I’m glad to see someone else who, on some level, objects to the patronising simplicity of the Robin Hood tax. I am no economist either, but one that I do know (and others I have researched) have ridiculed it, mainly on the basis that it represents a suprisingly significant portion of the profits made through investment banking transactions that will inevitably be passed on to their retail banking arms for the taxpayer to reimburse.

It seems little more than a badly planned, headline-grabbing, ideologically driven attack on those who work in banking. Individuals who already contribute far more through income tax than the average citizen – and who are usually in the position they are in due to talent and hard work, not greed or corruption.

Most importantly (to my mind) is the reoccuring theme you have cited, which I have also used in various articles on climate tax etc.- which is that these financial penalties seem like a poor excuse to sleep better when compared to proactive scientific endeavour, lifestyle-evolution and getting stuck in helping political/environmental cause that matters to us.

The fact these financial penalties are not even self-directed, but are usually proposed by segments of the population that do not contribute much in time, scientific investment or hard work; to be levied against those that do – and yet are somehow this is meant to be considered altruistic – disgusts me.