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The proposal, popular at the United Nations for decades and long-advocated by Fidel Castro, is called the Tobin Tax and named after Yale University economist James Tobin. Steven Solomon, a former staff reporter at Forbes, said in his book, The Confidence Game, that such a proposal “might net some $13 trillion a year…” because it is based on taking a percentage of money from the trillions of dollars exchanged daily in global financial markets.

Well if it is approved by Castro it has to be good. Look at his fine economy. < /do I have to say it?>

Accroding to Wikipedia (yes, I know the warnings) the gross world product is $58 trillion dollars, so this proposed tax would be 22% of everything produced in the world.

The Tobin Tax in a farcical example of static analysis. They pretend that by placing a tax in the range of 0.5% like Tobin originally suggested that there will be no effect on the volume of trade. Much of the trades are based on differences in values in different markets in the hundredth of a percent range (Gold is $1270 in New York and $1269.90 in London? Sell the New York gold and buy London gold!) Apply a tax of 0.5% ($6 an ounce) and that trade will never happen - never! If a 0.5% tax is put on financial transactions I wouldn't be surprised to see those transactions drop by 95% or more. Poof, there goes that $13 trillion the UN wanted to steal from the productive people of the world.

cosidering the amount of money being traded by fund managers, that get a cut off the top of 401s and such, they would still make the trades...the retirees accounts will take the hit behind closed doors...

If we buy a Toyota car, a Sony TV, or a barrel of foreign oil, or the Japanese buy a ton of American grown rice, that involves an international financial transaction. This would be a tax on all international trade.