Rock-Star Capitalism By NY Post Editorial Board October 13, 2014 | 7:12pm What does it tell you when the leader of the world’s best known rock band has a better grasp of modern tax policy than those responsible for making it? The front man for the rock band U2 got some people’s Irish up after he defended the low taxes of his homeland. “Tax competitiveness has brought our country the only prosperity we’ve known,” said the singer about the Emerald Isle. He’s absolutely right. After touring the world with U2, Bono’s second career as an advocate for the poor — especially in forgotten Africa — has taken him to many spots not found on the standard itinerary for a rock band. Unlike so many others, he learned: The best way for a nation to help its poor move into the middle class is to open up its economy and allow people on the bottom to benefit from the inflows of investment and the opportunities it brings. Bono puts it well: “As a person who’s spent nearly 30 years fighting to get people out of poverty, it was somewhat humbling to realize that commerce played a bigger job than development. I’d say that’s my biggest transformation in 10 years: understanding the power of commerce to make or break lives, and that it cannot be given into as the dominating force in our lives.” Not that it makes him popular. Kind words about business make him suspect on the left, whose favored models seem to prefer perpetual dependency rather than the dignity of self-sufficiency. Meanwhile, the European Union looks askance on anyone trying to compete on taxes, because it prefers a system where everyone’s taxes are the same — sky high. We don’t often look to singers for economic advice. But in Bono’s case, leave it to the rock star to hit just the right note. -- -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
[RC] Rock-Star Capitalism
BILROJ via Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community Tue, 14 Oct 2014 12:41:29 -0700
