As I child, I loved TV’s “The Lone Ranger”, that great champion of justice whose Hi-yo silver bullets rescued the good guys every week.  I was immune to the inherent racism embodied in Tonto, “his faithful Indian companion” because Tonto was played by Jay Silverheels (aka Harold K. Smith) from Six Nations Reserve near my mother’s hometown in Brantford Ontario. My Uncle Hughie had played professional lacrosse with him and that gave me great playground creds.

Now, a new Silver Bullet’s arrived on the scene that could slay global poverty.  It’s actually been in the wings for a while, but thanks to the greed of the international financial community, it’s an idea whose time has come.

It’s the FTT – aka  -the Financial Transaction Tax…please – don’t stop reading- it’s not that scary even if it is the “T” word.  First, it won’t hit your pocket book unless you are a banker or an international financial trader.  Second, it’s not hard to explain, even for a blogger who still has to stop and think about the meaning of supply and demand.  (And I’m married to an economist!)

The FTT is a tithe placed on each and every international financial transaction.  As money, stocks, and maybe even your mortgage whiz around the globe, traders will ante up the miniscule sum of .005% on each sale they make. Kind of a GST for the international market. 

But that miniscule tax can add up to anywhere between $30 and $60 billion annually.  Of course, the booty has to be shared.  Some of the money would be used to protect bankers from their own greed, a “hedge” fund for next time the markets go wonky and take us all down again.  The FTT would then bail out the banks instead of the people’s banks – aka – your government having to do it.  But a good chunk of the money would go to low-income countries for debt reduction and development investment.  You can hear a good explanation of the FTT by Rodney Schmidt at the North South Institute.  He talked with Rick MacInnes-Rae on CBC Radio’s “Dispatches”  on Jan 7.

The prospects are dizzying.  Just think of the schools that money could build, the health initiatives especially for women and children, the investment in agriculture and infrastructure.  The green projects that could be started to offset the devastating effects of global warming.  An FTT could easily put the Millennium Development Goals back on track, empower millions shackled by lack of resources to steer their own destinies and participate in a global society as equals.

I know it sounds like a fantasy as grand as The Lone Ranger.  But it’s very real and very practical.  It has the support of European leaders like Brown and Sarkozy.  The IMF is seriously considering it, Joseph Stiglitz, George Soros and Warren Buffett all favour some form of the tax.

Let’s be clear.  This isn’t a do-gooders tax.  It’s a fairness tax.  It recognizes that low-income countries have suffered the most from both the economic meltdown and global warming, neither calamity of their making.   It also recognizes the ongoing inequalities in world markets and trading systems and tries to equalize things.  How different is that from Canada’s own equalization payments?

Now, here’s a heads up on where you come in.   Even though there’s a lot of buzz about the idea, and a lot of good and sometimes strange bedfellows supporting it, it’s still has a way to go before it happens.  There’s a lot of lobbying by the investment community (are we surprised?) against this and claims that the tax will shut down the world economy.  (Beam me up Scotty.*)  Our own Finance Minister has flatly rejected it, but have we ever met a tax he liked?   Alas, the US isn’t keen either.

The FTT needs vocal support from organizations and from individuals.  And that support needs to be one that stresses the tax as a fund for global development, not just for bailing out rich bankers.  We need to get a debate going on this and that means taking every opportunity we can to talk up this idea – among friends, at work, on blogs, even, I dare you, at your local bank!

The G7 Finance Ministers will be meeting in Iqaluit on February 5 and 6.  Along with a close-up view of Canada’s magnificent north in the twilight of winter darkness, let’s encourage them to take a hard look at this simple, effective formula for creating a bright and shining new world.

We live in a culture drowning in anti-tax rhetoric.  We’ve forgotten that taxes actually pay for a good chunk of our comfortable lifestyle.  It’s not really your money the government’s spending, it’s the collective resources of our money working for all of us.  We now have a grand opportunity to make “our” money whizzing around the globe work for everybody on this planet.

Hi-Yo Silver!   Stay tuned for the next episode.

 *a Star Trek phrase meaning “Get me out of here. There’s no intelligent life on this planet.”