Tuesday 9 December 2008

Bono and Bob won't like it

It had to happen. Not only is the UK government taking their usual hypocritical public stance on 'tax havens', now Benny the boy Nazi is having a go too.
See http://www.iomtoday.co.im/news/Pope-has-pop-at-Isle.4770457.jp for more.
I love the bit about 'Offshore markets could also be linked to the recycling of profits from illegal activities.' Also young Ade's understated response about the Vatican Bank.
It needs to be said. At the same time that offshore centres were coming under intense scrutiny from the OECD, and the Isle of Man had the Edwards Report from the UK, the Vatican Bank, along with other financial institutions, were asked by Jewish organisations to take a close look at their World War Two records, consider how much war loot they might have hidden for the Nazis and maybe consider giving it back to the rightful owners. Even Swiss banks 'fessed up, and in the following years as the audit trail got clearer Jewish families started getting their heirlooms back, art institutions discovered the true provenance of paintings they'd acquired, and so on.
The Vatican Bank? Nada - too difficult, too complicated.
Funny-same excuse they're now giving academics who want the Vatican to release wartime records which might show when, if ever, it stopped cutting deals with the fascists. Funny, just as Benny Boy is so keen to canonise the bastard who might have been cutting them when he could have been saving folk from the death camps.
On a less serious note. Wonder when Bono is going to tell his best mate Benny to lay off the offshore stuff.
Wouldn't want any nosy journo asking awkward questions about godly Irish showbiz types and their tax affairs, would we? Offhand, even without bothering to research the matter, I can think of at least five such figures who won't be doing any more Kafflic Yoof rallies for Benny if he doesn't shut it soon.

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