Nicolas Sarkozy: the new poster boy for the Robin Hood tax

Nicolas Sarkozy: the new poster boy for the Robin Hood tax

Nicolas Sarkozy wants one. George Soros thinks it is a good idea. Development campaigners have it at the top of their wish list. The question, therefore, is whether the time for a Tobin tax has come?

Let’s just recap for a second. Back in the 1970s, the US nobel prize-winning economist James Tobin said there should be a tax on financial transactions to “throw sand in the wheels” of a global monetary system that was shaken by the collapse of the post-war Bretton Woods fixed exchange rate system.

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