Friday 20 January 2017

Go figure...

Twitter is blathering on about a report from Oxfam about income inequality. You've probably seen it. It's quite obviously silly and there's no need to rehash the arguments. What I will say though is that Oxfam have chosen a very poor tactic that undermines what is still a very necessary message. While the statistical trends may show overall growth an inexcusably large number of people still live in miserable, entirely avoidable poverty.

All Oxfam has achieved is to create an opportunity for poverty deniers (yes, I used that word) to claim that there isn't a problem. If there wasn't an urgent issue we wouldn't be seeing the most unprecedented migration crisis of all time. For all that is spoken of it we have yet to see any useful and concerted effort to address it. We still see institutional paralysis from the EU - and trade policies that make it worse. Interesting though that the press would pick up on such a dismal piece of flotsam yet ignore the very valid and damning critiques of EU trade policy written by... Oxfam.

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