The UN wants to put taxes on video games to help the poor

February 24th, 2008, 11:43 Posted By: wraggster

This is one of the options the UN is taking into account in its attempt to find new ways of financing its fight against poverty.

Philippe Douste-Blazy, the newly-appointed Special Adviser on Innovative Financing for Development for the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, has recently declared that the branch he is leading (the UNITAID- the international drug purchase facility hosted by the UN World Health Organization) is behind schedule with implementing the measures required by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) agenda:

"We are halfway in the timetable with the deadline in 2015, but we are not halfway in terms of results. The truth is we are late." He added that global development assistance has fallen for the first time in 10 years.

In order to find new resources, Douste-Blazy, who was also the French Foreign Affairs minister and a member of the European Parliament, said to French newspaper La Croix that "the UN is reflecting on the possibility of putting taxes on video games and Internet commerce to finance the fight against poverty". Another option would be to convince citizens to "contribute voluntarily with one or two euros".

The high-ranked official unveiled the fact that more than $500 billion are needed to reach the targets established by the world powers in 2000. Although to some this might look like an insanely huge amount of money, Douste-Blazy said that transactions worth more than $1500 billion are being rolled on the world's financial markets every single day.

Mr. Douste-Blazy's conclusion is that "new means" of financing are necessary, like putting taxes "on Internet video-games and the e-commerce".

However, the irony is that in the fight against hunger and poverty, money is actually not a problem. Corruption is. Prestigious magazine Wall Street Journal has recently unveiled that more than 90% of the funds allocated by the World Bank for Indian health programs have been wasted on badly executed repairs or have simply vanished (read "have entered the pockets of corrupted Indian officials"). This adds to the massive thefts registered in Africa, where tons of food, medicine and construction materials never reach the hands of the poor.

And speaking of corrupted officials, not a year has passed since Paul Wolfowitz's resignation from the World Bank, after it was found that he personally negotiated a generous salary for his mistress at the US State Department. Former UN Secretay-General Koffi Anan's son was also investigated for using his father's influential position to obtain preferential oil contracts in Irak, during Saddam Hussein's reign.

We're just curious: what kind of new taxes does the UN have in mind, since the gaming industry is already paying a lot of taxes?

http://www.playfuls.com/news_12350_T..._the_poor.html

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