Taking a short break from endlessly repeating that the UK “is isolated” and that Nick Clegg “is unhappy”, the BBC was flogging that old favourite “child poverty” chestnut this morning. It brought on former Labour health secretary Alan Milburn (Once a BBC hero) to pronounce on the alleged “rise” in what they call “child poverty”. What struck me was that although Milburn and the BBC are now forced to concede that it is “relative poverty” they are talking about (60% of median wage after housing costs) – they both agreed that poverty is rising even though median wages are falling. No explanation was given for this oddity. Nor is there any admission that “relative poverty” is a leftist invention engineered to ensure perpetual whingeing and a desire as Milburn put it “for higher wages.”
THE POVERTY SCAM
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OXFAM, the big charity industry, the multinational fake charity with political aims. The essence of a degenerate gang who are using the poor, take a look below and see the reality of the BBCs favoured fake charity.
Oxfam—Betraying its Roots and Sabotaging its Own Mission Posted on December 13, 2011 by Anthony Watts
Guest post by Indur M. Goklany
<img src=”http://farm1.static.flickr.com/109/298647486_9c5e121f90_m.jpg” title=”oxfam_logo_big.jpg” alt=”oxfam_logo_big.jpg”/>
Image by net_efekt via Flickr
On its website Oxfam reminds us that its name comes from the Oxford Committee for Famine Relief. Today it claims to work to “find lasting solutions to poverty and injustice.” So imagine the surprise when I read on WUWT that Oxfam is now pushing an international tax on maritime transport.
Why the surprise?
Such a tax would increase the price of all goods that are traded via shipping. First, it would add to the difficulties that many developing countries have in meeting their demand for food. In particular, a substantial share of the food consumed in developing countries is imported:
In least developed countries, cereals account for 57% of the calories consumed. But net imports of cereals amount to over 15% of domestic production. [Data from FAOSTAT.]In Africa, cereals account for 50% of food calories consumed, but net imports amount to 41% of indigenous production.
Thus, even a small increase in the price of imported crops would push many who are already living on the margin in these areas into poverty and hunger. The UN Food and Agricultural Organization estimates that 925 million people suffer from chronic hunger worldwide. Adding to these numbers would seem to be antithetical to the purpose of the Oxford Committee on Famine Relief.
Second, a tax that would increase the price of traded goods would reduce trade and, with that, economic growth. But economic growth is the best antidote to poverty. Historical experience shows that poverty is reduced fastest where economic growth is greatest, as suggested by the following figure.
This figure shows that the most spectacular reductions in poverty occurred in East Asia and the Pacific, where the number of people living in “absolute poverty” (defined as living on less than $1.25 per day in 2005 dollars), dropped from 1,071 million to 316 million between 1980 and 2005. And as anyone who has bought anything in the past few years ought to know, their economic growth was driven substantially by trade.
To summarize, despite Oxfam’s claim that it works to “find lasting solutions to poverty and injustice,” the policies it pursues assures that it will never be out of a job.
In one sense Oxfam is providing a “solution” to poverty in that it is seeking to make us all poor. It’s not a wonderful solution for most of us I’ll grant you but the parasites and authoritarians who now control (and make a nice living thank you very much from) Oxfam will be OK since they’ll be in control of the rationing process.
Interestingly, Oxfam is pushing for a Tobin tax (which the EU wants too) as well as a maritime transport tax (which sounds very EUish too) –
http://www.cidse.org/PressMedia/?id=2737
Down the bottom of the following link page you will see why Oxfam whores to the EU and doesn’t give a shit about poverty –
http://www.nidos.org.uk/directory/details.asp?id=22
DV
Yet another Chomskyan restriction of debate: although Easton mentioned that the “poverty” is relative there was no discussion outside the parameters of how the taxpayers of the private sector are going to be fleeced to pay for their “relative” wealth. No mention, natch, that maybe the import of 2+ million of third world, mainly parasitical immigrants since 1997 (off the plane and on to benefits without stopping to draw breath) might have contributed to this “relative” poverty. Or that, although “relative” poverty might have increased, absolute poverty has declined. Again, natch, Humphrys claimed that the cutz are having an impact: no mention that government expenditure has risen since May 2010 and is set to rise further: no intimation that the “relative” poverty bandwagon will never stop rolling because “relative” poverty will always exist.
Even more insidious was the unchallenged notion – held by both interviewer and interviewed – that government redistribution of wealth was the only solution to alleviating poverty, despite the fact that this method has a 100% failure rate across the history of mankind.
What chances the BBC airing the established fact that capitalism has lifted more people out of poverty than every other ideology combined, and if people weren’t taxed so much they could redistribute wealth themselves, leading to increased employment, higher wages, and, yes, the reduction of poverty?
Agreed. And how many more pensioners would survive the winter if they weren’t forced to pay the BBC’s annual poll tax – which of course hits the least well-off hardest?
Champagne socialist hypocrites.
Milburn, Ashdown, Heseltine Prescott?
Is there the equivalent of Dracula’s Vault under White City?
These and many other past politicians keep returning from beyond the grave. I can’t wait to see Jeremy Thorpe and Ted Heath!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Tax shupping ?!?
What`s the most efficient form of transport for bulk goods over long distances ;
Plane , train , truck ? . No , and as a haulier , I know its shipping .
So Oxfam and other ecoloons want a tax on the most efficient form of worldwide travel of goods .
Unless they know of another form of transport . Carrire pigeon ? bicycle ? compressed air pushing goods through tunnels ?
No , we all know that moving goods across the seas can only be done by plane or ship . And by ship is cheapest .
(Incidentally maritime transport gives a lot of employment to third world countries ) ,
So we can only surmise that Oxfam doesn`t want those goods moved .
Unless we go back to horsedrawn transport .
Oxfam have no problem with transport as long as it enables free and unfettered access to recreational drugs or nannies/delivery boys.
The rest of us can sort out the kites, bikes and electric cars that run on smug self regard…
Hence the fact that Jon Snow and Justin Rowlatt don`t contribute to any airmile count as measured by the likes of Plane Stupid…Gaia smiles like the Teletubbies sun and polar bears slip only on their tears of gratitude and not the melting polar ice caps that are caused by we the lower orders!
Let`s hope the USA refuse the assorted media carpetbaggers any abilty to coin it in and shill for Obama in November 2012…how can we ever meet our 2020 targets otherwise…oh, how I worry!
Oxfam and the other rent-seekers probably don’t care about the relative efficiency of carriage by sea – like all parasites they’re homing in on the revenues. They’d probably advocate taxing air if there was was an existing cash flow to loot. (Did they support globally imposed carbon trading permits? Probably.)
Milburn linked “chold poverty” to social mobility. Neither he nor the Today people noted that under Labour, social mobility worsened.
He seemed to get a minimally interrupted ride, didn’t he?
About 5 minutes into the interview Humphreys changed the focus of the interview, introducing unprompted that the solution to solving the problem of child poverty was simple and in doing so implied that the government had chosen not to do this.
What is the apparent solution?
The government should re-distribute wealth away from the “rich” and give it to those in need.
By introducing this topic himself to Milburn, he not only legitimised what on the basis of plenty of historical evidence is a highly dubious approach, but opened the door to allow Milburn to get onto the Labour party line effortlessly and without contention.
This method of interviewing is frankly disgraceful since the topic is one which deserves some challenge to the failed orthodoxy that has been administered by the previous Labour administration for too long.
Wasn’t this the same Milburn who got the NHS to buy expensive, useless body scanners from a firm he had interests in? He redistributed wealth upwards.
Before entering Labour and Government, Milburn’s only business experience consisted of running a Marxist bookshop. He was therefore emininently qualified to run the NHS as Secretary of State. This is not a man who’s word you would take for the time of day. He is just a thin version of John Prescott. SO THAT’S why the BBC love him, by Jove!.
The BBC are just reporting the news. SKY also reported it in exactly the same way.
Is your problem actually with bias,or the fact that you’re just a right winger who gets upset when alternative view points are given publicity.
I think we all know the truth!
You can’t stop people reporting news, and telling people the truth, just because it happens to be something that the extreme right of the tory party doesn’t agree with.
You’re a minority group.
mathrawk
Are you talking to me? I presume not since it is obvious that my objection to the “relative poverty” is that the debate was one sided. Or at least obvious to me. The BBC is entitled to cover whatever it wants so long as it allows various views. The problem with the State Broadcaster is that it prefers to put forward just ONE VIEW. Now, that is easy to understand isn’t it – unless you are a minority of stupidity? Got it?
The news story was on a government commissioned poverty report………..It’s the only view!
The government commission the report. The Labour party agree with it. What else is there?
“.It’s the only view!”
Spoken like a true leftist. You could work for the BBC.
As I said, your objection is with having to listen to centre ground view points every now and then.
Not bias.
You know, right wingers – from Fox News to the Daily Mail – spend most of their week claiming anyone who doesn’t speak from a right of wing view point is bias.
It’s an opinion based on complete ignorance, and disregard to how anyone else thinks.
Sorry to break this to you, but Labour and the Lib Dems regularly poll over 60% in general elections.
The centre ground is here. Go figure the BBC report this way
I wonder why you struggle to understand the simple truth that our objection that the BBC chooses NOT to represent alternative views on so many issues. In this instance, the “relative poverty” narrative – a leftist invention – is not challenged. Why? Do you think that it is existed. Even Humphyrs made reference to those who do not swallow the “relative poverty” argument – he just made sure no one was there to argue that point of view.
On the broader theme, the bit you fail to understand is that NO ONE is forced to cough up money for Fox, or The Mail, or even god forbid The Mirror. It is the BBC uniquely which extorts cash from us all and therefore we hold it accountable for lack of balance.
If you think you are the centre-ground, you either work for the BBC or suffer from lack of balance. Either way, I reject your peculiar views.
REPLY TO MATHRAWK
“…your objection is with having to listen to centre ground viewpoints every now and then”.
The fact that I don’t hear my point of view shows that I am not represented by a broadcaster that demands my money while not allowing me to be heard in the democracy it is supposed to serve.
“…Not bias…”
Continuingly ignoring what you call the “right wing” is the definition of “bias”.
“…You know, right wingers – from Fox News to the Daily Mail – spend most of their week claiming anyone who doesn’t speak from a right of wing view point is bias.”
No, sir. We ask for honest discussion and do not accept the premise upon which a lot of the current debate is based.
“…It’s an opinion based on complete ignorance, and disregard to how anyone else thinks.”
Postings from any of the major contributors to this website will show they quote chapter and verse on the subjects they discuss.
“…Sorry to break this to you, but Labour and the Lib Dems regularly poll over 60% in general elections.”
Oh dear, and I thought people like you supported persecuted minorities – but not us, I guess
“…The centre ground is here. Go figure the BBC report this way.”
Thanks. I will now give way to the “centre ground” andleave you to close down Fox News, shut the Daily Mail, criminalize this website, burn books, close libraries and leave your dear BBC unfettered, free to shape the views of millions unchecked.
I have no objection to listening to a range of views because that is the essence of a free democratic debate.
I do have a problem with a BBC that seeks to deny their political enemies a free and fair right of reply.
The BBC has become a one sided partisan and biased media giant peddling its own political narrative.
As a side point to this, I have been wondering recently what is the point of Sky News. Its coverage of the Eu and climate change are just as bad as the BBC. I’m surprised it shadows the BBC quite so closely on most issues. There’s certainly a huge space for an unbiased centre of mainstream opinion news broadcaster. I wonder why SKy News does not pitch its tent there. Its viewership would certainly go up.
Yes, SKY news is mostly pretty dire, too.
But I tend to see them erring more on unprofessional ineptitude in pursuit of ratings. Hence Kay Burley slamming down a possible un-PC witness for fear of adverse publicity. Or any ‘scandal’, no matter how poorly sourced, leapt upon simply because the pack is hunting, and where there’s gossip there’s a bonus in more viewers from the X-Factor couches.
The BBC is driven by ratings too; unhealthily so. Yoy don’t score market rates unless you play the games that get your rated in the market.
But there is also a vast ideological aspect, that pervades from the top, through HR down into the septic tank.
Usually the two work in complement.
But it is funny when ideology and ratings are in conflict.
That’s when you get watertight overisght, or editorial Alzheimers, or Johh Prescott not on Newsnight until it’s been given a while.
Humphreys seemd to be more on-message that Milburn.
Also the comparison with Nordic countries is never properly examined – we have a population more than double Denmark, Sweeden, Norway and Finland combined, with far higher immigration levels, so it is not surprising that we have greater “relative poverty”.
As has been stated earlier – as it is a relative measure poverty will always be with us – unless everyone is made equally poor/rich.
Those in poverty or just hard up will have be glad to hear the news I’ve just heard on Radio 5 Live, which told the nation that ‘there’s been a slight fall in the cost of living’.
Unfortunately the joy would have been short lived as the newsreader then told us that this was because the inflation rate has fallen slightly.
Now wonder ther BBC has fallen hook, line and sinker for all of the AGW brigade’s dubious facts and figures if they are so poor at simple arithmetic.
Loved Humphrys introduction…
“So Alan Milburn….what`s happening?”.
Think that set the tone for the whole conflab…
Alan Milburn ran a Leftie bookshop up in Newcastle called “Days of Hope”…local soubriquet was “Haze of Dope”-maybe he and Humph could continue their wringing of wet tissues for the poor in their own time and at their own expense at this Fabian University facility of wor Alans.
Funny that Milburn rediscoves the poor every few years when NHS contracts etc seem in need of renewal…true NuLabor to the marrow!
Compared to Milburn and Humpph…we`re ALL relatively poor.
Hope some muggers feel vulnerable enough to demand redistribution from said moneybagged lefties in due course!
Labour’s mass-immigration policy did more to drive down wages than any other single policy in recent history.
That tosser, Billy Bragg, was whinging about low wages on QT when he was last on there. Strangely though, he spends most of his time hanging around with violent Communist thugs who try to attack anyone who suggests something should be done to cut immigration.
And where does every self respecting good Comrade retreat too, when he’s finished lecturing us all about poverty and closing down freedom of speech with his Communist friends with hatred and violence?
Well back to his squat of course…..Silly….
http://uploadheaven.blogspot.com/2011/12/blog-post_13.html
Such a disgusting left-wing hypocrite. No wonder the BBC can’t get enough of him!
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/8954184/UK-living-standards-second-highest-in-Europe-in-2010-EU-says.html
It’s hardly surprising that “relative poverty” is on the increase. In the past couple of decades we have absorbed about 5 million people, most of whom come from the poverty stricken third world. And an awful lot of them seem to be knocking out kids at about double the national average. We’re importing poverty and all its attendent problems such as poor health and violence.
It’s noticable during the working day the vast numbers of Somalis in Camden and Islington where you could never afford to live. Flat off the Portobello Road in Notting Hill? Certainly, help yourself. Because they have masses of children and it is not of their culture to work, these people are classified as “poor”. Someone who understands the construction of social statistics needs to get a grip on the b*ll*cks of this “relative poverty” tosh. It’s lies, like everything else that comes from the mouths of professional Socialists.
An interesting story about how the aid industry has become so greedy for money it claims famine where none exists, or exaggerates conditions in order to generate income. I did a post when some months ago when the MSM and the iad industry launched their scare mongering and demands for money. The famine industry has become a big money deal and the MSM can be relied upon to pimp all sorts of heart tugging trash to encourage the public to pay up.
By David Blair, Mogadishu
8:00PM GMT 13 Dec 2011
Mr Ali, who leads Somalia’s officially recognised government, chose the week when the United Nations has appealed for $1.5 billion to help his country’s people to deliver a stinging attack on relief workers.
