It is a sad fact of human nature that we give more of a crap about what attractive people and/or celebrities say than the rest of 'em.

My guess is that Bono would rationalize this because he spends his extra dough on charity so he is really only taking money from a rich government that would waste it and giving it to truly needy people.

Bono not only gives a lot of money to DATA and other effective aid organizations; he also chooses to pay his taxes in Holland, which gives a much higher proportion of tax revenues to international aid than does his native Ireland.

Why slam Bono? His millions, and whatever funds he's using privately rather than through the public sector, amount to a pittance compared to, say, the number of well-heeled Northern nation liberals who get write-offs for adding humans to the planet and buying/driving SUVs and depreciating second or third houses.

Dean, you're great, I've read you for over a decade. Please don't go /The Nation/ route of knee-jerkedly slamming people like this, in order to pump up your writing/column. Joe Steiglitz and Jeffrey Sachs are also members of the Plutocracy, as evidenced by your considering them more worthy as news sources than, say, the people in the local areas harmed by globalization.

The real answer is for the NYT to get off its 'rrhoids and out of Manhattan, and report on things on the ground from the perspectives of people living there. Which isn't going to happen. Pundits, liberal and conservative, would rather play Monopoly with each other, using virtual experience and channels as the game board and prestige as the funnymoney.

Agree with the slasha on this (although as a former musician I may be biased).
Swing and a miss for The Dean on this one.
Doesn't bother me much, though, as Mr. Baker is still batting somewhere near .990.
That would get him a 10-year, $130 million contract in the Majors, and (doubele-bonus...!)a lifetime membership in the "plutocracy"....

Right, let�s not be beastly with Bono. After all, a lot of football stars and U2 began declaring their profits & assets in the Netherlands before he did. The Rolling Stones put themselves under that flag of tax convenience in nineteen-effing seventy three.
Okay few of these tax dodgers have had any pretensions about helping poor people far away. But hey, does foreign aid =really= do that? Look at Africa. The foreign aid system, steered by US Treasury Secretaries and others Bono like to chum up with, =and= by people like Jeffrey Sachs, has been calling all the main economic policy shots in most Sub-Saharan countries since the late 1970s. The result? Even the World Bank�s poverty stats, which have been pretty convincingly trashed for their over-the-top optimism, show that those getting by on a dollar a day or less rose from about two-fifths around 1980 to about a half of the Sub-Saharan population more than two �development decades� later. We�re talking about nearly a doubling of the absolute number of very poor people. Against that kind of evidence, it�s hard to talk about foreign aid as �help�.
Meanwhile capital flight, a bit of it siphoned out of the aid system, made sub-Saharan Africa a net =creditor= to the West. And that thanks to a system whose skids were greased by Western tax laws including those of the Netherlands and its jurisdictions the Caribbean.
Does Dutch public spending give Holland and the rest of the world give better value for money? Compared with US government outlays, no doubt about it. But there again, who�s aiding whom? By last count, about two thirds of Dutch foreign aid was spent in, or otherwise made its way back to � the Netherlands.

Mr. Baker,

Really a low blow here from an otherwise trustworthy and even-keeled source (you). Bono has been a consistent and persistent voice on the issue of third world debt relief - oftentimes risking the alienation of his fans to push the issue forward. His impact has been striking and goes far beyond photo ops and publicity stunts. Can you imagine this issue being discussed outside of finance circles without him? If only more celebrities would devote themselves to overlooked issues like this.

Keep up the good work, but please follow up on this one - I think you really missed the boat.

I'm not offended like everyone else, just amused that the decision to nail the(hardly saintly) but still good guy Bono to the wall because he legally resides in a country where he doesen't have to pay high royalty taxes. I'm certain in general he probably ends up forking over much more in general taxation in high-tax Netherlands than comparably low tax Ireland, but boy! Dean really doesen't like IP rents, does he?.

Folks,

I'm actually not trashing Bono's soul here. I just think that he makes a very bad pitchman because of his tax dealings.

How does it look to have some ultra-rich jet setting musician telling people who spend their days working as factory workers, fire fighters, school teachers etc. that they should pay more in taxes to help out the world's poor, when Bono has actually moved to another country to lower his tax bill?

