New Campaign For A Robin Hood Tax On Wall Street Launches Today With Celebrities, Economists And Activists

     New Campaign For A Robin Hood Tax On Wall Street Launches Today With
                    Celebrities, Economists And Activists

PR Newswire

NEW YORK, June 19, 2012

NEW YORK, June 19, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Dozens of national organizations,
celebrities including actor/director Mark Ruffalo, Rage Against the Machine's
Tom Morello and Coldplay's Chris Martin, renowned economists including Jeffrey
Sachs, former Goldman Sachs executives and global leaders including Desmond
Tutu joined today for an unprecedented coalition, calling for a "Robin Hood
Tax" on Wall Street.

In New York, Founding Fathers and notable figures will start showing their
support for the Robin Hood Tax on Wall Street at statues in major squares in
Manhattan, donning them with Robin Hood hats and masks.  Photos can be seen at
www.facebook.com/RobinHoodTaxUsa.

In 15 cities across the country, including New York, Washington, Chicago and
Los Angeles,  America's biggest nurses union, National Nurses United, along
with students, climate and AIDS activists, and faith leaders, will visit
branches of JP Morgan Chase Tuesday, coinciding with an appearance before
Congress by JP Morgan Chief Executive Jamie Dimon, whose trading loss of more
than $2 billion caused many to underscore the need for new regulation and
taxation of the financial sector to prevent future incidents.

Today, actor Mark Ruffalo, star of the current movie "The Avengers," released
a video calling on Americans to join the campaign. He was joined in the video
by Coldplay's Chris Martin and Rage Against the Machine's Tom Morello. The
video, which can be viewed on the new campaign website, www.robinhoodtax.org,
features Ruffalo drawing a Robin Hood mask on a dollar bill and calling on
others to do the same.

"The Robin Hood Tax campaign that launches in the US today offers us a
solution to kick-start our economy, to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure,
to help those who have lost out as a result of the financial crisis they did
nothing to cause - not just here in America, but around the world," said
Ruffalo. 

Economists estimate that we could generate hundreds of billions of dollars
annually by placing a small tax on stocks, bonds, derivatives and currencies.
Experts also suggest that such a policy would help limit the reckless
short-term speculation that threatens financial stability. Over 1,000 leading
economists have endorsed the policy, including Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz,
Columbia University economist Jeffrey Sachs and Lawrence Mishel of the
Economic Policy Institute.

"Wall Street and the big banks are exploiting tax loopholes while generating
record profits and being rewarded with billions in bailouts and bonuses. Most
of the recovery thus far has benefited the top 1%, not the 99%," said Jean
Ross, RN and co-president, National Nurses United. "The Robin Hood Tax is easy
to enforce, tough to evade and won't touch the bank accounts, pensions or
savings of the vast majority of the American people."

"The Robin Hood Tax is a tiny tax with a big ambition – to get us back on our
feet through nothing more complicated than asking Wall Street to pay their
fair share," said Leigh Blake of Act V, an AIDS advocacy group.

"People with AIDS are rejecting austerity budgets.  A Robin Hood Tax on Wall
Street could literally end the AIDS pandemic," said Jennifer Flynn of Health
GAP (Global Action Project).   "We simply can't afford not to implement it."

"The Robin Hood Tax will not just begin to bring basic tax fairness to Wall
Street, it will help curb the destructive gambling that drove the crisis and,
as we see so clearly at JPMorgan Chase, continues to threaten our economic
stability and security," said Liz Ryan Murray, Policy Director of National
People's Action.

"There are huge, quick transactions that add to the churning and speculation
in international markets that has helped to bring the world economy to the
perilous state that it's in right now," said economist Jeffrey Sachs. "The
time has really arrived to put a Robin Hood tax in place. Many countries
around the world are doing so. It's time for the United States to do the
same." 

From 1914 until 1966, the United States enforced a Robin Hood tax that raised
revenue from every sale or transfer of stock.  Forty countries have employed
this practice—and the policy is expected to be adopted in Europe this year.

SOURCE National Nurses United

Website: http://www.robinhoodtax.org
Contact: Carl Ginsburg, +1-917-405-1060, or Christy Setzer, +1-202-506-6421