Climate change protesters dressed as G20 finance ministers bury their heads in the sand in St Andrews
Gordon Brown has called for a new global "economic and social contract" with the financial institutions to ensure taxpayers around the world will never again have to bear the cost of banking failure.
Addressing the meeting of G20 finance ministers in St Andrews, Scotland, the Prime Minister said that in future there must be a "just distribution of risks and rewards".
"I believe we should discuss whether we need a better economic and social contract to reflect the global responsibilities of financial institutions to society," he said.
"This is a unique sector that, when it fails, imposes such a high cost to the wider economy and damage to society that government intervention becomes essential. So the taxpayer had no real choice but to step in to keep the system afloat.
"And it cannot be acceptable that the benefits of success in this sector are reaped by the few but the costs of its failure are borne by all of us. There must be a better economic and social contract between financial institutions and the public based on trust and a just distribution of risks and rewards."
Mr Brown said that it could be achieved through an insurance fee to reflect systemic risk, a special "resolution fund", contingent capital arrangements, or a global levy on financial transactions - a so-called "Tobin tax".
Mr Brown stressed that in order to work, the measures would have to be implemented by all the major financial centres around the world - including the US, Europe, Asia, the Middle East and Switzerland.
"Let me be clear: Britain will not move unless others move with us together," he said.
The measures would also have to be "non-distortionary" - to ensure they did not result in inefficient allocation or encourage avoidance - and should reinforce the action already taken to stabilise the financial system.
He stressed that the contribution of the financial services sector would have to be "fair, measured and enable financial services to make their necessary contribution to future economic growth".
Ah, the infamous Tobin Tax. Tobin Taxes are levied on transactions in currency markets. They are meant to curb excessive speculation in that market, as any gain to be had would be more attuned to more substantive investment.
On other points, I concur. Mr. Gordon Brown scares me at times, but no more than any other politician. For the most part, the language of politics is a twisted rhetoric composed to convince the public that up is down and the other way ‘round. One thing is said and another is done, and the same sort of cur is elected when the constituency has had quite enough.
Truth is what works; hence the broken world is a fair measure of its misgovernment.
The governments aren't even trying to be discrete about this New World Order anymore. In the good old days, we were just conspiracy theorists, but now it's just FACT. They've even given up on secret board meetings to discuss these in private.
Every intervention the government makes, deliberately introduces 2 or more new problems in the next cycle period, which we then rely on the newly elected administration to fix. This BS has got to stop. I'm running out of countries to hide from.
buncha liars! they want to control the world.