Foreign aid is already extremely unpopular in the U.S. (partly because people hugely exaggerate its importance in the budget). I was very happy to see Bono join the crusade for debt relief back in the 90s. I think that he did play a very positive role. But, now that his tax dealings have been more widely exposed, I think he hurts the cause more than he helps it. I would rather see someone in a position less vulnerable to ridicule lead the charge.

dean

credibility or not Bono is a better salesman than any of those economical scholars you mentioned.

as long as there are tax breaks to be found, rational people will take them.
there is not much to be gained by being the only kid on your block who pays more taxes than he needs to in order to demonstrate solidarity with the downtrodden.

the whole point about writing good laws that protect the commons (and that means the common people as well) is to accomplish what a people cannot accomplish as individuals.

I wonder why so many feel the need to rush to Bono's defense? It's not like Dean was calling him evil. And all this rationalizing about Bono's tax strategy makes me gag -- why shouldn't Bono pay taxes like us normal people? Or, to put it another way, who better to model good wealthy-taxpayer behavior than Bono? And, while I'm at it, why do all these wealthy people feel such a burning need to be even wealthier than they already are?

I digress. I don't think Bono is evil and I agree with Dean's post. It's not the biggest deal in the world but why couldn't the Times have asked someone other than a tax-sheltered celebrity to weigh in on the issue?

Just because normal people pay taxes doesn't make it something to support. I personally feel so bad about how the (US) government uses our tax dollars that I want as little of my money as possible to go there. I would do the same thing as Bono (but fly way less than he does): pay as little in taxes as possible and decide for yourself where you are going to put your surplus money. I feel I have a much better judgment on where I want my money to go than a bunch of corporately dominated rich people who like to decide it for me.

A bit off topic, but not too much..
Dean and others, I've always wondered about the economic inefficiencies in rich people (e.g. Bono, Bill Gates, Buffet) donating to charity. After all, Gates fleeces the rest of us and passes a fraction of that on. If there wasn't a Windows monopoly, Gates would obviously not be very rich, and the cost savings for the population could be huge and much larger than Gates' fortune. Could those savings be passed on to charity more efficiently through taxation?
I mention Gates as an example because I've felt very ambivalent (primarily how efficient it really is in its handouts) about his foundation. I'd be interested to know if someone has studied the matter more systematically.

Vara

"I just think that he makes a very bad pitchman because of his tax dealings."

Hard to believe that. As others pointed out, he reaches millions, maybe billions, of people that the entire profession of economists would never get to listen to them.

I'm sure we all think we know better than the people who run things. But really, most of those people are no better or worse than the rest of us -- who's to say any of us would do any better if we were in charge? I don't love paying taxes, and I have just as many problems with the way my tax dollars are spent as anyone else -- including people like my father-in-law, who is a bedrock religious conservative (he would never vote for a pro-choice candidate, believes creationism should be taught in the schools, etc., etc.). Let me just say this: There's nothing noble or principled about tax evasion, unless you're trying to make a symbolic point of it and are prepared to suffer the consequences.

Like DRR, I'm not offended in the least, but alas I am a stickler for fact.

Are you sure, Dean, that Bono became a Dutch citizen? My understanding is that the U2 song catalog was transferred to a Dutch entity, reducing tax exposure. I think there is no necessary or actual connection with citizenship here. You may want to confirm and revise appropriately.

Much about Bono here.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=aqdKjGJi9cHc&refer=home

Bono's foray into private equity, via Menlo Park, California-based Elevation Partners LP, has clashed with his ideals at times.

Elevation's first investment was a stake in two computer game companies, Edmonton, Canada-based BioWare Corp. and Los Angeles-based Pandemic Studios LLC. BioWare makes a war game called ``Destroy All Humans 2.'' Pandemic's catalog includes a war game called ``Mercenaries 2: World in Flames,'' depicting a mercenary invasion of Venezuela.

Bono is not an American. He should keep his opinions to himself when he is a guest in other people's homes or countries. What a ridiculous little hypocrite.

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i agree with this article a shocking hypocrite who should be told where to go by governments of the west
the reality of the world is that we live like we do because they live in abject poverty
the likes of bono should well remember this and refrain from the excesses of him and his pretentious celebrity "MATES"
stick to music and shutup we aren't interested!!!!!

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