Harper - Too busy to meet Bono?

Here is the story from Reuters:

You can stop staring hopefully at that phone, Bono. Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper will not be calling. The Irish rock star turned poverty activist met U.S. President George W. Bush and German Chancellor Angela Merkel on the sidelines of a Group of Eight summit but was told Harper was too busy to talk to him. Harper, a somewhat wooden figure regularly mocked for his lack of flair, told reporters Thursday that meeting Bono was not a priority.

“I’ve got to say that meeting celebrities isn’t kind of my shtick, that was the shtick of the previous guy,” said Harper in a dig at his Liberal predecessor Paul Martin, who met Bono regularly.

“I hope we do it at some point but my principle focus in public policies is not kind of to meet celebrities,” added the prime minister, a Conservative. Activists say Canada is trying to block a deal to ensure that western nations live up to promises to boost aid to Africa. For the record, though, Harper said he liked the music of Bono’s band U2.

My take - Harper should be meeting with world leaders while he has the opportunity. Meeting with Bono is a waste of time and only encourages him. Bono is doing nothing more then self-promotion while continuing to be a hypocrite. How is it hypocritical you ask? Let me give an example.

Bono wants countries to increase aid to poor African countries. Where does this money come from? Believe it or not, Countries donate this money using tax dollars! That’s right, you and I are being taxed and some of that goes into foreign aid. So, how could Bono possible be hypocritical here? Well, what do you do when your music publishing company is based in Ireland and you think taxes are high? Simple. You move the business to the Netherlands. Now his business will pay only half the taxes as before, and none of it to Ireland, who is expected to increase their foreign aid contributions!

That’s right, Bono expects Ireland to pay more, as long as he doesn’t have to contribute. Here’s an interesting figure: As Africa is the continent Bono expresses most concern about, he ought to listen to what the African Union says, Tax dodging by foreign companies costs it $150 billion a year - three times what it receives in aid! Think about it.

So the next time you think the Prime Minister is doing a bad thing by not meeting with a celebrity, ask yourself one question. What has that person actually done to make a difference themselves? I think you’ll find they generally talk the talk, but at the end of the day they horde their millions of dollars and make us tax payers come up with the difference!