live8

- - | 01.06.2005 10:33

Five 'Live8' concerts have been announced for 2 july in London, Paris, Berlin, Rome and Philadelphia. The events, organised by Live Aid’s Bob Geldof, are a star-studded response to ongoing third world poverty timed to impact on the G8 finance talks taking place in Glasgow that week. The shows will be free to the public.

Here are some of the performers:

Madonna
Personal wealth 2004: £215m

"Her earnings last year were reckoned to be £15m, a large slug of which came from advertising Gap. From 1986 to 1993 her total earnings were about £125m, according to Forbes magazine. She married Ritchie in 2000. The couple's properties include a £7m Mayfair home, an £8m Beverly Hills mansion and the 1,200-acre Wiltshire estate."

U2
joint wealth 2004: £426m

"Ireland's most famous band consists of Paul Hewson (Bono), above, 42; Adam Clayton, 44; Dave Evans (the Edge), 42; and Larry Mullen, 42, who share U2's fortune equally with Paul McGuinness, 52, their manager."

Sir Elton John
Personal wealth 2004: £175m

"For five weeks a year for the next three years, the 2,000-seat Coliseum at Caesar's Palace, Las Vegas, will be home to John, 57, whose 75 performances will earn him, as he admits, "£400,000 a show, plus extras" under a £35m contract."

Sir Paul McCartney
Personal wealth 2004: £760m

"McCartney was said to earn more than £40m by The Sunday Times Pay List last year."

Robbie Williams
Personal wealth 2004: £68m

"I'm not bothered that they've never heard of Robbie in the US. I've got enough money to last me a lifetime."

Sting
Personal wealth 2004: £175m

"Sting, 52, has shown his love of Italy by buying a vineyard for £4m and by contributing to restoration projects in Florence. The rock star took £23.4m salary from his company Steerpike in 2001-02 and from 1995 to 2002 his salary and dividends totalled £103.7m."

Annie Lennox
Personal wealth 2004: £30m

DIDO
Personal wealth 2004: £10m

Chris Martin
Personal wealth 2004: £10m

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live8. you’re the pro8lem.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/richlist

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Comments

Hide the following 9 comments

01.06.2005 11:26

So if people are wealthy are wealthy they are not allowed to campaign on issues relating to poverty ? Interesting theory.

awful

01.06.2005 11:58

Rich, Creative, Good looking (in some cases)and Succesfull. My God how dare they !

Rich poppy syndrome here so beloved of the tabloids and now a part of the activist world as well - Shame

realist

Right to criticize

01.06.2005 13:37

It is not just that these people are rich but that this event is just a spectacle, an event encouraging passivity, and one incapable of penetrating to the roots of a problem its stars can't hope to fathom in a million years. This moralising crusade may assuage their guilt but it can't hope to go anyway towards overturning the social relationships that continue to produce the poverty that undoubtedly troubles them so much. Because of this, and because so many people seem to think that they desrve credit for their efforts, it is in fact a noxious event and should be rightly condemned by those who want to see any real end to poverty.

tony marrillo
mail e-mail: tonymarrillo@hotmail.com

Fans get the popstars they deserve

01.06.2005 14:06

It should be remembered that it is the music fans that put pop stars where they are! If you don't like the idea of megastars and supergroups then fans should seek out good but struggling pop groups playing in small dingy clubs. Music fans should stop leaving it to the proffesional music journalists and radio DJs to discover new groups and go out and find them for themselves. There's loads of good, talented bands out there playing down the local dive waiting to be discovered. Why not support those groups instead of going to see superstars like Elton John, U2 and Westlife all the time?

Tom

the pro8lem

01.06.2005 19:44

>>So if people are wealthy are they are not allowed to campaign on issues relating to poverty ?

in the last 25 years people's aspirations have changed a lot in the UK. with the end of socialism and the coming of thatcherism at the end of the 70s, the american dream spewed across the atlantic, seeping into every pore of life in this country. It didn't happen all in one go - it happened steadily and with increasing domination until today we live the american dream whether we want to or not, whether we realise it or not.

The american dream is about living on hope and about legitimising greed. ordinary people see the possibility of enormous wealth, of escape from the drudgery of ordinary everyday life, or simply of getting more, and they aspire to wealth, fame, both, and material escape.

The costs of living on hope, of living a consumer life dedicated to ‘self-interest’ (a new labour aspiration), are high. War. The murder of children by cruise missile. Terrorism. Destroyed communities. Degraded cultural life. Degraded individuals. More oppressive law enforcement to protect the concentration of political power in the hands of the fabulously wealthy and their client MPs. Greed fuels all this.

Where do pop stars fit in? they are role models whose social acceptability legitimises personal greed. Massive individual wealth becomes a perfectly acceptable aspiration for anybody. the acceptability of greed is supported by showy acts of generosity - philanthropy. But plutocratic philanthropy has been going a long while now. a couple of hundred years maybe. And what of the poor in all that time? how did the philanthropic plutocrats, the charitable multi millionaire popstars help them? Well, a hospital here, an immunisation programme there, an art gallery maybe. but still there are the poor and the war ravaged. more millions of them in more desperate straits than ever before. Popstars legitimise the way things are and they’re in the way.

Help the poor: kill the american dream.

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http://www.live8live.com/

02.06.2005 11:44

click on the link-

http://www.live8live.com/

~~~
Homepage: http://www.live8live.com/

click on the link

02.06.2005 12:58

"On Wednesday 6th July, the eight leaders of the most powerful and richest countries in the world will gather for a summit meeting in the town of Gleneagles in Scotland. These men can make poverty history and change the future for hundreds of millions of people – but they will only do it if enough of us tell them to."

rich peeps preaching??? no one listens to people who don't lead by example. that is, unless you're a self-interested consumer who loves pop stars. and, look around, you've got to admit, the nation's full of them. blair thinks macca's great. bush likes bono. granny loves madonna. nice one. on your way to glasgow then everyone.

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02.06.2005 14:21

Geldolf is quite canny. This might get a lot more people up to Scotland.

silent bob

03.06.2005 10:38

for all his talk about abolishing poverty, i've noticed bob has been silent on certain issues: notably private property, profiteering and the wage system - so long as these are in place, there is no chance of making any dent on poverty.

yes, cancellation of debt and fairer trade would be desirable, but so long as there is no attempt at redistributing wealth and dismantling this economic system which produces inequality, it will make no long term difference. it's just fiddling with peripherals, trying to put a human face on an inhuman system.

poverty will persist for as long as capitalism exists.

anarchomackem