Goldman Sachs, Goldman Sachs, clicking in the votes?

[Lars77]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/feb/11/goldman-sachs-tobin-tax

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.

[BrklynLiberal]

1. color me shocked...

[rfranklin]

2. These fuckers need to be dealt with in a severe manner...

not that I am advocating violence, mind you.

[aquart]

3. Hanging can be a very gentle, civilized process.

As opposed to drawing and quartering which was nasty.

[GiveMeFreedom]

5. Shit!

I am. Hang these fuckers!!!

[Trillo]

4. Ah! The Unrecommend bot has been found!

Just kidding, sort of.

Hmm, electronic voting technologies?

[WestSeattle2]

6. GS..has to be one of the most immoral, unethical organizations

EVER. The board of directors and senior management should have been imprisoned years ago, and the keys tossed in the Atlantic.

My god, how much better off this country would be today if that had happened.

They are truly an enemy of the people.

[Lars77]

7. Strange if you ask me

I find it a bit bizarre that a company like this actually engages in manipulating internet polls, which are notoriously unreliable anyway.

I guess this shows that the Tobin Tax is something that these people really, really fear. Here's a good description from wikipedia:

"A Tobin tax, suggested by Nobel Laureate economist James Tobin, is a concept initially associated with a tax on all spot conversions of one currency into another. The tax is intended to put a penalty on short-term financial round-trip excursions into another currency. Tobin suggested his currency transaction tax in 1972 in his Janeway Lectures at Princeton, shortly after the Bretton Woods system of monetary management ended in 1971.<1> Prior to 1971, one of the chief features of the Bretton Woods system was an obligation for each country to adopt a monetary policy that maintained the exchange rate of its currency within a fixed value—plus or minus one percent—in terms of gold. Then, on August 15, 1971, United States President Richard Nixon announced that the United States dollar would no longer be convertible to gold, effectively ending the system. This action created the situation whereby the United States dollar became the sole backing of currencies and a reserve currency for the member states of the Bretton Woods system, leading the system to collapse in the face of increasing financial strain in that same year. In that context, Tobin suggested a new system for international currency stability, and proposed that such a system include an international charge on foreign-exchange transactions."