Oxfam or Oxscam? Inequality Leon Louw What is it? Is it increasing? Is it unjust? Is it excessive? How fare the poor? South Africa? Leon Louw

DisClaimer Personal view: Oxfam = Oxscam Oxscam flimflam Dictionary definitions of ‘flimflam’: trick or deception .. swindle or confidence game .. skillful persuasion or clever manipulation of the victim deceptive nonsense; twaddle; fraud Oxscam’s track record: Dodgy data Dodgy staff I care about the poor, not the rich

DisClaimer I’M NOT DENYING INEQUALITY AND POVERTY I’M EXCITED ABOUT HUMANITY’S GREATEST ACHIEVEMENT I CARE ABOUT THE POOR, NOT THE RICH DECENT PEOPLE CARE ABOUT THE POOR, NOT THE RICH OXSCAM IS OBSESSED WITH THE RICH (EXCEPT THEMSELVES) AT THE EXPENSE OF THE POOR

Inequality hysteria The world is the grip of an inequality feeding frenzy fueled by extreme claims News-hungry media soak inequality propaganda uncritically Power- and wealth-hungry politicians love it Inequality propagandists advance vested interests: Lavish jobs and lifestyles Status and power Oxscam flimflam

Oxscam ethics Oxscam's ‘deputy chief executive quits .. over prostitution scandal’ Oxscam officials ‘brushed off allegations of child abuse’ Crime authorities ‘have been warning since 1999 that predatory paedophiles .. gain access to .. children’ Oxscam admits it ‘failed to adequately act (on) behaviour of staff’ Head of counter-fraud unit jailed for R1m fraud (£65k; Edward McKenzie-Green)

Oxscam salaries (Daily Mail) Oxfam spends 25% .. on wages and running costs .. R11.6m (£700k) on .. 7 top staff. Only R5bn (£300m) from its R6.6bn (£400m) .. was used for ‘charitable expenditure’. Oxfam rewards executives with banker-sized salaries and benefits (including) school fees for executives' children. Oxfam is under intense pressure over questionable fundraising practices.

Oxscam salaries CEO: R2.1m (£130k) + expenses R2.3m (+£12,000) Dep CEO: R1.6m (£100k) ‘.. staff .. earning more than R1.6m doubled in 7 years’ ‘.. Staff with .. More than R1m.. tripled’ to 100 (£60k) ‘.. Wage bill increased 48% to R2bn last year’ (£122m) Gender advisor: R1m ($80k) Gifts officer: R900,000 ($75k) Shop manager: R600,000 (€40k) SA intern: R100,000

Oxscam’s essence Characterised by Obsession with wealth; hatred prosperity Disinterest in and disregard for the poor Portrays the opposite of reality Readily available facts denied or ignored: equality and prosperity denialism Extreme sensationalism Designed to deceive – smoke and mirrors Shifting and contradictory assertions Failed ideology propaganda - propose policies that maximize poverty and inequality No interest in what minimizes them

Oxscam’s vested interest Maximum poverty Minimum prosperity Maximum government Minimum enterprise

Oxscams 8 richest are ‘wealthier’ than poorest 50% Reality: 8 richest combined wealth: $440bn (Forbes) It’s ‘peanuts’! (World’s nuts are worth $440bn pa) (World’s 42m mt peanuts worth $365bn-Sainsbury 100g@£0.65=$365bn) World wealth: $300tr (Credit Suisse by narrow definition) 8 richest have 1/600th of world income 8 richest have 1/600,000th of world assets Richest 1% ‘bagged’ 82% of 2017 wealth and poorest 50% ‘got nothing’ Reality: Assertion fabricated; CS data misinterpresented

Oxscams 2017: 8 own same as poorest 50% 2018: 42 own same as the poorest 50%. Which is it? ‘Recalculated’ 8 to 61 If 8 to 42 more got rich If 61 to 42 there’s more equality (the rich good poorer) Billionaires number rose at ‘unprecedented rate’ (1 every 2 days) Reality: Previous alarm was that the number is declining; new alarm that it’s rising The Oxscam is that rising and falling are bad

Oxscams 2016: 62 own as much as the poorest 50% 2017: 8 (or 61) own as much as poorest 50% 2018: 42 own as much as the poorest 50% Yet the number of billionaires is increasing Wealth of the poorest 50% has fallen by 38% Reality: In 1 year! Obvious sensational nonsense

Oxscams Richest 1% own more wealth than the rest (99%) Reality: ‘The rest’ includes governments, institutions, middle class, land owners, etc ‘The rest’ own everything the 1% paid to employ them, and earned by selling to them Incomes of the poorest 10% increased less than $3 pa between 1988 and 2011 Incomes of the 10% to 50% increased spectacularly where economies liberalised Why does Oxscam ignore success?

