Brazil - World Hunger Tax

[maplesyrup]

'Brazil to propose world 'hunger tax' on international financial transactions'

http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/2004/01/.../316412-ap.html

'SAO PAULO, Brazil (AP) - Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva will propose a tax on international financial transactions to raise funds for a worldwide campaign against hunger when he meets later this month with UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, the Brazilian government said Saturday.'

This progressive leader of Brazil, President Lula, is a creative fellow. Sounds like a good plan to me.

[FastNed]

Yet another attempt to impose a multinational "Tobin Tax". I'll let someone with a broader knowledge of economics fisk this.

Another example of a politician faced with a problem whose first instinct is to find a new source to tax for a 'good' cause.

Presidente Lula, why should we be forced to pay to feed your poor?

[Hohenzollern]

How about an international tax to educate people on how to get food for themselves.

Think of the proverb, "You can give a man a fish and feed him for a day, but you can teach a man to fish and feed him for a lifetime."

[Rasputin]

Forget international taxes. This money like foreign aid would be wasted. Foreign aid, is an unmitigated failure. Witness the billions poured into Africa in the past decade - we would be better off to engage in free agro trade and help them understand and enforce property rights. I was just reading where in Angola to give only one example - billions of dollars totalling 10 % of GDP given in aid over the recent past have 'disappeared'. Apparently the gov't ministers have loads of money and so do their friends, while the rest of the pop. in a country with oil and diamonds are starving. So it is not hard to figure out where the money went 1. into the pockets of officials and 2. to buy weapons.

From the Cato Institute:

Of course, corruption among Africa's officials is endemic. A reason why Americans should be suspicious of President Bush's decision to spend $15 billion on fighting AIDS in Africa is ... corruption. Consider a South African estimate that approximately 50 percent of all drugs delivered to the country's government-run hospitals are stolen.

Politicians are the most corrupt members of African societies. Joseph Mobutu of Zaire-- who changed his name to the more widely recognized Mobutu Sese Seko Kuku Ngbendu Wa Za Banga  (which translates to "the earthy, the peppery, all-powerful warrior who, by his endurance and will to win, goes from contest to contest leaving fire in his wake") -- stole about $8 billion. Famously, he enlarged the airport in his hometown to accommodate landings by Concordes-- which he leased from Air France-all the while his people starved. Nigeria's Sani Abacha stashed away $4 billion. Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe just moved into a $6 million villa in Harare, even though 50 percent of his countrymen face famine. The list is inexhaustible.

If you want the poor to become less poor; 1. Open up trade, shut down your agro tariffs and textile quota's 2. help them reform their domestic institutions and build proper governance structures.

Don't hand out money - it gets wasted.

Don't let the fools at the UNO start an international tax regime - we are overtaxed as it is and the UNO is the last agency in the world we should entrust more money to.