I think this idea would actually be a good idea, the only problem is who would administer it and how would it be watched to keep thieves out of it.


Read it and see if you think it is a good plan.
Silva Calls for International Effort to Fight Hunger (http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGBQT85EIVD.html)

I agree - this is a good idea, that would be quite difficult to implement, but it is woth trying.
In fact it is not really Lula's idea. The "Tobin tax" (from Tobin, Nobel prize in economy) is to put a very small tax on all financial transaction, and to use the money for developing countries. It has been discussed a lot during the last decade, and many people, including politicians, support this idea, mostly in Europe and latin America. But of course, to be effective, it has to be applied on a worldwide basis.

A tax on arms sales would be a much more lucrative worldwide tax, the only problem this poses is, it might define the World as an entity.
Of course to implement this would require a constant monitoring of all sales and transactions, more government. And of course who decides where the money goes, how much and when.
We would have to make sure that ALL politicians stay out of it and maybe look toward an entity like the Vatican to oversee the operation.
I am not a fan of the Vatican but we need a non political group who has some compassion to make this work.

The Vatican ? Really ? Maybe you're not aware of the huge financial scandals in which it has been implied during the last decades. The way its money is managed is far from transparent.

There are already many international funds managed by the world bank and the IMF. A similar organism could be created.

More about this Tobin tax :
http://www.ceedweb.org/iirp/factsheet.htm

"How Tobin-style Taxes would work:

Currency speculators trade over $1.8 trillion dollars each day across borders. The market is huge, and volatile.

Each trade would be taxed at 0.1 to 0.25 percent of volume (about 10 to 25 cents per hundred dollars)

This would discourage short-term currency trades,about 90 percent speculative, but leave long-term productive investments intact.

The currency market would thus shrink in volume, helping to restore national economic autonomy. Nations again could intervene effectively to protect their own currency from devaluation and financial crisis.

Billions in revenue, estimated at $100 - $300 billion per year, would be generated.

Revenue could go into earmarked trust funds to fund urgent international priorities."

the taxes sound like a good idea, but the arms one seems especially difficult to implement. hunger is a serious problem, and something needs to be done about it. this type of tazing might be a good solution if the logisitcs can be worked out.

In fact the first goal of the Tobin tax is to regulate short term financial speculation that may lead to major crisis, by introducing a tax that makes it less profitable. This may seem very technical but for many countries that have no way of influencing the international speculation on their currency it is a very important way of avoiding major crisis, like what happened in Argentina last year or in Thailand at the end of the 90's.