My local MP is open to the idea of the Robin Hood tax. He also points out that the Lib Dems would tax banks’ profits. It wouldn’t make as much as a Tobin tax, but it would recoup some of the money handed over to the bankers.
Robin Hood tax website. I’m sure the banking sector would muster all its might to stop something like this, and there’s always the possibility there are other ways it might be unworkable. But suggesting it and getting the idea out there should provide a push to convince the politicians to try something.
Using the templates at this Telegraph page I’m asking my bank to refund me the excessive charges levied on my account in the last six years. With a little help, I really screwed up my finances in 2001. Not my banks fault, I know, but their charges- particularly the ones for unpaid Direct Debits which were often larger than the sum of the Direct Debit itself- helped keep me in debt. It’s almost as if they wanted me to stay hovering around my overdraft limit so they could carry on charging me, safe in the knowledge that they’d claw this money out of me when I got a job and took my account back into the black.
Anyway, I’m claiming back well over a grand. We’ll see how it goes.
http://money.independent.co.uk/personal_finance/invest_save/article2287041.ece
Maybe I lied yesterday when I implied I’d never write about my debts again. The Independent has an article today that includes instructions on how to reclaim unauthorised borrowing fees going back six years. Given that 2001 was when I started to get into financial difficulties, this is something I really have got to do.