Finish Metalworkers support Tobin Tax

EW Plawiuk plawiuk at connect.ab.ca
Fri Aug 27 03:47:24 PDT 1999


FYI from the Finish Labour News website Eugene

http://www.kaapeli.fi/unions/ Metalworkers Union President Per-Erik Lundh

supports Tobin-tax for international capital transfers

Helsinki (25.08.1999 - Juhani Artto) Prime Minister Paavo Lipponen's new

government included in its programme a brief remark on the need to restrain

international capital transfers. The programme gives no hints about what kind

of concrete means could be considered for this.

In late June the Metalworkers Union President Per-Erik Lundh came out with

one such concrete proposal: he is in favour of applying a mechanism known

as the Tobin tax. In practise this means that the international community

should levy a small tax on short-term international capital transfers. The goal

would mainly be to discourage the speculative transfers that cause instability

in the global financial system as a whole. A major proportion of the more

than USD 1,000 billion dollar daily transfers are purely speculative.

Lundh's position gives momentum to the Tobin tax demand in Finland where

Kepa, the umbrella organisation for NGOs in international development work,

has recently started to campaign for a global Tobin tax.



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