A study by the UK based charity Oxfam has showed that the five wealthiest Britons have more money than the least affluent 12.6 million in the nation, approximately 20% of all residents. These kinds of statistics are hardly new so it raises the question - why find out?
Every time figures like this are published there is this shock-horror effect. Everyone is supposed to gasp and exclaim how wrong it is and of course it is a pre-cursor to the government fixing the injustice in order to make the world a fair place once again.
Oxfam’s name is an abbreviation of its fuller original name. Founded in the city of Oxford it was to provide famine relief. Its first mission, during World War II, was to persuade the British government to allow food relief through the Allied blockade for the starving citizens of Greece.
Most people think this kind of humanitarian outreach is what Oxfam is about. People can donate to Oxfam as with other charities and also purchase items at their shops, about 60% of which are in the UK. The profits go to some legitimate relief functions but a significant amount goes to left wing causes.
The ‘charity’ is involved in reducing the impact of climate change and energy shocks, classical leftie myths to advance suffocating environmental policies that harm economics. They also demand that national governments fulfill their responsibilities for equitable delivery of good quality health, education, water, and sanitation, supporting the process to hold governments accountable for the delivery of these services, making sure they honour existing commitments on aid and debt reduction.
When you read that they begin to sound far less than a charity and much more like a UN peacekeeping force. Oxfam it seems has broadened its horizons significantly, deciding what politics is right for many developing nations and actively participating in them.
Now it seems it’s eyeing Britain in the same way. One has to ask why Oxfam would engage in such a study to produce results that are widely understood even if not known by their specifics. Yes, there are a minority of wealthy people and a much larger group on the bottom rungs of the economic ladder. But releasing this information (when the government's budget is being released) is designed to influence government policy.
According to the 'charity' the wealthiest family in Britain is the Grovesnors, headed by the Duke of Westminster, with an estate valued at £7.9bn mostly from the 190 acres of land it owns in London's highly valued Belgravia. Second on the list are brothers David and Simon Reuben, whose £6.9bn fortunes comes from metals and property, with the Hinduja brothers of trucking and banking businesses at third place worth £6bn. The Cadogan family are fourth, worth £4bn from owning property and land in Chelsea and Knightsbridge in London as well as the Cadogan Estates, while Newcastle United FC owner and Sports Direct clothing chain boss Mike Ashley, is valued at £3.3bn in fifth place.
These large sums of wealth are supposed to draw a reaction from the masses along the lines of ‘these people have far too much money and there are all these people in need and somebody needs to do something about it.’ Meanwhile politicians lick their lips, whisper Merry Christmas, and prepare to confiscate some of it.
But two questions beg! One is how did they get all that wealth in the first place, and second is what happens if we go for some raw income re-distribution in order to help the poor. After all those billions would surely solve all their problems, right!
Most of the group made significant money from the value of property. They didn’t work anybody to death; they simply took advantage of rising land values. Ashley, last on the list, is a self made retail billionaire. His tactics are aggressive, sometimes cutthroat, but his businesses drive economics which in turn produces jobs and rising wages.
If the groups assets were liquidated it would produce an estate or trust of 28.1 billion pounds. Distributed to the least affluent 12.6 million Britons it would produce a onetime windfall of £2230 each. A nice chunk of change, but not an amount that will change anybody's life in the long-term! Alternatively, the recipients could be paid annually and if the investment was producing 6% they would get £134 / year for life rising each year to cover inflation. Not exactly the figures that will turn around a family living situation.
Oxfam conveniently fails to tell us how much money these wealth producers give to charitable causes, money that would be wiped out if they were put out of business. Nor do they explain how many jobs have been created by their various business activities and how much worse off people might be if investors just holed the money up in a piggy bank.
The lobbying that needs to take place is to get Oxfam out of the lobbying business and back to raising money for famine relief. Maybe they’d have more opportunity to help the needy if they didn’t spend all their time and effort working with politicians.
