An interesting and fun piece from the French Ambassador today in the Grauniad. On the face of it worthy enough but, well:
First, developed countries should aim at devoting 0.7% of their GDP to Official Development Assistance.
Interesting really, as there is as yet little evidence that official aid actually helps anything other than to salve the consciences of those who send it. Rather the opposite in fact, channeling money from government to government has been shown to be positively deleterious to those receiving it. Still, we rarely expect economic logic from a diplomat now do we?
France has, for some
time, strongly advocated the creation of global taxes to finance the
fight against poverty. This would not require the creation of any new
international bureaucracy, and would be based on voluntary cooperation
between sovereign states. Its main advantage would be to secure stable,
immediately available financing for the MDGs. Last year, in a joint
endeavour between emerging and developed countries, Brazil, Chile,
France and Spain looked at several options for global taxes. The report
they co-authored concluded in favour of the economic feasibility of
international taxes. Building on this emerging consensus, President
Chirac, in his Davos speech in January, suggested a very small levy
(about one ten-thousandth) on international financial transactions and
some taxes on air transport.
Admittedly,
international taxation is controversial. However, the public outpouring
of generosity throughout the world following the Asian tsunami, points
to a shift in world opinion. A contribution of £1 or £2 on every plane
ticket in the world would produce almost enough revenue to finance the
worldwide fight against Aids. Who could refuse such an effort?
Allow me to step up to the plate here. I would refuse such an effort. No, I am not surprised that a product of the grandes ecoles would suggest that more taxes are the answer, that’s how France has been run for generations. There mere idea that what is already being spent should be spent better clearly never crosses the minds of such Statists, let alone the thought that it should not be The State that undertakes such actions.
There are two more specific problems with the proposals, just to underline the fact that no Frenchman since Bastiat has understood economics. For a Tobin Tax to work, everyone has to apply it. Not just most or many, but all. Rather like the droit de suite that the French, via the EU, have foisted upon us. As New York does not have it, and there is no way in hell they ever will, the effect of this tax is simply to shift the art market from London to New York. Obviously a victory for French diplomacy, screwing les rosbifs, but of little effect in any other manner. All that is required for the Tobin idea to fail is Monaco, or Liechtetenstein, New York, Vanuatu or China not to apply it and all such transactions will be routed through them. Net revenue raised zero….you see markets work but then again, we don’t expect a Frenchman to understand that.
The airline tax is a little different. There probably are good reasons to tax air travel, given the externalities involved. However, here we come up against one of the great truths of taxation, that hypothecation is a bad idea. There is absolutely no connection whatsoever between the amount that can be raised from taxing travel, the amount that should be raised from so doing so, and the amount that could or should be spent on Third World Development. If RyanAir doubles the number of people who take weekend breaks, does this have any relationship at all with the optimal amount of aid? Or if there is another 9/11, passenger numbers falling drastically, does this mean that some destitute picanniny is no longer deserving of our help?
No, l’escrot Chirac rather needs to crack open the textbooks again and read up on the idiocies that he’s asking his Ambassadors to propose to a breathlessly waiting world.
We recognise that,
ultimately, greater integration of poor countries in world trade
through better access to our markets is an essential driver of growth
and poverty reduction.
You do recognise this? Excellent, so it is now France’s official position to abandon all of the absurdities and simply abolish the EU’s tariff regime, including, of course, the Common Agricultural Policy, that behemoth that supports French peasant farmers at the cost of millions of deaths in the Third World? Glad we’ve got that clear and I have no doubt that the Trade Commissioner, dear Mandy, will be interested to hear it.
Unless, of course, the old Anglo saying (perfidious these Brits, actually taking statements at face value) that a diplomat is a man sent abroad to lie for his country is actually true.
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