Saturday, January 31, 2009

Sleb drought at Davos

Marina Hyde at the Guardian wonders why Bono isn't at Davos this year:
Easily the most glaring absence, though, is Bono, whose publicist explains he is "finishing an album" - and I suppose everyone has to pay the tax man. Actually, that's not strictly true. Bono only has to pay a few per cent tax, because he shifted U2's music publishing company to the Netherlands. He's spent the past few Davos gatherings badgering governments about progress on the UN's millennium development goals. Fun fact: the Tax Justice Network estimates that if tax was paid on the money the world's rich have protected in tax havens, it would raise $255bn - enough to finance the millennium development goals five times over.
And we wouldn't want to upset the Caymanites now, would we?