What a month. BP's oil spill still gushing in the Gulf, a toxic smell rising from the Basi-Virk trial in Vancouver, and a gusher of sleaze flowing past the gargoyles on the Parliament buildings, as MPs from all four parties locked arms to prevent inspection of their finances. All this, as four of the biggest U.S. banks announced they posted profits on every single business day of the first quarter, even on the day the stock market did its death-defying, 1,000-point plunge. In other words, the megabanks are now disconnected even from the stock market's casino economy, and are operating in a fairy realm run by Harvard-educated quants and inbred, ascot-wearing plutocrats.

Speaking of mythic figures, where's Robin Hood when you need him? I'm not referring to Russell Crowe's latest outing at the cineplex, or Kevin Costner's 1991 clusterflick. I mean the real thing. What if we could somehow combine a revenue-redistributing highwayman with a government levy on business profits made by financial transactions? What if you could cross a swish-looking socialist in tights with a global banking tax?

The "Robin Hood tax," which has gained recent traction as a serious proposal in Europe, is designed as a very small tax on banks and other finance institutions that would raise billions around the word for governments to tackle social and environmental problems. Of course, the proposed levy of .05 per cent is not likely to act as brakes on all the credit sloshing around the global finance system, and there's nothing to stop banks from passing on any losses to patrons in the form of new banking fees, added on "for your convenience."

Nevertheless, the notion so alarmed our prime minister that he dispatched finance minister Jim Flaherty and several other finance-friendly gophers around the world to agitate against it. Word has it that Harper himself was prepared to descend from a helicopter on Mount Ararat, wearing a Dubya-like flight suit emblazoned with RBC, TD and CIBC labels, and holding a tablet inscribed with the 11th Commandment, "Thou Shalt Not Mess With Bank Profits."

At best, we can expect a few impressive-sounding European committees to examine the Robin Hood tax, taking their sweet time shuffling papers and mumbling into microphones, before dismissing the proposal as "unworkable" or "premature." But something's got to give. Without some intelligent redistribution of wealth away from the international banksters, there are plenty of trouble spots in training for Athens 2.0.

Last week I rented a video of the uneven 1976 film Robin and Marian, in which a grey-haired Sean Connery returns home to Sherwood Forest after a 20-year absence. Sickened by the brutality of the Crusades, the middle-aged warrior tries to resurrect his relationship with Marian, played by a gloriously autumnal Audrey Hepburn. In one scene, Connery's Robin confronts a nobleman sent by the king. "I've known your kind all my life. You're everything I'm meant to fight. You're the enemy. You gobble good red meat, and we get bread and cheese. The laws can't touch you. There's no crime you can be punished for, and we can shoot a deer and have our eyes put out."

Robin Hood, a Trickster figure who restores balance by correcting the uneven direction of plunder, would have a very busy schedule today. According to a late May CBS News report, BP contractors and the U.S. Coast Guard threatened to arrest broadcast journalists when they tried to film the oil-polluted shoreline of Louisiana. "Why are the criminals (BP) still in charge of the crime scene?" wrote one anonymous commentator on an Internet forum. "These bastards can destroy the entire Gulf, yet if I light up a f****in' joint, I can still go to jail?"

Many of our modern-day noblemen--the elected and unelected legislators of our times--exist in a bubble of privilege, disconnected from the people they nominally serve and serially screw. They're as cheerfully out of touch as filmmaker Terry Gilliam's version of Robin Hood. "Have you met them? The poor?" asks a vacuously grinning John Cleese in Time Bandits. "Oh you must meet them. I just know you'll like them. Charming people. Of course they haven't got two pennies to rub together, but that's because they're poor."

www.geoffolson.com