In comes as no surprise to me that the smart people in Autralia are also fully alert and aware of the Kyoto-like stupidity of Live-8 (see previous three blog entries). Writer Aidan Hartley (no pic!) writes in The Australian from Nairobi: “Oh Lord, this will mean more Mercs for jerks”
“OH Lord, won’t you buy me a Mercedes-Benz,” prayed Janis Joplin, and the Lord obliged. With or without divine intervention, the late Pope had one. Mao Tse-tung had 23 Mercs. Today, Kim Jong-il owns dozens, all filled to the gunwales with imported Hennessy cognac.
Hitler, Franco, Hirohito, Tito, the Shah, Ceausescu, Pinochet, Somoza – they all swore by Mercedes. Saddam Hussein liked them so much he probably had shares in the company.
Today, though, there is one man who is doing more than the Lord himself to buy a Mercedes-Benz for the leading creeps of the world. That man is, of course, Bob Geldof, the spur to our global conscience.
Africa’s leaders cannot wait for the G8 leaders – hectored by rock star Bob and his Live8 concerts into bracelet-wearing submission – to double aid and forgive the continent’s debts. They know that such acts of generosity will finance their future purchases of very swish, customised Mercedes-Benz cars, while 315 million poor Africans stay without shoes and Western taxpayers get by with Hondas. This is the way it goes with the WaBenzi, a Swahili term for the Big Men of Africa.
After joyriding their way through six Marshall Plans worth of aid, Africa is poorer today than 25 years ago; and now the WaBenzi want more.
The WaBenzi’s preferred Mercedes is the S600L, a long-wheelbase limo with a monstrous 7.3-litre V12 twin-turbo-charged engine. It’s as powerful as a Ferrari and 6.4m long. Its basic price is pound stg. 93,090 ($218,000), but extras could be pound stg. 250,000 more.
PTBC was founded by Mr. Johannesen in 2000.
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