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Big Paychecks for U2 Millionaires Oct. 26, 2007 The Associated Press U2 Ltd., the Irish band's music publishing company, raked in $30 million-plus last year — and $25.8 million of it went to five unidentified "employees," according to documents obtained Friday by The Associated Press. Those "employees" are suspected to be the band members and their longtime manager, Paul McGuinness. But U2's public relations firms in Dublin and London refused to confirm that. While Bono has won accolades worldwide for raising awareness of Third World poverty, he has been criticized for moving U2's corporate offices out of Ireland to avoid...

If you're looking for a map of world poverty, check out the "2007 Index of Economic Freedom" jointly published by the Heritage Foundation and The Wall Street Journal. You might think that's a strangely titled source for a poverty map. The 13th edition of the "Index of Economic Freedom" examines 10 economic characteristics of 157 countries. Among those characteristics are property rights, monetary stability, and freedom from government, trade restrictions, business regulations and government corruption. Using these measures of economic freedom, countries are ranked. Hong Kong and Singapore, as they have for 13 years, rank as the world's two economically...

While attending an ATHGO World Bank symposium last week at the World Bank Group headquarters, I was exposed to hundreds of young men and women falling over one another in their attempts to help the aggregate of the third world population. The set of defined objectives we were all striving to implement were the United Nations eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The eight goals - crafted in 2000 at the UN Millennium Summit - "when achieved, will end extreme poverty worldwide by 2015." The conference itself focused on goals one, two, and six: ending extreme poverty and hunger, providing universal...

BusinessWeekMAY 6, 2002 ECONOMIC VIEWPOINT By Robert J. BarroThe U.N. Is Dead Wrong on Poverty and Inequality   According to the U.N., growing poverty and inequality are the world's main economic threats, and unchecked globalization and market expansion are largely to blame. For example, the 1999 Human Development Report says: "When the market goes too far in dominating social and political outcomes, the opportunities and rewards of globalization spread unequally and inequitably...The past decade has shown increasing concentration of income, resources, and wealth." In response to the perceived threat, the U.N. proposes to improve governance, by which it means an...