Bubblehammerblog

It seems that on the eve of the release of the new U2 Limited album, No Line on the Horizon, some of the band's protesting Irish compatriots are saying that Bono and his business partners are robbing the world's poor.

When the Irish government revised its generous tax exemption scheme for artists, U2 Ltd shifted its assets to a finance company in Holland. Considerable sums are involved, the U2 Ltd wage bill alone for 2007 was £21 million, and the new album is expected to sell millions worldwide.

Aside from depriving the exchequer of a small and struggling nation of millions in revenue, the campaign group Debt and Development Coalition Ireland (DDCI), says that the U2 Ltd decision will also adversely effect the Irish government overseas aid budget.

A DDCI spokesperson said: We wanted to raise our concern that while Bono has championed the cause of fighting poverty and injustice in the impoverished world, the fact is that his band has moved part of its business to a tax shelter in the Netherlands...Tax avoidance and tax evasion costs the impoverished world at least $160 million (£142.5m) every year. This is money urgently required to bring people out of poverty.


I've heard some people say that Bono is a squit who has become a byword for inflated self-importance. I've never met him, but I can't say I like the cut of his jib. I've listened to U2 Ltd albums and seen a couple of shows, and these certainly are pompous and self-important, replete with bombast and empty posturings, and in the end bereft of any import. But that's just my view.

Ponder for a moment the vacuity of the title of the new album. I haven't heard it, but Jim Carroll, the Irish Times blogger has had a preview, this is what he says.

[It's a]blustery, burpy, over-cooked melodrama...an album to fill stadiums, newspapers, radio stations, web sites, quarterly target spreadsheets, bank balances, pension funds and investment opportunities in the tech sector.

For another account of Bono's Irish scandal see Where the Cheats Have No Shame by Harry Browne.

And you might also profitably read Irish troublemaker Eamonn McCann's piece Make Bono Pay Tax in the current Counterpunch.

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