When Oxfam talk more sense than the ASI and the IEA..

From Oxfam's actual report (page 10-11 of summary):

The mainstream economic justification of inequality is that it provides incentives for innovation and investment. We are told that billionaires are the ultimate demonstration of the benefits of talent, hard work and innovation, and that this benefits us all.

Yet there is growing evidence that the current levels of extreme inequality far exceed what can be justified by talent, effort and risk-taking. Instead they are more often the product of inheritance, monopoly or crony connections to government.

Approximately a third of billionaire wealth is derived from inheritance. Over the next 20 years, 500 of the world’s richest people will hand over $2.4 trillion to their heirs – a sum larger than the GDP of India, a country of 1.3 billion people. Monopolies fuel excessive returns to owners and shareholders at the expense of the rest of the economy.

The power of monopoly to generate extreme wealth is demonstrated by the fortune of Carlos Slim, the sixth richest man in the world. His fortune derives from an almost complete monopoly he was able to establish over fixed line, mobile and broadband communications services in Mexico. The OECD found that this monopoly has had significant negative effects for consumers and the economy.

Monopoly power is compounded by cronyism, the ability of powerful private interests to manipulate public policy to entrench existing monopolies and create new ones. Privatization deals, natural resources given away below fair value, corrupt public procurement, or tax exemptions and loopholes are all ways in which well-connected private interests can enrich themselves at the expense of the public.

And so on and so forth. That seems like a fair summary to me. Their actual recommendations are a bit wishy-washy and vague, but at least they are on the right lines in identifying the causes of massive concentration of wealth - monopolists who add nothing to the economy and are only rich because other people are poorer. In no way can you construe the report as anti-capitalist or anti-free trade.

I'll mark Oxfam down for confusing "wealth" with "income" though. If interest rates fall and share prices go up, then that doesn't really change anybody's net income. You can't live off share prices, you can only live off the dividends. Similarly, it is the ongoing payments of rent which make tenants poorer and the landlord richer, not how much the house changes in value. Who cares what Carlos Slim's business is worth - what matters is that every Mexican is overcharged by a few $ a month, which all goes into Mr Slim's pockets.

Enter stage right, the Neo-Libs, who clearly couldn't be arsed to even read the summary document and just trot out the usual irrelevant story about capitalism and free trade being A Good Thing. Well of course they bloody well are, and the Oxfam report doesn't say that they aren't.

Mark Littlewood in City AM:

More needs to be done to break down trade barriers and to encourage more countries to replicate the radical free market policies that led countries like South Korea, Japan, and more recently China from grinding poverty to great wealth in a single generation.

This means advancing property rights and ending corruption in countries like Zimbabwe, privatising state monopolies in Venezuela, and working to abolish trade barriers such as the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy.

Charities like Oxfam should be out leading the charge on these issues. But instead of focusing on those who have too little, this report again relentlessly targets those the charity believes have too much.

From The Daily Mail:

Sam Dumitriu of the free market Adam Smith Institute said that every day for the past 25 years, capitalism has lifted 138,000 people have been lifted out of extreme poverty.

He said: 'The report is, as ever, exceptionally misleading and misses the point - we should care about the welfare of the poor, not the wealth of the rich. As China, India and Vietnam embraced neoliberal reforms that enforce property rights, reduce regulations and increase competition, the world's poorest have received a massive pay rise leading to a more equal global income distribution.'

'It's the countries that rejected free markets that have bucked the trend. In Venezuela, the move to socialism under Chavez and Maduro has meant that more than 75 per cent of the population now live in poverty with many unable to afford basic necessities like food and medicine, despite having the world's largest proven oil reserves.'

All of which highlights that these Neo-Libs are being paid to dress up privilege, corruption and monopoly power as free enterprise.

"Afghan aid misspent: Oxfam report"

First, skim-read this extract from The Vancouver Sun...
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Several aid workers criticized the multi-tier contracting system used by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), Washington's central aid co-ordinator.

"You have contract after subcontract after subcontract, which just kills everything," said a senior employee of a USAID contractor. The report says many contractors are widely regarded as "absorbing a huge volume of funds in consultant costs," while delivering a finished product or service that's often of questionable quality or relevance.

Some projects are also "supply-driven" — meaning they're imposed from the top down, when there isn't always demand or need at the grassroots level. In one example, about $6 million of U.S. aid was spent on developing an Afghan women's business federation, but it failed, largely because "there were no credible ground-level women's business associations," the report said.

In some sectors, U.S. aid-delivering agencies seem to lack strategy and co-ordination, the report said. In an example given by one aid worker, 15 U.S. agencies worked in the energy sector, each with its own vision. Another aid worker told how two separate contractors, both funded by USAID, by chance discovered they were doing virtually the same project, in the same place.

The Oxfam criticism follows a recent report by the American Academy of Diplomacy, which said staff cuts at USAID over the past two decades had severely undercut its ability to manage aid contracts.
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Which is all sad enough, but now tell me, how is that any different to the way the UK government wastes our taxpayer billions? It would be nice if we could persuade Oxfam to issue a similarly damning report on government spending in the UK.

"From poverty to power"

Oxfam have come up with yet another report that conflates all the wrong issues and comes up with the wrong solutions.

According to the summary in The Metro;

Urgent action is needed to prevent millions of people being dragged into poverty because of rising fuel and food prices, Oxfam warned yesterday. Poor countries must slash their carbon footprint and invest in greener energies, while giving their people more of a voice, the charity said.

'Unless we act quickly, the gap between the haves and the have-nots will grow uncontrollably,' said Duncan Green, author of From Poverty To Power, 'We face either catastrophic climate change or serious economic decline. Either way, the poorest will be hit first and hit hardest.'

Every year, 30 million children are born facing a lifetime of poverty, poor nutrition and sickness.

Leaving aside all that crap about 'greener energies' (which are far more expensive than traditional sources!!); leaving aside the crap about the 'gap' (making rich people poorer does not make poor people richer); leaving aside the crap about 'catastrophic climate change' (global temperatures peaked a few years ago and are now going down again); how about this for a simple solution:

Simply invite those people who are reckless enough to have 30 million babies each year, regardless of the fact that that they 'are born facing a lifetime of poverty, poor nutrition and sickness' to ... er ... stop having babies?

The same logic applies to welfare claimants in the UK, of course. Heck knows why the welfare system encourages it.

Cutting out the middleman

This report by Oxfam suggests that we might as well scrap aid payments and send them weapons instead.