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When did he lecture you? And since when is The Boomtown Rats genre "so called music?" And if they had money to buy his albums, they must not be poor, and they must have jobs so they can't be empty. How much of his profit does he actually keep for himself? No one here can answer that question (I think...). But seeing what he has done with Band Aid, Live Aid, Band Aid 20, and what he will do with Live 8 and The Long Walk to Justice, to put this man as a profiteer such as Bill Gates or Donald Trump is absurd.
When I've seen the hardship you've caused some sellers on Ebay it makes me soooooo mad. If I ever see that Geldof I'll say "Geldof, Noooooooooooooooooooooooooo" "You didn't make your money because your so called music was sold at cost" "You made it because your music was sold at over inflated prices at a time when demand was high for such a racket" "Yes, you profiteered from the empty lives of the poor who felt the need to spend what money they had on your tunes" "So Geldof, don't lecture Ebayers about morals and profiteering" "Go look in a mirror if you want to see a profiteerer"
Ok.
Yes, Geldof is a business man, and a very good one at that. We know this, he knows this. Anybody, employee or employer, is somewhat of a profiteerer - we all want to make money/profit, right? Bob's included in this.
While he aims to make money just like anyone else, he also loves playing music. This is an understatement really, but it's something he happens to have a talent with (though there are conflicting opinions on his Rats and/or solo work, the sheer ability to compose and create tunes is a talent within itself), and something he genuinely feels he's great at doing (performing live, mostly).
Now I don't know at all what you mean by Bob making the poor feel the need to spend their only money on his tunes. Is this a reference to 'Do they know it's Christmas?' The Rats' tunes? His solo work? All of it? To add onto meekus' post: If you meant just his music (Rats or solo) in general, I find your statement false. He didn't force anyone to buy that, and it's the consumer's choice to purchase what he/she wants to, poor or not. If you meant Band Aid's song, then, he had his (very good) reasons in repeatedly asking everyone to buy it...and, again, he still never literally ripped money out of consumers' pockets to buy that song. And, the big red flag here, he didn't keep any of that money for himself, so no profit for him there.
With the eBay stuff, people are making money/profiteering for the wrong reasons. That's a completely separate issue and quite unrelated to a man who's trying to make a living just like everybody else.
Im an eBay member and a long time member of the eBay Q+A boards, though I wasnt invovled with Live8 or selling tickets I do have some opinions on the subject.
IMO the comments made by Mr Geldof were extremely badly thought out and have had a bad effect upon the eBay community as a whole.
Part of what we do on the eBay Q+A boards is help people. We work to stop people from being ripped off by scammers, shillers, illegal items ect as well as bonding as a community and regularly raising money for various charities. We're a funny bunch really. What we've always done is try to reinforce eBay's rules and work through the proper channels such as eBay itself, FACT, BPI ect. Auction wrecking is a big no no. Although the main line of wreckers is that they belive they are preventing people from losing out to scams and enforcing eBay by ruining the auctions they pick its frowned upon greatly as they can often wreck auctions that are innocent by accident and vigilante action doesnt improve our society at all.
The open public encouragement of this activity has damaged the balance that has been built. Now wreckers no longer need to enforce eBay rules. When they were encouraged the items were being objected to morally. Now everything that people feel they dislike is subject to wrecking. Items that are nothing to do with tickets are being bid into the thousands because wreckers dont like them, contact details for people suspected of offering tickets are being pulled by these fake bidders and pasted in public, mob mentality now rules with open endorsement by someone they see as being able to getting eBay to act. When morals object to such a wide range of item (fur, leather, animal products) where are the boundaries now set? The fragile leash has been broken now and what little kept the wreckers in line, where before they wrecked certain auctions now its outright destruction.
This is going to have a long lasting impact and we've already started to see the effects with the influx of new posters onto the boards.
The other comment that I objected to was the encouragment for hackers to attempt to hack into eBay and bring down the whole site.
Ebay is used by millions of us from people who have started a business right down to little sellers who are just getting rid of old stuff. This sort of action is called cyberterrorism and would effect every one of us. From my point of view, Im disabled and cannot leave my house without a great deal of pain and problems. I use eBay to help bring in a little more money by selling of some of my old items and I can buy items that I cannot get to the shops for. I and millions of others would suffer for something we werent even involved in.
That would also include the 130+ charities registered to eBay as well and hundreds of them not registered to eBay's charity section who have thousands of auctions running for varous causes including helping poverty, animal rights, age concerns, preventing abuse. Again these charities would suffer for doing nothing wrong.
To have refused a donation from eBay into the thousands has some questions. Its widely publicised that Live8 isnt a charity so that means the donation from eBay would have gone to a charity for the disadvantaged. Im not sure how others feel about this but something tells me the disadvantaged of sick people would not refuse a donation as most charities rely on them. It was refused on their behalf.
