Will Bono and U 2 save the world?

In still yet another example of bleeding heart liberals generously distributing other people's money (opm) as they see fit while carefully keeping their own, Irish rocker Bono and his group U 2  moved their multi, multi million dollar music empire headquarters from broke Ireland to the Netherlands in  2006 to avoid paying his native land's high taxes.  As one of the band members explained to England's Daily Mail

 The Edge has admitted: 'Of course we want to be tax-efficient - who doesn't?'

Tax efficient eh?  But they're a group that

Last year, U2 members were the highest-earning musicians in the world, raking in approximately £80 million. 

(snip)

The band's manager, Paul McGuinness, has previously claimed: 'U2 is a global business and pays taxes globally... at least 95 per cent of U2's business takes place outside of Ireland and as a result the band pays many different kinds of taxes all over the world.'

How generous.  But meanwhile, Ireland is broke, broker...not quite brokest.  So a protest group, believing U 2 should put its money where its mouth and origins are, is planning a protest at during a U 2 concert in Ireland. 

They'll unfurl a large banner and

 float an oversized bundle of fake cash across the crowd, from an Irish tricolour on one side of the spectators to a Dutch flag on the other, during the band's set at the rock festival in Somerset on June 24.

Well that should surely inspire Bono to repatriate to high tax Ireland. 

Tax expert and anti-poverty campaigner Richard Murphy said: 'If Bono thinks he is just like any other Irishman, he should pay his taxes like everyone else. That is the only way for Ireland to break out of the mess it is in.'

But Bono probably doesn't think he's "like any other Irishman" and actually it isn't "the only way for Ireland to break out of the mess it is in"; overhauling Ireland's welfare state, tax and spend mentality would do it but Murphy won't be convinced.

'Bono claims to care about the developing world, but U2 greedily indulges in the very kind of tax avoidance that is crippling poor nations.

'We will be showing the very real impact of U2's tax avoidance on hospitals and schools in Ireland. Anyone watching will be made very  aware that Bono needs to pay up.'

And will anyone be made very aware that Ireland, not to mention broke Greece and frankly the US and all the other countries not so merrily spending other people's money, that the spending has to stop? 

Hopefully a few will. 

And then maybe Bono, inadvertently, will have helped in his poverty fight by demonstrating the dangers of big, intrusive government.

But that's perhaps overly optimistic.

In the meantime President Barack Hussein Obama (D) has more spending plans for our nation.  Oh!  Maybe he can persuade Bono to set up shop here.  This country has poverty; tax receipts have to repair damage caused by floods and tornadoes. 

Here comes Bono, practicing what he preachily sings! 

 

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