With hindsight, perhaps it should have looked fishy from the start that the British public had decided to take sides with the Sheriff of Nottingham.Campaigners for a "Robin Hood tax" watched with alarm as thousands of votes poured into their website, rejecting their proposal for a levy on City wheeler-dealing, to raise money to fight poverty and climate change.After a bit more investigation, though, the unlikely backlash against the rob-the-rich plan - almost 5,000 no votes against the Robin Hood tax within 20 minutes - turned out to emanate from just two computer servers, one of which was registered to the investment bank Goldman Sachs.
With hindsight, perhaps it should have looked fishy from the start that the British public had decided to take sides with the Sheriff of Nottingham.
Campaigners for a "Robin Hood tax" watched with alarm as thousands of votes poured into their website, rejecting their proposal for a levy on City wheeler-dealing, to raise money to fight poverty and climate change.
After a bit more investigation, though, the unlikely backlash against the rob-the-rich plan - almost 5,000 no votes against the Robin Hood tax within 20 minutes - turned out to emanate from just two computer servers, one of which was registered to the investment bank Goldman Sachs.
This is precisely the kind of propaganda cock-up that people who are unfamiliar with common netiquette burn themselves on.
May it be published far and wide.
- Jake If you only spend 20 minutes of the rest of your life on economics, go spend them here.
