Tobin Tax: Political Caste in Germany wants your blood!

Norbert Lammert is the current President of the German Lower House (Bundestag). Today a headline tells us that he is also 'supporting' the introduction of a financial transaction tax. While some might argue in favour of such a tax it is revealing that its supporters have mainly one common denominator: they are supporters of more state spending and indirectly in support of 'robbing Peter to pay Paul' (or pay themselves or their political clients). Particularly galling is the fact that people such as Lammert - who as far as we could find out has never held a proper job in the private sector - have the temerity to put more and more onerous taxes and 'charges' onto the shoulders of the powerless citizens. In the case of Germany one also has to say that the country has a long tradition of putting (too much) faith into regulations and top-down dirigism. Despite the economic and political success after 1945 one should not forget that this was just to compensate for the disastrous policies pursued in the decades before and as a consequence the net balance is not that encouraging. The irony is that Germans worked hard in order to deliver goods on credit to all their customers in the Eurozone who now can not repay the loans. So there is a huge bill coming due and the good standing of Germany in the credit markets is to a large extent only the reverse side of the fact that many other countries are in distress. So by necessity some markets must have low interest rates as they offer a refuge - but they are not of much higher quality. Putting another tax on business will not improve things for anyone - but it will guarantee that the German financial markets will become even more a backwater.
PS: Readers who want to support a fundamental change in political systems that allow professional politicians and lobbyist to run roughshod over the interests of citizens may want to support Dirdem - Campaign for Direct Democracy here and here