Gordon Brown’s increasingly populist policies have leapt to a new level of desperation. Reflecting the severity of the economic malaise in England, the British government has announced a new 50% super tax on banker’s bonuses (above 25,000 pounds).
One can guess the outrage, one can guess the flight of skilled workers. Now the media war is on.
Britain’s financiers and entrepreneurs are quitting the UK at a rate of 10 a week to avoid Labour’s new 50% taxes.
So ten bankers have threatened to leave and now the British public is threatened with a ‘$178bn budgetary black hole’? How to work a headline…
If the government was serious about deep seated reform and wanted to keep it’s most talented minds, it would move swiftly to turn off the speculative largesse by imposing a 10% Land Tax, with all land valued yearly. Nobody can offshore their land. And a cut in VAT and payroll tax would be the trade-off. Remember the People’s Budget of 1909?
What has been the go-to-solution? Doug Noland reports in First Dubai
The entire US financial and economic recovery rests on a flimsy foundation of a highly distorted Treasury and agency market bubble.
Some major European figures are commenting:
Awarding big bonuses to bankers could help sow the seeds of a future financial crisis, Jean-Claude Trichet, European Central Bank president, has warned.
Mr Trichet said financial institutions should be using higher profits to strengthen their capital bases rather than paying out “unwarranted levels of compensation or bonuses”.
In another example of the open minds politicians have in Europe at present,
EU leaders urge IMF to consider Tobin tax
European Union leaders urged the International Monetary Fund on Friday to consider a global tax on financial transactions in spite of opposition from the US and doubts at the IMF itself.
In a communiqué issued after a two-day summit, the EU’s 27 national leaders stopped short of making a formal appeal for the introduction of a so-called “Tobin tax” but made clear they regarded it as a potentially useful revenue-raising instrument.
