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| President Barack Obama walks past South Korean honor guard members as he arrives to attend the G-20 Summit in Seoul, South Korea, Wednesday, Nov. 10, 2010. (AP) |
FOXNews.com
As President Obama huddles with world leaders for the G-20 summit in South Korea to weigh proposals aimed at stabilizing the global economy ,one idea being pushed is a so-called "Robin Hood tax," aimed at collecting money from rich nations to give to the poor.
The Robin Hood tax -- a global financial transaction fee that could raise hundreds of billions of dollars to pay the cost of the global financial crisis and support developing nations struggling to recover -- is not popular.
While Britain, France and Germany have championed a bank tax for all G-20 nations, finance chiefs from the industrialized nations shot down the idea at a previous summit held in Toronto last summer.
Still, the tax's supporters, which include unions, environmental groups, Comic Relief, UNICEF and others in a multinational coalition, say the tax could go to canceling debt from poor nations. Or it could be used for social programs to fight hunger, diseases such as HIV/AIDS and malaria or other causes, programs to which the United States and other nations already donate billions.
The crusaders -- a coalition of 183 organizations from 42 countries -- issued a plea this week urging leaders at the G-20 summit in South Korea to adopt the measure. While specifics have not been outlined, the idea would be to charge a small transaction fee, anywhere from 0.05 percent to 1 percent, on each stock transaction made.
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