Jean GADREY Blog Archive On the rich 1%: Are Oxfam figures phony?
Some critics have attacked the Oxfam study on global inequalities in wealth, the object of my ticket yesterday. Commentators have pointed to me, for which I thank them. Here's why I think these criticisms, although accurate on some points are generally unfair and excessive, and in some cases laughable.
Oxfam did well to conduct and publish this study and its figures, undoubtedly imperfect, are defensible and fair, in that they are transparent about the method (which also facilitates critical ...) and they rely on the best sources available today.
It is true that these sources are themselves very imperfect, but if we had to wait for good global data on private household wealth produced by statistical boot rack institutions such as the UN or the World Bank, c ' Perhaps in twenty boot rack years we might have determined the current level and recent developments such inequalities! In many crucial areas, boot rack we must at first "to do with what we have," and in this case what we have is not zero at the point that we should reject it.
We had a similar problem with the data of the ecological footprint, which have long remained doubtful while helpful. Progress has been made, but uncertainties and flaws remain. It is quite possible that the absolute levels of per capita footprint in the world are reliable with an uncertainty of plus or minus 10%. But even with that margin, but good statisticians deem unacceptable, even if it was twice as large, the fact that humanity consumes long been much more renewable resources than nature can renew, would be a reliable result and of great use. Above all, DEVELOPMENTS OVER TIME this measure of ecological pressure humans are nonetheless very reliable. The same goes for global wealth inequality studied by Oxfam.
I'm not sure that critics, including Alexandre Delaigue (see this link), know the difficulties faced by statisticians to measure levels and inequality boot rack of household wealth. Even in a country like ours, with my eyes institutions among the most serious in the world (INSEE, statistical services of the ministries, the Bank of France, CNIS as imperfect but valuable democratic tool), it is a very complicated case. It took heavy work of the 2000s, I participated as a member of CNIS, so advanced are carried out, particularly on financial boot rack capital, badly identified before, much better since even if there are holes obvious (think of tax havens). So imagine what it can be in the world, where the vast majority of countries do not have comparable quality tools! This is undoubtedly a sign of the times: they are today, we deplore it or not, the financial institutions that have the best (or least bad) data heritages in the world, as it is the reinsurers that provide the best figures on the costs of disasters ...
In late August 2009, in this post, I was using a source other than Credit Suisse, the World Wealth Report published by Merrill Lynch and Cap Gemini (who know the population: these are their customers ...) on dollar millionaires in world, 8.6 million people in 2008, representing 0.13% of the world population), which together held end 2008, excluding primary boot rack residence, assets "that can be reinvested" in the amount of 32,800 billion.
In June 2010, I récidivais with this post "The crisis is over ... for the very rich. When will the ISF World? ". I used the World Wealth Report (WWR) of 2010. The number of dollar millionaires in 2009 had found the figure 2007 record: 10 million people worldwide. Their total fortune also had virtually recovered its pre-crisis: 39,000 billion at end 2009. Part of the rebound was certainly the application of well-known slogan "taxpayers of all countries, unite to help the very wealthy out quickly from the crisis they caused "
There are other sources of wealth of the very rich: the Knight Frank report wealth and the Boston Consulting Group. boot rack What about today? The 2014 WWR provides boot rack figures for 2013. They are "excellent" and confirm wholesale changes pointed by Oxfam. It is to the fortunes of millionaires, to a total amount of 52,600 billion and the report anticipates
Some critics have attacked the Oxfam study on global inequalities in wealth, the object of my ticket yesterday. Commentators have pointed to me, for which I thank them. Here's why I think these criticisms, although accurate on some points are generally unfair and excessive, and in some cases laughable.
Oxfam did well to conduct and publish this study and its figures, undoubtedly imperfect, are defensible and fair, in that they are transparent about the method (which also facilitates critical ...) and they rely on the best sources available today.
It is true that these sources are themselves very imperfect, but if we had to wait for good global data on private household wealth produced by statistical boot rack institutions such as the UN or the World Bank, c ' Perhaps in twenty boot rack years we might have determined the current level and recent developments such inequalities! In many crucial areas, boot rack we must at first "to do with what we have," and in this case what we have is not zero at the point that we should reject it.
We had a similar problem with the data of the ecological footprint, which have long remained doubtful while helpful. Progress has been made, but uncertainties and flaws remain. It is quite possible that the absolute levels of per capita footprint in the world are reliable with an uncertainty of plus or minus 10%. But even with that margin, but good statisticians deem unacceptable, even if it was twice as large, the fact that humanity consumes long been much more renewable resources than nature can renew, would be a reliable result and of great use. Above all, DEVELOPMENTS OVER TIME this measure of ecological pressure humans are nonetheless very reliable. The same goes for global wealth inequality studied by Oxfam.
I'm not sure that critics, including Alexandre Delaigue (see this link), know the difficulties faced by statisticians to measure levels and inequality boot rack of household wealth. Even in a country like ours, with my eyes institutions among the most serious in the world (INSEE, statistical services of the ministries, the Bank of France, CNIS as imperfect but valuable democratic tool), it is a very complicated case. It took heavy work of the 2000s, I participated as a member of CNIS, so advanced are carried out, particularly on financial boot rack capital, badly identified before, much better since even if there are holes obvious (think of tax havens). So imagine what it can be in the world, where the vast majority of countries do not have comparable quality tools! This is undoubtedly a sign of the times: they are today, we deplore it or not, the financial institutions that have the best (or least bad) data heritages in the world, as it is the reinsurers that provide the best figures on the costs of disasters ...
In late August 2009, in this post, I was using a source other than Credit Suisse, the World Wealth Report published by Merrill Lynch and Cap Gemini (who know the population: these are their customers ...) on dollar millionaires in world, 8.6 million people in 2008, representing 0.13% of the world population), which together held end 2008, excluding primary boot rack residence, assets "that can be reinvested" in the amount of 32,800 billion.
In June 2010, I récidivais with this post "The crisis is over ... for the very rich. When will the ISF World? ". I used the World Wealth Report (WWR) of 2010. The number of dollar millionaires in 2009 had found the figure 2007 record: 10 million people worldwide. Their total fortune also had virtually recovered its pre-crisis: 39,000 billion at end 2009. Part of the rebound was certainly the application of well-known slogan "taxpayers of all countries, unite to help the very wealthy out quickly from the crisis they caused "
There are other sources of wealth of the very rich: the Knight Frank report wealth and the Boston Consulting Group. boot rack What about today? The 2014 WWR provides boot rack figures for 2013. They are "excellent" and confirm wholesale changes pointed by Oxfam. It is to the fortunes of millionaires, to a total amount of 52,600 billion and the report anticipates
