Well, first you see this well-dressed older guy with a briefcase walking toward his obviously expensive car in a parking garage. He’s approached by a gang of hooded thugs who, without saying a word, start relieving him of his watch, billfold, car keys …

It’s a new viral ad from a British group that’s pushing for a transaction tax on banks, which it’s calling the “Robin Hood tax.” Seriously. Starring Ben Kingsley. Seriously.



So the ad goes on like this: The hoods, having taken everything from the terrified Kingsley character, then hand it all back, except for one coin. Then, in a particularly icky moment, they produce a pair of metal snips, thereby terrifying the rich guy some more, but they chop the coin in half and hand one half back to him. All is revealed – the muggers are actually the good guys, because they’re only taking a tiny bit of the rich guy’s money! Geddit?

Just in case you didn’t, a voice-over announces that a 0.05 percent tax on bank transactions would be “small change to the banks,” but would “mean everything to the poor at home and abroad and those fighting climate change.”

The aims may differ, but the Robin Hoodlum idea is not a million miles removed from the bank transaction tax currently being promoted by British prime minister Gordon Brown and just about every other Euro-pol from Dublin to Dubrovnik.

Here in the States, bankers have enough on their plates countering the threat of President Obama’s “financial crisis responsibility fee,” but, for now at least, they can be grateful they don’t also have to defend themselves against Sir Ben and his Robbing Hoods. Who’d want to get into a PR face-off against a guy who most of us still get confused with Mahatma Gandhi? ###