Owen Tudor

It’s been a torrid weekend of meetings in Washington DC (autumn meetings of the IMF and World Bank and G20 Finance and Development Ministers meetings): perfectly timed to address the latest phase of the global crisis. But they failed to do so.

Today, IMF chief Christine Lagarde returned to the attack with an article calling for “collective action for global recovery.” It contains a lot to welcome such as a clear message to the UK to slow down the deficit reduction policy, and a commitment to regulate big finance. But it is only half right on what to do about deficits, and about how to stimulate demand. Boosting Chinese consumer spending is not a sufficient response to the crisis in the G8 economies. Europe and the USA need to boost domestic demand, too.

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Owen Tudor

Everyone’s at it now! More and more countries and institutions are backing the idea of a financial transactions tax (FTT) as the crucial discussions in the EU and the G20 come closer. The latest examples are:

• South Africa: they already have a tax on share transactions, but have been rather quiet about going further, although the Health Minister has gone on record in the past as supporting an FTT for spending on Millennium Development Goals. Now, Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan has broken cover and made the South African government’s support more clear, in  remarks at a BRICS press conference at the autumn meetings of the IMF/World Bank (full quote below); and
• President Leonel Fernández of the Domincan Republic, speaking at the UN General Assembly, called for an FTT to tackle sovereign debt crises and provide funding for investment to tackle poverty.

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Owen Tudor

The EU’s draft directive for a financial transactions tax to come into force at the start of 2014 was leaked this morning. It is due to be discussed at the EU Finance Ministers meeting in Brussels on 4 October, and it is generally a good proposal which will be warmly welcomed by campaigners for a Robin Hood Tax (there are some devils in the detail, however – see below).

Backed by the French and German governments, its main enemy will of course be the British government: and there is much in the draft directive that will make George Osborne’s life difficult. You might also think it had been written with precisely that end in mind.

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Zoe Lanara

The latest austerity measures announced by the Greek government this week impose additional pension cuts, raise the number of civil servants to be suspended to 30,000 and lower the threshold at which people start paying income tax by a third to €100 a week. A new property tax on every homeowner regardless of circumstance will be collected through electricity bills: the unemployed, the disabled and pensioners will pay the same rate as the wealthy elite or have their electricity cut off.

Greece is being pushed to its limits and we Greeks are being taken hostage for the rest of our lives. Indignation and despair have swept the country. In response, a 24-hour public sector strike on 5 October will be followed two weeks later on 19 October by a one day general strike called by the Greek General Confederation of Labour (GSEE) and the civil servants’ union ADEDY.

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Owen Tudor

The campaign for a financial transactions tax (FTT) is often portrated as a rich-country initiative. But of course it matters most to low income countries who would benefit from the resulting increase in overseas aid and finance to tackle climate change.

In Washington for the autumn meetings of the IMF and World Bank, Ministers from the global south added their calls for an FTT to those of Robin Hood Tax campaigners, and were backed by the global organisation of French-speaking countries and many English-speaking Commonwealth countries.

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Nigel Stanley

The TUC said  that the Vickers Commission on banking reform had been asked the wrong question. Its remit was to make the banks safe, but it needed to go wider than that and set out how to make them useful.

In our view part of the answer should be establishing new sources of credit for businesses through new institutions and a properly resourced green investment bank.

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Owen Tudor

A report prepared for G20 country ministers and officials – a copy of which the TUC has seen – summarises the key findings of the report Bill Gates will make to the G20 leaders summit in Cannes at the beginning of November. It says he will back a financial transactions tax (FTT), although acknowledging that the idea is controversial, and without going into detail about how such a tax would operate.

The Gates report will say substantial resources could be raised with a fairly small tax rate, and that it could be implemented unilaterally or by small numbers of countries. The report has been leaked ahead of Friday’s meeting of G20 Finance and Development Ministers in Washington DC.

This is a huge win for the Robin Hood Tax campaign around the world, and will put FTTs at the heart of the G20 debate over the next few weeks – alongside the EU’s consideration of the proposal.

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• What happens if growth disappoints? | Ben Chu | Independent Eagle Eye Blogs
  Ben Chu shows the importance of strong growth for getting our public finances back on track.

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Richard Exell

A press release landed in my in-tray today, publicising this year’s edition of the Institute for Economic Affairs’ report on the Economic Freedom of the World. It’s essentially a narrative around an index that is made up of such items as ‘size of government’, ‘sound money’ and ‘business regulations’ and one component of this freedom index is ‘labour market regulation’.

The UK, apparently, is the 21st most free country in this respect. Who does better than us? Well it seems we need to catch up with Bahrain , Montenegro, Fiji, Burundi, Jordan and Haiti - which, of course, is the freest country in the world in this regard. (The links are to entries in the International Trade Union Confederation’s latest annual Survey of Violations of Trade Union Rights)

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• Obama Supported Financial Transactions Taxes – Before Summers Nixed It – IPS
  Great blog from Sarah Anderson of the IPS in Washington DC. The title says it all! Tim Geithner continues Summers’ dastardly work.
• Global Policy Institute event: The state and future of UK occupational pensions
  If you’ve been reading Con Keating’s guest post for us today, and want to hear more about his major research into the state of the UK’s occupational pensions, and potential ways of resuscitating the ailing system, the Global Policy Institute are hosting a lecture from him in London next Wednesday evening.

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