The political economy of currency transaction taxes

The speculative currency transaction markets are the largest capital markets in the world with an estimated US$2 trillion being traded every day. By comparison the daily global transactions related to international trade, goods and services represent only a small proportion of capital trades. Speculative flight in times of capital crises has triggered major social and economic disruptions such as those in Mexico (1994), East Asia (1997-98) Russia (1998), Brazil (1999), Turkey (2000) and Argentina (2001). Smaller crises occur regularly including currency speculation losses by the Reserve Bank of Australia in 2002 and corporate disruptions from trading losses incurred by the National Bank of Australia in 2004. Recently (May 2006) hedge funds withdrew vast quantities of capital from Iceland and New Zealand causing major disruptions to financial systems in both countries. Each disruption causes trauma to small and institutional investors and to civil society. The proliferation of transactions and the rise in accommodating and secretive offshore tax havens has created a global shadow economy, which has essentially reconfigured capitalism in modern times. This paper examines the political economy of financial market reform and the financial architecture required to implement a currency transaction tax. The thesis defends an argument in support of global currency transaction taxes based on proposals originally made by Keynes, Tobin, Spahn and Schmidt. There is an urgent need to account for the effects created by the speculative and volatile global shadow economy. Recent developments in hedge fund regulation measures demonstrate that the lobbying power of new financial players create major problems for policymakers and global financial security

Structural Diversity of Copper(I)-N-Heterocyclic Carbene Complexes; Ligand Tuning Facilitates Isolation of the First Structurally Characterised Copper(I)-NHC Containing a Copper(I)-Alkene Interaction

The preparation of a series of imidazolium salts bearing N-allyl substituents, and a range of substituents on the second nitrogen atom that have varying electronic and steric properties, is reported. The ligands have been coordinated to a copper(I) centre and the resulting copper(I)–NHC (NHC=N-heterocyclic carbene) complexes have been thoroughly examined, both in solution and in the solid-state. The solid-state structures are highly diverse and exhibit a range of unusual geometries and cuprophilic interactions. The first structurally characterised copper(I)–NHC complex containing a copper(I)–alkene interaction is reported. An N-pyridyl substituent, which forms a dative bond with the copper(I) centre, stabilises an interaction between the metal centre and the allyl substituent of a neighbouring ligand, to form a 1D coordination polymer. The stabilisation is attributed to the pyridyl substituent increasing the electron density at the copper(I) centre, and thus enhancing the metal(d)-to-alkene(π*) back-bonding. In addition, components other than charge transfer appear to have a role in copper(I)–alkene stabilisation because further increases in the Lewis basicity of the ligand disfavours copper(I)–alkene binding

A Pattern Based Approach to Defining the Dynamic Infrastructure of UML 2.0

The 2U Consortium has recently submitted a proposal for the definition of the UML 2.0 infrastructure. This uses an innovative technique of rapidly “stamping out” the definition using a small number of patterns commonly found in software architecture. The patterns, their instantiation, and any further language details are described using precise class diagrams and OCL, this enables the definition to be easily understood. The main focus of the 2U approach is on the static part of the definition. A further concern when modelling software, using languages such as the UML, is describing the dynamic behaviour of the system over time. The contribution of this paper is to provide a template that can be used to “stamp out” the dynamic part of the UML 2.0 infrastructure. We argue for the suitability of the dynamic template because it makes little commitment to concrete abstractions and can, therefore, be used to support a broad spectrum of behavioural languages

Enhanced cytotoxicity of silver complexes bearing bidentate N-heterocyclic carbene ligands

A diverse library of cationic silver complexes bearing bis(N-heterocyclic carbene) ligands have been prepared which exhibit cytotoxicity comparable to cisplatin against the adenocarcinomas MCF7 and DLD1. Bidentate ligands show enhanced cytotoxicity over monodentate and macrocyclic ligands