Geldof Blasts eBay

Live 8 organizer Bob Geldof has lashed out at the Internet auction site eBay -- calling it an "electronic pimp" -- after pairs of tickets for the upcoming London event have been listed for as much as 10 million pounds ($18 million).

Well Bob, first off, you're accusing eBay of doing the selling. It's not eBay, Bob, it's the individual sellers who are listing the tickets on eBay. eBay is merely providing a venue for making the sale. Just as you're providing a venue for pimping out these artists for your own profiteering on the backs of the impoverished people that your event allegedly benefits. eBay makes a market where there is apparently desire for both seller and buyer to agree upon a price and a means to make a desired exchange. Accusing eBay of profiteering is a bit like saying the New York Stock Exchange is immoral for selling the stock of various gun manufacturers. "Guns don't kill people, people kill people." Stock exchanges that provide a market for investors to buy and sell stock for gun manufacturer's don't kill people, people who misuse guns kill people. That example may be an extra layer removed than what you're saying. My point is, target your wrath appropriately.

Second, Bob, not everyone who's selling on eBay is profiteering at the expense of the impoverished. How do the impoverished people suffer by someone else selling tickets for an event that they may never even know about? Anyway, back to my second point... As a seller on eBay, I can say that eBay has been my best bet yet for ketting out of - and staying out of - the clutches of both poverty and of the culture of corporate greed. I'm probably one of the very few people in the world who understand the karmic benefits of working through poverty. While everyone else is whining about the condition of the impoverished people, I'm using the experience as motivation to overcome the situation and make something of myself. And I'm making something of myself by building a business of my own, starting by selling stuff on eBay! I don't care if anyone holds a concert for me; that doesn't mean a thing to me.

By lambasting the free enterprise system, Bob, you're attacking the very means by which an ambitious, capable person such as myself could possibly break free of dependence on a culture of corporate greed, where companies like Worldcom and Enron build their own executive bankrolls while keeping their employees in a state of near-poverty, and stealing from their retirement. It's the free enterprise system that made America great. Don't destroy the opportunity for people to get out of poverty by attacking an avenue to success (eBay), and by mollycoddling people away from such avenues to success with handouts and a fish for a day.

Om Sri Angarakaya Namaha