Hitchhikers guide

You know those horror stories you used to hear when you were a kid, where a friend of a friend picks up a hitchhiker only to later discover that the hitchhiker had died years before, or was the the spirit or serial killer, or whatever? Well how much scary would it be to pick up a hitchhiker only to discover it was noted celtic caterwauler Bono, leader of the famous Dutch beat combo U2.

Edmonton Oilers center Gilbert Brule found something very unusual on the side of the road while taking a drive in West Vancouver -- U2 frontman Bono, the Edmonton Journal reported Thursday... After hopping in, Bono, by now sitting in the back beside the couple's dog, told them they had gone for a walk only for it to start raining.

[From Professional Hockey Player Picks Up Hitchhiking U2 Frontman Bono - FoxNews.com]

A nightmare from which you might never recover. But if it does happen to you, there may be therapy available at this year's Glastonbury Festival, a traditional English fayre at which the privileged gather to listen to members of the artistic establishment bemoan capitalism (except for record companies). This year, however, anti-tax avoidance protesters finally going to make it a happening and relevant place, as it used to three decades ago...

Members of activist group Art Uncut will hoist a massive inflatable sign with the message 'Bono Pay Up' spelt out in lights during the Irish band's headline performance.

[From 'Saint Bono' facing huge Glastonbury protest ¿ for avoiding tax | Mail Online]

This is because the communist ingrates are upset about U2's perfectly natural tax avoidance strategy. They are just doing what anyone else in their right mind would do, and adopting perfectly legal tax avoidance methods in order to minimise their payments to governments, thus leaving as much money as possible in their own hands for their own good works.

Ireland changed its tax laws in 2006 so that the earnings of artists fell within the tax net if they exceeded Euros 250,000 a year. Extraordinarily, they had been exempt whatever the amount until then. For 99% of all artists this did not, of course, have any impact on their tax affairs. For Bono and his U2 colleagues it did... and despite the fact that they could have kept them in an Irish company and have paid no more than 12.5% tax... They did instead shift the place in which they recorded their royalties as being earned to the Netherlands. As a result they cut the potential tax they might pay to no more 5%, because that’s what the Netherlands allows.

[From Netherlands » Tax Research UK]

These good works, naturally, include investments intended to boost the amount of money available charitable donations, third-world debt relief and so forth downstream.

Bono, the Irish rock star, is being hailed as "the worst investor in America" as his five person investment team Elevation Partners reels from a series of unprofitable investments. It's believed that the rocker has lost millions by investing with Elevation... which investment trade papers are calling arguably the worst run institutional fund of any size in the United States.

[From U2's Bono called the worst investor in America | Irish Business | IrishCentral]

Hhhhmmm. Perhaps Bono had the wrong investment advisor.

I wonder if he sold his gold records as well.

In the future, everyone will be famous to fifteen people.
[posted with ecto]