Perhaps this situation could have been handled far better than it was. For now the rest of us have to deal with the consequences whether we were one of the few hundred involved or the millions not.
i like geldof, i buy his stuff, ive seen his shows, i like the fact he shakes people up
however i feel he would sound a lot more credible to the people on the streets if he stood up for the things that kill poor people in the west also
for instance the nhs in the uk is crap, it would be nice to hear him have a dig at that
for instance the homeless problem throughtout the western world is bad
at the moment he looks dangerously close to endorsing the likes of gordon brown who is part of a government responsible for spending massive amounts on public health yet delivering terrible terrible health services to the people
on the writing off 3rd world debt issue, im not convinced this wont just free up more money for the corrupt regimes to waste rather than use it for the health and education of their people
... for instance the nhs in the uk is crap, it would be nice to hear him have a dig at that ... at the moment he looks dangerously close to endorsing the likes of gordon brown who is part of a government responsible for spending massive amounts on public health yet delivering terrible terrible health services to the people
I'm no fan of NEW Labour and you are entitled to your opinion about the NHS but I disagree with you. I have found the NHS to be very good - the people definitely and the service, yes that as well - even before NEW Labour started setting their silly targets for NHS performance, like the service is a bloody seal jumping through hoops. My opinion.
And BTW, Geldof is Irish (from Eire) so why should he care about the state of the NHS anyway?
he may travel on an irish passport but he lives in england im pretty sure
and in my view poor treatment of the man on the street or poor in the western world is just as valid as the issues with the third world
i disagree with your assesment of the nhs, unless you think waiting more than 9 months for potentially life saving diagnosis and treatment is acceptable, unless you think people moving with their job being returned to the beginning of the list (often never to actually get to see an nhs consultant), if you think sub third world treatment options, dirty hospitals, etc etc to be acceptable, i dont, i think labours experiment with throwing money at the problem has failed, and the only way forward is for individual consumers (patients) to have the ability to take their custom elsewhere, just print them a cheque when they are diagnosed if need be, and let them take it anywhere including abroad for the best treatment in their view, for after all consumer pressure is the only thing that keeps the rest of business on its toes, the nhs is badly flawed - top down dictats will never improve it
i think one of the major issues in the developed world is the access to decent health and education for the ordinary folk, and many countries are bad at this, the uk especially so
the nhs is crap it lets prostrate cancer patients die a slow death with none of the good new techniques medicine makes available, it makes a very high percentage of patients more ill than when they first went in, it puts up signs telling the customers to go away, things that really are not acceptable
... however i feel he would sound a lot more credible to the people on the streets if he stood up for the things that kill poor people in the west...
The line for getting your cause endorsed by Bob is over there. Yep, the one that goes twice around the block.
Seriously, Geldof will stand for the causes that touch him personally. He does what he can to change the world for the better, the best way he can. He cannot endorse every single cause on the planet, however just it is! As for being credible, I think he's quite credible enough, or the line of people wanting him to support *their* cause wouldn't be that long.
The Man in The Pub wrote:
"You didn't make your money because your so called music was sold at cost"
"You made it because your music was sold at over inflated prices at a time when demand was high for such a racket"
"Yes, you profiteered from the empty lives of the poor who felt the need to spend what money they had on your tunes"
What the Hell are you talking about?! If you mean that Geldof profited in his music career because of Band Aid or Live Aid, you're so dead wrong it's not even funny. The Boomtown Rats had hits after hits long before Band Aid. A new BTR album was due out not long after Band Aid, but they decided to delay it so the sales would not interfere with the Band Aid single sales. When it finally came out, In The Long Grass was a failure as far as sales go, and The Rats split up shortly after. Geldof has often repeated that people now see him more as a political figure than as a musician. I don't think any of his solo albums were a big commercial success.
angel wrote:
Im an eBay member and a long time member of the eBay Q+A boards, though I wasnt invovled with Live8 or selling tickets I do have some opinions on the subject...
angel, thanks for your insight on the subject. I'm also an avid eBayer, but I actually cheered when I heard that Bob and his minions got eBay to pull the Live8 ticket auctions. I must admit the consequences on eBay are quite unfortunate, and I doubt that Bob put a minute of thought about them. What I'm wondering though, is why didn't eBay pull the auctions when Geldof asked them to in the first place? As far as know, the tickets clearly say "not for resale", and I'm not going to go in the moral issues as i'm sure you are quite aware of them.
id rather bob had a go at the people ticket touting, and making a big profit for gigs all the time, the corrupt goings on that allow touts to always end up with front row seats, the dodgy practises at the likes of ticketmaster
all of these things take money off the public which could go to better causes
as for ebay, i think ordinary folk should be allowed to sell just about anything they came across legally
its the folk who intercept tickets at the agents making a big buck that should be challenged
not this event but all events
i'm not expecting bob to have a pop at the nhs, or anything else ive mentioned, im just reflecting that he would probably get more respect if he did, just trying to make conversation on this board
We're a funny bunch really. What we've always done is try to reinforce eBay's rules and work through the proper channels such as eBay itself, FACT, BPI ect. Auction wrecking is a big no no. Although the main line of wreckers is that they belive they are preventing people from losing out to scams and enforcing eBay by ruining the auctions they pick its frowned upon greatly as they can often wreck auctions that are innocent by accident and vigilante action doesnt improve our society at all.
