Sarkozy to make London estate agents rich with his FTT idiocy
AS if it wasn’t bad enough with every Sloane who couldn’t scrape three GCSE’s together riving around in bloody Minis, it looks like the London estate ageny game is going to get yet another boost thanks to France and Sarkozy.
France has added some more rocket fuel to Monday’s already volatile summit of EU leaders by pledging to introduce a 0.1pc tax on financial transactions in August.
They’re only going to add it in France though so what will happen is that all wholesale banking that currently takes place in France will take place in London from about, oooooh, 1 September I should think.
Leave aside whether the FTT is a bloody stupid idea or not (it is a bloody stupid idea, it won’t raise any cash and it will shrink the economy) and concentrate just on the idea of bringing it in in one country only.
We don’t have to ponder on what will happen next because we know. The Swedish tried it in the 1980s and their bond market shrank to a feeble shadow of its former self and the options market disappeared altogether. There are some out there so ignorant that they think this a good idea but as they’re so ignorant as to think so we can ignore them.
Given that it is only being imposed in one country what will happen is that all the French bankers doing it will move to London.
Just goes to show that the last Frenchman to understand economics was Frederic Bastiat. And he died in 1850.
Posted: 31st, January 2012 | In: Money Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
