Must have been a Monday

[Sir] Bob Geldof is angry about European farm subidies:

The CAP is a protection racket Al Capone would look at in admiration and be proud of. Why do Europe's farmers need protection? Farmers are being paid to look after fields - they are just gardeners. Some are growing stuff through subsidy that we don't even need - then we are paying more taxes to store the stuff we don't need and more taxes to destroy the stuff we don't need. The CAP was responsible for the butter mountains and the wine lakes. These surpluses are also being shipped out to Africa and destroying local markets and economies. It is not giving people a chance to get back on their feet. The CAP should be scrapped and farmers should be open to competition. We're not a free market. There is no free trade. The CAP is anti-free trade....

CAP is killing people. Africa is only eight miles down the road from Europe and it is in conceivable that there is starvation and poverty there while huge amounts are wasted across Europe on farming subsidies. Europe gives 65 cents -just over half a euro -to the average poverty-stricken African in aid in a year, whereas a surplus cow in Europe gets 848 euros a year.

Hat tip to the Adam Smith Institute Blog.