Should countries enact a Tobin tax?

[Tupac Shakur]

You are so ****ing stupid.

[DaShi]

You show 'em, Tupac!

[Tupac Shakur]

Oerdin also claims to be a player, but I ****ed his wife.

[Hauldren Collider]

This Tobin tax thing looks to me like an astonishingly bad idea. It seems like a wonderful way to get all of the stock traders to move to London and Tokyo, never to return.

[Tupac Shakur]

The Tobin tax has nothing to do with stocks.

[Hauldren Collider]

Really? I read an op-ed in the WSJ that was saying it would tax all securities transactions, including stocks.

[Tupac Shakur]

The Tobin tax as proposed by Tobin himself is a currency-transaction tax. Ill-informed ***** like Oerdin have used the term to describe a tax on all financial transactions, but that's moronic.

[Aeson]

Pedantry

[Tupac Shakur]

The difference between a tax on currency transactions and a tax on all financial transactions is a major one, and thus ensuring that people have a proper understanding of what a "Tobin tax" entails is not pedantry in the slightest.

[Aeson]

We aren't talking about a difference in tax though, we're talking about a difference in labels applied to it. That labeling is an insignificant detail. Quite clearly the average person doesn't have any understanding of whether it is a Tobin tax or not, given that they don't know what a Tobin tax is. As such, the label "Tobin tax" is rather meaningless to them, whether they realize it or not. It could just as well be a "Foxxy", "Dan", or "Verisimilitude" tax for all they know. The label "Tobin" doesn't appear to have any real emotional draw to it in any case.

In spite of this irrelevance, you are simply quibbling about the label rather than whether or not the implementation of the tax is beneficial or not. Essentially, your posts here are nothing more than a semantic argument from a pedant. (Not that there's anything wrong with that! )

Moreover, the prolific use of "Tobin tax" in major publications to reference things which are not solely taxes on currency transactions leads me to believe you may very well be incorrect about whether the label is acceptable to use in regards to taxes which include other financial transactions. The meaning of words does evolve after all, driven by how they are used and interpreted.

I am willing to withdraw my claim that you are engaging in pedantry if it comes to light that you are in fact, wrong, as I have no wish to besmirch or tarnish the reputations of pedants in general.

[Dauphin]

This Tobin tax thing looks to me like an astonishingly bad idea. It seems like a wonderful way to get all of the stock traders to move to London and Tokyo, never to return.

Some countries, like the UK, already charge tax or stamp duty on share transfers.

The UK is also against unilateral introduction of a Tobin tax.

[Tupac Shakur]

We aren't talking about a difference in tax though, we're talking about a difference in labels applied to it. That labeling is an insignificant detail. Quite clearly the average person doesn't have any understanding of whether it is a Tobin tax or not, given that they don't know what a Tobin tax is. As such, the label "Tobin tax" is rather meaningless to them, whether they realize it or not. It could just as well be a "Foxxy", "Dan", or "Verisimilitude" tax for all they know. The label "Tobin" doesn't appear to have any real emotional draw to it in any case.

Did you really think this made any sort of sense?

[Kuciwalker]

Some countries, like the UK, already charge tax or stamp duty on share transfers.

Isn't that a legacy of the 17th or 18th century? Adam Smith complained about them...

[Tupac Shakur]

Adam Smith RIP

[Kuciwalker]