Showing How US Can Stand Up to Wall Street, Europe Advances 'Robin Hood Tax'

http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/12/09/showing-how-us-can-stand-wall-street-europe-advances-robin-hood-tax

Ten European Union countries agreed on Tuesday to some aspects of a so-called "Robin Hood Tax" on financial transactions, offering a model for U.S. politicians who have thus far showed little resolve on standing up to Wall Street high-rollers.

As Reuters explains, a financial transaction tax (FTT) "is intended to recover some of the public money used to support banks [and] to curb speculative trading."

The "core principles" agreed to by finance ministers from Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Spain reportedly include a tax on derivatives and all shares transactions, including intra-day trading.

These small taxes, their proponents say, would discourage short-term, purely speculative trading while generating significant revenue.

According to the Wall Street Journal:

Taxing financial trades is popular with voters in Europe, where many countries spent billions bailing out failing banks in recent years and governments are still cutting spending. Some finance ministers have also hailed the tax as a way of curtailing high-frequency trading and speculation, which they see as damaging to their economies.