Nurses & Bill Gates Back Wall Street Tax at the G20 Summit

The world's second-richest man and a group of American nurses on the frontlines of the Occupy Wall Street protests came to the G20 summit in Cannes, France this week to advocate for the same thing.

Bill Gates came because French President Nicolas Sarkozy asked him to give G20 leaders recommendations on how to raise funds to meet the needs of the world's poorest. Among Gates's proposals: a small tax on trades of stocks, derivatives, and other financial instruments, also known as a financial transactions tax (FTT)…

…National Nurses United, the largest union representing U.S. nurses, came to France from the Occupy Wall Street protests across the United States where they have been providing first aid for the encampments.

In Cannes, they dressed in their scrubs and joined nurses from Australia, France, Ireland, and Korea. This global group then administered an FTT saline drip to an ailing world economy — represented by a man painted in full body art as the Earth.

"The economic decline is literally making our patients sick," said one of the U.S. nurses. "We see more and more children with conditions related to poor nutrition and stress." The solution, according to the nurses, is a Wall Street tax that could generate the revenues needed to address human needs.

Bill Nighy, an actor famous for his roles in "Love, Actually" and other British films, jumped right into the world economy's hospital bed and posed for photos. "People around the world are dying of illnesses that should have been eliminated hundreds of years ago," Nighy said, noting that a new Wall Street tax could help raise the money required to stop those scourges….

http://www.ips-dc.org/blog/gates_backs_the_wall_street_tax_at_the_g20_summit

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