A good plan but like other proposals out there, this needs to be coordinated around the world or else it will go nowhere. There's a distinct lack of interest in many capitals to change the destructive dynamics of the banks. Plenty of talk but very little action. The surprise here is that so much talk like this is coming out of London which is the European capital for banking. It would be good to hear such talk out of Washington but that doesn't appear to be coming any time soon.
The government's top financial regulator last night backed radical plans for a multibillion-pound tax on banks as a way to tackle the City's persistent bonus culture.A brief comment too on taxing transactions. Wall Street and the City will of course go ballistic over such a tax though they're also the same people who find it acceptable to tax their customers for doing the same. They love transactions - lots of them - because they make money each time. Heaven forbid they live with their own rules.
Lord Turner, chairman of the Financial Services Authority, warned bankers that he would support a new wave of taxes on the City to prevent excessive profiteering if they continue to take excessive risks.
In a searing critique of the industry, Lord Turner described much of the City's activities as "socially useless" and questioned whether it has grown too large.
His comments, in an interview published by current affairs magazine Prospect, mark a shift in the debate on bonuses, which Turner characterised as a symptom rather than a cause of the financial crisis.
The FSA chairman, who has faced criticism for "going soft" on bankers' pay and would see his empire abolished by an incoming Tory government, said a tax on the millions of transactions in the Square Mile would cut banks' profits and reduce the pool of money available for bonuses.
