9 Oct 2012

Financial Transaction Tax: Ideology wins over Reason

No surprise that the tax-and-spend zealots have won a victory (Reuters) on the issue of the Financial Transaction Tax (FTA). Politics is forever dominated by those who either want to control other people's lives and behaviour (Stalin and Hitler are extreme examples, but history is full of prominent examples, not a few of them have earned themselves the additional title 'Great') or those who want to benefit from the sweat and effort of their fellow human beings (Slavery being the extreme example there). The proponents of the FTA are a confused bunch where the common denominator is (1) a lack (or unwillingness) of understanding of economics and finance, (2) the desire to spend other people's money and (3) the desire to legislate in an arbitrary, discriminatory and undemocratic fashion. The fact that in the case of the FTA a tax is levied on a particular activity puts the intelligence coefficient behind this tax on a par with the medieval window tax. Basically all taxes directed at specific human activities should be kept to an absolute minimum as they are an effort to constrain the free choice of the citizens. This means that any discussion of the FTA's technical merits are an implicit admission that such arbitrary legislation is acceptable. In addition, tax legislation in most (pseudo)democracies following the 'Westminster Model' is undemocratic and not subject to the agreement of the citizens - for a discussion of this aspect readers are referred to have a look at www.dirdem.org. Please get in touch if you are interested to support our campaign for direct democracy. In the meantime we will watch with interest the impact of the FTA and financial markets - who will win, who will lose - and how long the machinations of the Euro-Clique can continue until their whole bureaucratic edifice implodes.

No comments: