I am fully in support of the broad thrust of the report - the inequality at the extremes is simply unacceptable. Numerically the wealthiest 80 people in the world have the same wealth as the poorest 3.5 billion. It is not the same as income, though of course if you have billions in wealth , you will surely have a huge income too. There were of course some negative comments on the report, one of two of which bear some examination.
Radio Jersey covered it with a couple of guests. It was a very poor debate. The respondents conflated income with wealth(assets) and some time was spend bemoaning the tax rates on the middle earners locally. There is an issue there, but it has little to do with the global wealth inequality of the Oxfam report. It is like mistaking a balance sheet for a cash flow statement. However it does raise one of the other argument deployed by some detractors - wealth is an inadequate measure of poverty.
Certainly it is possible to be asset rich and income poor. Dairy farmers in the UK who are getting less per litre of milk than it costs to produce might well be in that position. Conversely it is possible to have high income , but no net wealth, especially if you have a 'high maintenance' lifestyle. It is half the reason some celebrity footballers and performers quickly go bankrupt if their income stream declines.
This conflation of income and wealth is one of the key points made in a derogatory piece in the Spectator. They include this graphic
The same article then goes on to make a real howler of a claim. According to the Spectator this graph show inequality is falling long term. It is true there is a drop from 2000 -2010, but even they admit there's been an 'uptick ' in more recent years. But clearly the level in inequality is higher in this decade than it was at any time in 1960's, 1970's or 1980's !
Perhaps the most valid of the problems directed at the wealth report is the impact of debt. The measure Oxfam used is effectively net assets, so people in debt are identified as the poorest, poorer than those who have no assets, but no debt. That means, for example, if you have negative equity on a house you are likely regarded as poor. However that fact hides a twist. Generally you can only go into debt if yo have surplus income over basic requirements. If you have no visible means to pay back a loan you are very unlikely to be able to secure one. Where it does prove possible for the income poorest it in place like India where bonded labour abuse is used to effectively enslave people.
Debt might also distort the picture in another way. It is quite possible to have wealth in shares that are valued significantly but in companies that have 0 or even negative net asset value. We are not talking small companies here either. Currently, for example, I believe BT has NAV of 0. It is not magic - as long as the business can service it debts it may have value. But therein is the problem It own BT shares are they count as an asset, even though they have no asset value! The company has no wealth, but if I have some shares in them I do have wealth. It looks like a paradox arising from the artificial separation of concerns between the owner of the shares and the owner of the debt.
While it is clear the top 80 have huge wealth, and the bottom half almost none, the question arises who are the one percent. The distribution of wealth follows a power law. At the higher end a small change makes a big difference. $3,500 net assets puts you in the top half globally 4. To be in the top ten percent requires around $77,000. The mean wealth of the top 1% is about $2.5million, but the lower end is around $800,000 (A little over half a million pounds).
Half a million pounds might seem an impossible sum to younger readers, but it is attainable. Someone in their fifties who has paid off a mortgage on a three bed detached house with a garden in Jersey is almost there. I don't know if the Oxfam methodology accounted for it, but social security is another implied source of wealth. Taking just the pension aspect, if you are near to claiming the age pension in Jersey you are in effect getting an index linked annuity, with full contributions, of £10,200 per year. To purchase such an annuity would cost roughly £300,000 at age 65 5. Many developing countries do not have a functioning state pension system for the poorest, who do not have the disposable income to contribute into any system. All that is before considering any employer or private pension arrangements.
A pensioner living in a mortgage free house on no more income than the state pension wouldn't strike most people as particularly rich , certainly in income terms. Yet such a person might arguably be in the one percent globally. Which makes the point that if our pensioners are wealthy, the poor globally really are poor. The other observation worth making is that it is exactly this fifty year old mortgage free cohort who attend parish assemblies and vote in our elections. Do you think that is a coincidence?
1 http://jerseyeveningpost.com/news/2015/01/03/jersey-should-not-have-such-high-levels-of-poverty-says-chief-minister/
2 http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2015/01/what-oxfam-doesnt-want-you-to-know-global-capitalism-means-theres-less-poverty-than-ever/
3 http://www.statista.com/statistics/191077/inflation-rate-in-the-usa-since-1990/
4 http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2014/10/daily-chart-8
5 http://www.pensionchoices.com/annuity-rates/index-linked-annuity-rates/
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