Oxscams 1% of humanity controls as much wealth as the bottom 99% UNICEF says richest 20% has 83% of global income; 1% for poorest 20%. Reality: What does ‘control’ mean Does the 1% include: Politicians? Workers (through funds)? Welfare recipients? Voters?

Oxscams Oxscam methodology shows more poverty in the USA than China IEA called Oxscam data ‘bogus’ because ‘adding assets and subtracting debts to estimate net wealth’ implies that rich credit-worthy people with debt are poor ASI called Oxscam data ‘misleading’ because ‘meaningful measures show greater equality’

Oxscams 1 CEO earns what 10,000 Bangladesh garment workers earn Reality: Disingenuous to compare world’s richest person with world’s poorest workers 1 CEO earns what 1,000 CEOs earn 1 Oxscam CEO earns what 1,000 workers Milkman has more that 100m poorest Richest Vietnam man earns daily day what poorest earns annually Why? So what? Spurious nonsense

Oxscam agenda Maximise poverty Promote envy, suspicion and conflict Popularise and legitimize disinformation Pull down the rich without lifting the poor End ‘extreme wealth’, yet no suggestion that: The poor are harmed by it The poor will benefit from ending it ‘extreme wealth’ is gained immorally The rich serve humanity Advance failed ideologies

World’s 8 richest people Bill Gates (ICT-Microsoft) $75 bn Amancio Ortega (fashion-Zara) $67 bn Warren Buffett (investment-Berkshire) $60 bn Carlos Slim Helu (ICT-Grupo Carso) $50 bn Jeff Bezos (ICT-Amazon) $45 bn Mark Zuckerberg (ICT-Facebook) $44 bn Larry Ellison (ICT-Oracle) $43 bn Michael Bloomberg (media-Bloomberg) $40 bn Total $440 bn

Reality vs Oxscam By all criteria: Extreme poverty virtually eliminated Things have never better for nearly everyone nearly everywhere Life expectancy from 30 to 65 Literacy from 10% to 90% Global wealth $300tr

The real world MGDs exceeded 80% reduction in world ‘poverty’ in only 36 years, from 27% to below 5% Welfare spending in market economies far exceeds non-market economies, up from 1% (1900) to 20% Child labour down to zero in rich countries The poor risk and lose lives to go to where the richest people are – why? Life expectancy up from 30 to 65 Illiteracy down to zero in rich countries etc

Quality of life equality 75 years ago the poor had few or no ‘amenities’: Healthcare Motorised transport Services Housing and appliances Education Entertainment Communications (phones): Calls, mail and texts Information ‘Internet of everything’

‘Inequality’? What is ‘wealth’? Capital? Personal or household? Intellectual capital (skills, qualifications)? Public capital (hospitals, roads, schools etc)? Jobs? Assets (disposable)? House? Savings? Furniture? Car? Valuables (eg art, jewelry, rugs)?

‘Inequality’? What is ‘wealth’? Possessions (non-disposable)? Personal (appliances, TV, fridges, microwaves, phones, clothes etc)? Household? Businesses (big, small, micro, agriculture) Incomes: Pre or post tax? Personal or household? Salaries & wages, return on savings or investment, welfare?

‘Inequality’? What is ‘wealth’? Welfare & government? The paradox of socialism: Socialists (like Oxscam) get bigger government and more welfare, yet value it at zero Pensions, healthcare, education, infrastructure, SOEs, housing, policing, transport, services etc amount to massive wealth owned by the poor

‘Inequality’? Other criteria: Rights (equality at law) Endowments Age Skills Health Support (family, community) Genes: Gender Race Appearance Intelligence/drive/energy/aspirations

‘Inequality’? Under what conditions would they be ‘equal’? Beautiful healthy brilliant young woman vs Ugly old sickly retarded man Real world ‘equality’ Cannot even be conceived, ley alone defined (except equality at law)

What would make them ‘equal’?

Causes of inequality Causes of inequality: Government (laws and policies) Effort and skill Inheritance and luck Savings and investment Immorality and crime Value to society Judges Entertainers Entrepreneurs Beggars etc

What’s the problem? Spectacular rise of billions from destitution The rich getting richer in return for saving, investing, employing, supplying The poor getting richer faster than the rich

Sources Human Progress (www.humanprogress.org) Johan Norberg Steven Pinker Matt Ridley Cato Institute Every index!

end Oxfam or Oxscam? Contact: jboccaleone@gmail.com +27 82 904 3616 www.freemarketfoundation.com

Gini indices since WW2

Gini indices since WW2 Depiction can mislead