
Annual income of richest 100 people enough to end global poverty four times over - ph0rque
http://www.oxfam.org/en/pressroom/pressrelease/2013-01-19/annual-income-richest-100-people-enough-end-global-poverty-four-times
======
Maro
I recently spent 2 days working on a renovation project at a local slum here
in Hungary. The slum is a couple hundred gipsy families, living in
unfinished/abandoned houses without water, gas/heating, they steal electricity
off the grid. This was during the winter, so most houses just had one heated
room, using wood. The houses didn't have bathrooms, everything smelled of
urine, thrash was left all over the place, inside, outside, everywhere. Since
the locals steal from each other, there were very few movable/valuable
objects, like tables or chairs. Interestingly though, most houses had an LCD
TV, which was surreal, poeple living in quasi-homeless conditions but watching
TV all day. Many families had 5-10 kids, possibly because of lack of
protection and because wellfare is linear in the # of kids here. Many kids
were at home all day sitting around in dirty clothes. I heard one father argue
with a kid and threaten him with school as punishment. According to locals
drugs are a huge problem, with most teenagers having tried out drugs or being
users. Adults were also at home, obviously uneducated and unemployed, possibly
without acceptable "work ethics". The experience was a bit like a post-
apocalyptic movie.

One of the aid people said in an interview that to "fix" this, ie. to
reintegrate this group of people into society will take 2 generations in her
opinion, because the social patterns in their heads have to change (don't
steal, go to school, work, keep a tidy house), and that takes time. I agree.

I don't think just money would help. After I came back the 2nd day, I tried to
imagine what would happen if one of these families got a really nice house and
a bunch of money to go along with it. But since they lack the social skills to
handle property and a law-abiding, "civil life", I think many would gradually
destroy the house, spend/lose the money, and then end back where they started.

TLDR: Ending poverty involves changing people, which takes generations.

This is the project:

<http://www.bagazs.org/en/>

-

An interesting (perhaps) afterthought I had after the renovation work was
whether trying to change people (the gipsies in Hungary) is moral. As a group
I believe gipsies have always lived a different life, navigating at the edge
of society, living in their own communities. Maybe it's just us who should
change and just accept that they want to live a different life? I don't know,
this line of thinking reminds me of Daniel Quinn's Ishmael, where the author
argues that perhaps our way of life is only special because it's aggressive,
in that we annihilate or assimilate other cultures and cannot live alongside
them.

~~~
bjourne
The word "gypsy" is denigrating and they call themselves Roma. You don't call
black people niggers, do you? It's kind of telling that you spent two days on
an aid project for them without getting that.

The discrimination against minorities like Roma and Jews in Hungary is severe.
So it's not fair to blame all the problems on themselves.

~~~
Maro
Fact: They call themselves gipsies ("cigany") when they talk among each other.
You hear it all the time on the subway, and I heard it several times while
working there.

You are right, the PC term right now is "roma". But the distinction between
these two words here in Hungary is nothing like "black" vs "nigger", so your
blaming tone is unjustified.

------
reitzensteinm
Back of the envelope calculations, grabbing some numbers off of Wikipedia:

"In 2005, 43% of the world population (3.14 billion people) have an income of
less than U.S. $2.5/day. 21.5% of the world population (1.4 billion people)
have an income of less than US$1.25/day."

So the bottom 1.4 billion people live on less than $1.25/day.

1/4 of the $240 billion annual income cited is $60bn a year, spread amongst
1.4 billion people yields $0.117 a day.

Assuming that the average income of that 1.4 billion is half of $1.25, that
would give us an ~18% boost to income (not necessarily livelihood).

Which is a surprisingly high figure. Why the hell wouldn't they lead with
that? The title is clearly a fairytale to anyone with any sense.

~~~
rwmj
Plus if you give everyone 18% more money, won't you just end up with 18% (or
more) inflation as profiteering kicks in?

~~~
danielharan
Many people would be able to afford different things, like phones, solar
lights to replace kerosene, smokeless stoves, etc.

~~~
gus_massa
It's much more complex, but if everyone has 18% more money, probably the
phones, lights and stoves will be 18% more expensive.

~~~
danielharan
I know it's complex.

Phones and lights haven't exactly been going up in price with GDP. Stoves in
the valleys I saw in Nepal were mainly affected by distance travelled by dzos.

Throwing your hands up in the air, pronouncing the problem too complex sounds
like a really convenient excuse to do nothing.

~~~
3825
The smokeless stoves are a really good example of a little money going a long
way to help people's quality of life.

------
macspoofing
What a ridiculous assertion. So the implicit claim is that 60 billion (per
year?) is all it takes to end extreme poverty. Does anyone actually think
increasing aid by that amount would actually have that effect? Is it really as
simple as writing a cheque?

~~~
danielharan
They have a report, linked from the article, with references. Care to pick
specific facts to argue about?

------
newbie12
Dire poverty is self-inflicted. Corrupt, heavy-handed governments, pursuing
illogical economic policies or deliberate starvation of opposition tribes. You
could write that check tomorrow and the day after, Zimbabwe or North Korea or
Somalia or even India would be the same. There are places in the world where
the locals are killing people for offering the polio vaccine to children.

Further, global poverty is actually in decline around the world.
<http://www.economist.com/node/21548963>

~~~
pretoriusB
> _Dire poverty is self-inflicted._

Self-inflicted? That is a bullshit western justification. Those poor peoples
have been milked to extinction by colonial overlords and left do die.

Not to mention that their very countries were designed and drawn on the map by
colonial powers, like dividing loot, with no respect to local populations and
tensions (or with full intent to exploit them, in a "divide and conquer"
move).

Or that even today the governments of those countries are appointed and
remotely controlled by western powers, with everything from under the table
deals to open military support for their cronies.

Calling poverty in those places "self-inflicted" is like saying a raped woman
"deserved it".

~~~
adventured
"Those poor peoples have been milked to extinction by colonial overlords and
left do die."

That's bullshit anti-Western propaganda. Those "poor peoples" as you call them
are responsible for their own fates, just as all of us are, no matter the
situation we're born into.

Pity won't save them, and neither will trillions in charity as has been
demonstrated for decades. There has been no improvement from the trillions in
redistributed wealth from first to third world. The only major improvements
have come through vast system improvements, such as in China (and spill over
effects, such as Chinese investment).

They have to take control of their own destiny. They have to fight for their
own freedom, their own property rights, their own right to exist and pursue
their own lives. The West is now very bankrupt, it will soon have no more
trillions to throw at the global poverty issue, it's sink or swim time.

~~~
pretoriusB
> _That's bullshit anti-Western propaganda._

You don't get to have colonies all other the world, exploit people, invade
their countries, have millions of black slaves, and then dimiss the effects of
this as "anti-Western propaganda".

> _Those "poor peoples" as you call them are responsible for their own fates,
> just as all of us are, no matter the situation we're born into. They have to
> take control of their own destiny._

Easy for the 200-pound armed-to-the-gills bully that keeps them down to say
that. But yes, it would be nice if they managed to get control of their own
destiny and pay back some justice. Like take 20-30 million white western
people to use as slaves in their fields.

------
jswinghammer
The larger issue is that programs to end poverty haven't done what they have
advertised to do. Poverty in Africa is getting worse in many areas as the
level of aid has increased. I hesitate to start taking people's money who I
don't know and just assume aren't doing anything better with it to fund
programs that have poor track records. It'd be more exciting if they tried to
fund these things voluntarily and then people can decide freely if they think
someone can end poverty. They won't but it'd just be more interesting.

The other more obvious point is that this nonprofit is claiming the world is
under serious problems and that taking money from others to give to them will
fix it. That is sort of a naked appeal to tax others and put it in their
pockets.

~~~
GiraffeNecktie
People in the first world don't appreciate what a huge diverse place is
Africa. Things are getting better in some places, worse in others but there is
lots of reason for optimism overall. Unfortunately, the bad news tends to get
all the attention, so people here get the idea that development money doesn't
do any good, period.

------
bjourne
Seems most people have a trouble with the number and the report because it is
from Oxfam? The UN came out with a similar number years ago
(<http://www.fao.org/Newsroom/en/news/2008/1000853/index.html>) $30 billion to
end world hunger. Other NGO:s (which I'm to lazy to google) have come out with
other figures in the same ballpark over the years.

I.e if you yourself are not an expert on the global poverty problem then it
takes more than "they are wrong" to refute their conclusions. The report is
downloadable so just check the numbers yourself.

The references makes it clear that the original figure is $175 billion spread
out over two years and is produced by economist Jeff Sachs. His book "The End
of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time" probably contains details on
how it was calculated.

------
swombat
So, shall we just arrest the richest 100 people, confiscate their wealth, and
solve all the world's problems at once?

~~~
danielharan
Holy straw man argument!

In the linked report, Oxfam suggests even more radical things, like closing
tax havens and taxing the capital gains. [sarcasm]Sadly, they do not want to
arrest or kill all those rich people.[/sarcasm]

~~~
swombat
I'm not sure which one you're calling a straw man - my jest, or the entire
original article. I'm going to assume both. Only one of them is intentionally
a straw man.

------
rjtavares
In this article, we learn that we can transform stock price increases into
food and clothes, and that there is no corruption in undeveloped countries.

Hate to be sarcastic about this topic, but that headline needs it.

------
ComputerGuru
OK, and the annual income of the rest of the world is enough to end it how
many times over, exactly? I can guarantee you, more than four.

~~~
sjm
But how much of the rest of the world can afford to give up a year of income?
For the richest people in the world, that's a lot easier.

~~~
3825
you can't force them though, right? you would want them to voluntarily give
the money to you. good luck with that.

~~~
netrus
Their governments could force them, though.

------
edent
Everyone commenting on here wants to believe that they will become one of the
top 1%. No one here wants to contemplate what would happen if they fell to the
bottom 1%.

~~~
tripzilch
"The bottom 1%" is a bit of a useless demographic to contemplate, because of
power-law distributions. The bottom 1% will be dead within about 1.5 years[0].

How's that for contemplation?

[0] rough estimate from current world pop and global death rate, rounded up,
can't be too far off

------
codex
This strongly depends on the definition of poverty. If poverty is:

a) Objectively defined, such as "no person goes hungry"

... then I think this statement may be true.

However, if poverty is defined as:

b) Look at all these poor people! They can barely afford their cell phones!

... then it will never be eliminated, because there will always be a bottom
5%, even as the wealth of that bottom 5% continuously increases. The poor in
the U.S., for example, have never been better off then they are today. And it
may well turn out that living in an unequal society (U.S.) results in more
wealth for the poorest even over living in a society where everyone is equal
(Soviet Union)--but is equally poor.

------
iuguy
Oxfam is a variable charity at best. Oxfam India, for example was found to
spend 70% of what it received in donations on fundraising[1]. In the UK it
spends a significant volume of money on fundraising, paying a company called
Tag Campaigns to raise money in the streets, not without controversy[2][3].

Oxfam GB also acts as a lobbyist in the UK, receives large amounts of funding
from the government and has particularly close ties to the Labour party[4].

I realise that this is easy to construe an attack on Oxfam rather than the
crux of the post, but my point here is that Oxfam have a vested interest in
highlighting such things, regardless of whether or not there's anything
tangible that can be done in order to raise funds. I would encourage anyone
looking to donate to charity to do some basic due diligence on their charity
of choice, and to preferably donate to a smaller local charity first.

[1] - [http://capitalmind.in/2011/06/oxfam-india-spends-70-of-
donat...](http://capitalmind.in/2011/06/oxfam-india-spends-70-of-donations-as-
fund-raising-cost/)

[2] -
[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/retailandcon...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/retailandconsumer/9367193/Charities-
ditch-street-chuggers-after-Sunday-Telegraph-investigation.html)

[3] -
[http://www.charitywatch.org/articles/street_solicitations.ht...](http://www.charitywatch.org/articles/street_solicitations.html)

[4] - <http://fakecharities.org/2011/02/charity-202918/>

------
Joeri
I think focusing on these 100 individuals is counterproductive, as is saying
that their money can magically fix poverty.

