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Taxing the Speculator (Fabian Discussion Papers)
Taxing the Speculator - Fabian Discussion Papers Author:Ruth Kelly "Black Wednesday" brought the whole question of currency speculation out into the open and in this discussion paper, Ruth Kelly, Economics Correspondent of "The Guardian", analyzes the nature of currency speculation, examining why and in what circumstances it is profitable; who gains and who loses; and whether anything can or should be done to p... more »revent it. For the Labour Party, in particular, foreign exchange dealing is of historic and potentially future concern. Kelly suggests a possible solution to the awkward question facing Labour: what can a Labour government do to prevent being crippled by speculators of foreign exchange markets once again? Kelly proposes several measures: an international transactions tax, policed by the IMF, to foster a more long term out-look by speculators; raising margin requirements on currency derivatives through an increase in capital adequacy ratios; circuit breakers to act as an automatic "time out" in periods of frenetic trading; a return to a fixed-but-flexible exchange rate system.« less