These are some issues to remember when thinking about foreign aid, taxes, and the consequences. We can certainly sympathize with Bono’s desire for financial success via his venture capital firm, and the easing of his band’s tax burden by moving its business to the Netherlands. The more income they, and we, are allowed to make and keep, the more that can be given, privately, to those charities they, and we, wish to help.
And private donations are still the best form of charity: They can be directed exactly to those people or programs one wishes to aid, and they avoid the bureaucratic red tape that consumes so much of the funds given in government-to-government transfers.
If only we could get Bono to rethink his strategies for the development of poor countries.