A Harvard-educated economist, he believes they have become an “entrenched interest group”, exaggerating the scale of suffering in order to drum up donations.
The United Nations says that 250,000 Somalis are suffering from famine in three regions of the country, including Mogadishu. Patches of waste ground across the bullet-scarred city, devastated by two decades of war, are filled with the shacks of refugees who have fled drought and food shortages. Children with distended bellies and stick-like limbs can be seen in many of these sand-blown camps.
Seated in his air-conditioned office, Mr Ali said the UN’s judgment that famine had struck his capital was wrong. “I have no idea how this international community makes the grading. You ask them and tell me how they did it. They don’t know what they’re talking about. But what I can say is enough relief came to Somalia and we provided enough relief to those affected by the famine.”
Mr Ali added: “I don’t believe there’s a famine in Mogadishu. Absolutely no. You know the aid agencies became an entrenched interest group and they say all kind of things that they want to say.”
Mr Ali cited a searing critique of aid workers, “Lords of Poverty”, written by Graham Hancock, a British author, in 1989. “I don’t want to be a conspiracy theorist, but I believe a lot of what has been said in the ‘Lords of Poverty’ book by Graham Hancock,” added the prime minister.
Mr Ali leads a government that depends almost completely on outside donations. Somalia, which collapsed into anarchy in 1991, has no tax system and the prime minister’s administration controls little territory beyond Mogadishu.
Its only significant source of revenue is the capital’s port, which brings in around $12m per year. Virtually all of the rest of this year’s budget of $100m comes from other countries. Mr Ali’s government is probably the most donor-dependent in the world.
Nonetheless, the prime minister said that aid workers “became themselves lords of poverty. They say what they want to say. I don’t want to accuse them, but the statistics that they use sometimes doesn’t make sense to me.”
Aid officials were privately incredulous about Mr Ali’s remarks. The UN says that “tens of thousands” of Somalis have died of hunger this year. Mark Bowden, the humanitarian coordinator for Somalia, said the situation was “expected to remain critical well into next year” and that $1.5 billion was needed to meet the “emergency needs of 4 million people in crisis”.
At Walalah camp in Mogadishu, over 1,000 people live in shacks fashioned from cardboard and brushwood. Because of the dangers of operating in the capital, UN relief agencies have only a skeleton presence. So far, no aid of any kind has reached this camp.
Farhiya Abdi has lived in a shack in Walalah since drought killed all of the animals her family once herded in their home village in Somalia’s interior. Her twin babies are both emaciated from hunger. So far, Mrs Abdi has received no food aid whatever. Only donations from the elders who control the camp have kept her and the children barely alive.
“This is worse than the situation back there in the village,” she said. “But I cannot go back there because all the animals are dead.”
The World Food Programme is supplying feeding centres in the city, but the nearest is several miles away and Mrs Abdi is took weak to walk that distance. Her life, she said, was dominated by “hunger”.
Here is how the scam works for the aid/poverty industry.
Go to to a 3rd world area and set up a feeding and aid station, start spreading rumours that free medicines and food is available to those with a sob story.
The poor start to trek in for all the free stuff and come with stories of doom and gloom in order to maximise their chances of free stuff. What they will not show is the 4x4s dropping entire families who then claim to have walked miles, do not show clan leaders training their families in the sob stories needed.
Have camera crews ready and waiting to film the arrivals for the best heart tugging shots which are then pimped around the world by the MSM always ready for a good heart strings tugging story.
Money pours in from the mugs of the West and straight into the coffers of the aid industry, what could be simpler? The aid industry spivs have just enriched themselves with the simplest of scams.
The aid industry works on the principles of emotional blackmail and heart tugging pictures of famine. It is a central weapon they use to extract money and they have become a multi billion dollar industry.
Well worthwhile to ask any mulitikulti bore about Somalia.
If said twerp can give you ONE reason how Somalis are currently adding to the gaiety of the national mix of cultures in our melting pot of lovely things…please let the rest of us know.
Somalia in this case at this time reminds me of a question I once asked about the success of Ted Rodgers…what exactly was he FOR?