According to http://cnsnews.com/news/article/un-human-rights-advocates-urge-g8-take-robin-hood-tax-wealthy-nations the U.N. has proposed a financial transaction tax (FTT), also being dubbed the Robbin Hood tax. The goal is to put a tax on the sale of financial instruments and route the money into poverty relief and aids research. I don't want this blog site to become political but I do want to engage philosophically with the world around me. I see a trend emerging. As governments expand the financial "safety net" and reduce the tax incentive for charitable donation there will be a corresponding shift of religions out of the charity business. Faith-based organizations are being niche partitioned out. At the same time, government regulations and tax structure have created an environment hostile to small business. In order to remain viable these independent stores will need a boutique style business model or a massive intangible competitive advantage. That's why I'm predicting that in the next few years the trend in church-owned coffee shops will expand into church- owned small business in general. We've had family owned small business for years and ideally a church is large family. Churches will need a place of outreach and a source of revenue, when government takes over the charity business completely. So churches will survive, but what are the other impacts? If we ignore the obvious defect in analogy (Robbin Hood stole the excessive tax money from the abusive government and gave it back to the poor, so the abusive government by definition can't be Robbin Hood) won't the poor be served just as well by a fair redistribution of wealth? In reality, no. Government sucks at helping people. If you pour money on problems they usually get bigger. When someone voluntarily gives up something to help another, even if it's not really a sacrifice, the giver is blessed with the good feeling. The receiver is also blessed, both with the actual gift and with the knowledge that someone out there cares. Its a form of love by proxy and at least some of the time it works. The government takes the money by force and gives it out with the message that you are only receiving what you are entitled to as a human being. How is anyone surprised when this fosters dependency? What a terrible message to send to a people who take pride in self reliance. Government also runs inefficiently. Beyond just the scandalous boondoggles we read about all the time, they will waste an enormous amounts of the money designated to charity on unionized labor instead of using volunteer labor. They'll pay for buildings instead of using donated space. They'll shun gifts of unneeded clothes and furniture because they need raw cash. This will eat up a giant part of our economy and less help than ever will flow to the people who need it most.