Gordon Brown's talk of a Tobin tax is a good idea. Except it isn't now a Tobin tax.
The Tobin tax was a fraction of 1% levy on currency transactions to kickstart Third World development.
And that's where Gordon started.
Now though the tax has become a financial levy on banks to build an insurance reserve against any future overspeculation and call for Treasury bailouts.
Not a bad idea - although doesn't the Treasury and FSA etc already provide that with the banks?
But it's certainly not the Tobin Tax - and given the banks have received over 10x all the Third World aid ever provided in just a year or so - then it does demonstrate how our global priorities are skewed.
And it certainly shows it isn't impossible to fund the UN Millennium Development Goals with an ongoing Tobin Tax and even to kickstart them with an initial Tobin Fund from the World Bank or IMF.
The structures exist, the organisations exist, the funds exist and the levy is a miniscule percentage of currency transactions.
To provide global healthcare, clean water and food.
The Tobin Tax as a global NHS or welfare if you will.
For diseases and poverty that are completely preventable and were eradicated from Europe and the US over 50 or 100 years ago.
And that currently run at 5,000 deaths or more each day.