join the likes of Ralph Nader in genuflecting to the corporate oligarchy. Perhaps the good folks at the Global Economy Project need some fortifiers for their spines, given that we are witnessing the long deferred stirring of the dispossessed.
What else are you endorsing when you invoke the software behemoth. Are you condoning their questionable market practices as well.
Cyrus P.
cyrus ptolemon, you make a good point when you say this:
>>"I fail to understand why one of the key policy institutions of the critical activist community needs to invoke the "holy" names of the very oligarchs that are wrecking the world and its people, to justify /vindicate policy proposals that are obvious. Neither is it any way guaranteed that the generated revenues will be necessarily allocated to addressing pressing social and ecological issues."<<
I agree, and I think this turning into a propaganda and the insistence on using the "Robin Hood" name for this tax is with a malicious motive. Please read my other post above.
But you baffle me with your next comment:
>>"One fails to understand why you have chosen to join the likes of Ralph Nader in genuflecting to the corporate oligarchy."<<
What???!!! You do know that one of Ralph Nader's book was fiction, don't you? Perhaps written with the hope of appealing to whatever feeble conscience that may be left in some of the rich?
Blah. This warrants the same response as http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/11/02-11
A problem cannot be solved by applying more of the same reasoning and principles that created it.
The for-profit, kapitalist paradigm is an unsustainable, criminal enterprise. Unless and until it is completely exterminated, what we'll get is what we've got and have had for centuries.
Attempting to put out a fire by adding fuel to it is clearly an exercise in futility.
The existing system cannot be fixed. The reason for that is quite simple; it's not broken! It is functioning exactly as desired for the tiny minority of parasites that control it.
The food source of the parasites, kapitalism and the for-profit concept, must be completely eliminated. The parasites will die.
Life is ultimately a symbiotic process. Given a chance to evolve within the constraints of natural law, the human species could become a symbiotic partner in that Life.
The Universe is yet emergent and humanity a nascent possibility.
If a tiny minority of us are allowed push the rest down what is clearly a suicidal path, our species will never attain its full potential.
The creatures we named dinosaurs dominated Life on Earth for over 200 million years before being destroyed by forces beyond their comprehension. After a paltry 200 thousand years, Homo sapiens teeters on the brink of extinction as a result of its own arrogant recklessness.
We are a global family, community, tribe, clan; whatever descriptor you pick, we are all fundamentally bound together. It's time to recognise this fact as an asset to be utilised for the benefit of all. As long as we are tricked by the few into focusing on our petty, superficial differences, the parasites will continue to drain the Life from Earth until they consume even themselves.
Hooray for the nurses!
When little Willy stops pushing, in support of Obama and Arne Duncan, to privatize education, THEN it will be a newsworthy story. As many have said earlier in this link, his stand on the tax is just C.Y.A.P.
You guys are actually believing this crap? You people actually think that Nicholas Sarkozy - the French Godfather of Neoliberialism - just non chalantly asked Bill Gates to appear at G20 for advice on how to feed the poorest in the world? Cmon people.
These capitalists think about nothing but PROFIT. DO YOU HEAR ME??? PROFIT!!!!! THATS IT! NOTHING ELSE! They don't think the same way that the 99% does. They think like the 1%. The Occupy movement is in the process of being hijacked by the same people that have always hijacked historically vast social movements. Bill Gates will pay lobbyists to convince the Democrats to install some crap BS bill to "tax" the rich, but then they'll find loopholes somewhere else and find some way to recoup the money lost. It's the same ol same ol people! Don't let these rich bastards fool you.
My sentiments exactly. I have a bit of a problem believing Gates when Microsoft shelters it's tax liability through double dutch, and Irish tax evasion. You can bet he's got an angle he's positioned to play.