If we focus on the demonstrable, then we can say this: (1) income inequality
is increasing, and (2) excessive income inequality lowers the quality of life
of everyone, even the rich ( [http://www.amazon.com/Spirit-Level-Equality-
Societies-Strong...](http://www.amazon.com/Spirit-Level-Equality-Societies-
Stronger/dp/1608193411) ). So, purely out of shared self-interest we shoud all
be figuring out how to reduce the inequality, by whatever mechanism.

The solutions needed to structurally change inequality have to do with trade
policies, laws, political coalitions, borders, cultural interaction, and many
other things which have very little to do with these 100 people and how much
money they have. If we could solve the underlying causes of inequality, then
we wouldn't need to figure out income redistribution schemes that compensate
for a broken socio-economical system.

------
antihero
In control systems we learned about positive and negative feedback systems.
Capitalism is an example of "positive feedback" and without correct governance
(or destruction) is effectively an unstable system, which just leads to a
massive divide between people who got rich and those who are stuck being poor.

------
shocks
Yeah, and most of these rich people are also huge philanthropists that donate
massive sums to charity.

~~~
justincormack
Well, only 19 people have given more than $1bn to charity
[http://www.forbes.com/sites/luisakroll/2011/05/19/the-
worlds...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/luisakroll/2011/05/19/the-worlds-
biggest-givers/) which leaves a lot of people not giving much away. The
Russian oligarchs seem to like to spend money on football teams and mansions
not alleviating poverty, while the Chinese rich do not seem to give much away
either.

~~~
robryan
Well, running football teams and building mansions aren't necessarily wealth
destroying activities. Football teams can be relatively big employers plus
distribute lare amounts to players who then also buy expensive things putting
more money back into the economy.

Many Chinese rich would be very large employers. Also their culture of saving
allows the US to continue spending outside of their means, for now.

~~~
adventured
The Fed is the only thing that allows the US to continue to spend outside its
means for now (including the biggest spendthrift of all, the US Government),
and more specifically the dollar global reserve currency (or FRN).

The Chinese aren't buying any meaningful amount of our new debt these days.
Mostly they just cycle existing debt, from long to short etc as it makes
sense. Ditto the Japanese, who hold almost as much junk US debt as the
Chinese.

~~~
robryan
Ah, I am certainly no expert on the subject. Just trying to make the point
that even these rich that generally are holding onto their wealth for
themselves would be actively attempting to destroy wealth and it has to be
stored somewhere doing something.

------
rxever
Why is this not on the front page of HN anymore? Currently has 35 points and
is 3 hours old. Vs an article "Math in Fiction - over 1000 short ..." that has
22 points and is 5 hours old?

------
jake_D
The underlying assumption of the above headline is that the same amount of
goods will be produced, even if you take the rich'es revenues away from them.
Well, false. Without proper incentives innovation will decline, and the
average purchase power will decrease.

Marxism has been tried and failed.

Perhaps the rich should be taxed differently, but the simplistic assertion
(ending poverty four times over) is obviously false.

------
3825
yes, what we forget is that poor people are just as self-centered and greedy
and profit-motivated and 'evil' as every rich guy out there. What do the
people in nation A need money for? I'd guess the main focus has to be in
infrastructure development: 1. electricity generation and distribution 2.
transportation 3. telecommunications.

What can we do to make these three things as "cheap" as possible? The answer
won't just help the developing countries. It will help everyone.

------
jacques_chester
If giving people money solved poverty, there would be no poverty in wealthy
countries.

------
lampe
this Article is about that the richer People are getting richer and the poor
people poorer...

and this is a problem!

I live in germany a "rich" country you may think... There is a growing part of
people how have a fulltime job but they are getting not payed enough and must
go employment agency to get subvention from the state...

------
JackWebbHeller
We all know it's just not _that_ simple...

------
abrown28
Give a man a fish...

------
jupiterjaz
Peoples definition of poverty changes over time.

