Estos datos los cocinan a partir de un informe del mes de octubre de Credit Suisse, procurando obtener unos titulares lo suficientemente sensacionalistas como para conseguir que todos los medios hablen de ello, y de ellos, y obtenr así más propaganda gratis de la que ya tienen. No habría nada que objetar a ese objetivbo promocional si no fuese porqué hacen trampa y emiten datos y conclusiones falsas.
Por estos lares TVE ha emitido la notícia a bombo y platillo ciñéndose exclusivamente a la nota de prensa de Oxfam y, por tanto, dándole credibilidad y veracidad absoluta (como coartada han dicho que hay voces que discrepan de los datos de la ONG). Por el contrario, la BBC ha emitido también la notícia pero contrastada con el análisis del Institute of Economic Affairs, a cargo de su Director Genral, Marcos Littlewood.
En una entrevista (minuto 39:17) Mark argumenta que este informe no es más que una forma de generar titulares mediante el uso de estadísticas engañosas construidas utilizando metodologías falsas.
"The methodology of adding up assets and subtracting debts and then making a global 'net wealth' distribution implies that many of the poorest in the world are those in advanced countries with high debts. Whilst we might have sympathy for the Harvard law graduate's plight, it is unclear that worrying about her should be the focus of a development organisation," he said.
The Adam Smith Institute's head of research Ben Southwood also said the data was "misleading".
"More meaningful measures show greater equality. Those in the middle and bottom of the world income distribution have all got pay rises of around 40% between 1988-2008. Global inequality of life expectancy and height are narrowing too—showing better nutrition and better healthcare where it matters most.
"What we should care about is the welfare of the poor, not the wealth of the rich," he added.
Por otro lado, Ryan Bourne, Jefe de la AIE de Políticas Públicas, desmonta -aquí y aquí- la cocina de datos de Oxfam, que inició el año pasado lanzando el titular
To see this, look at the figure below from the Credit Suisse report. If we were to split up the data into deciles, this methodology would suggest China has no people in the bottom 10 per cent – the world’s poorest – with most Chinese in the top 50 per cent. North America on the other hand supposedly has around 8 per cent of the world’s poorest population – because significant numbers of people in the States are loaded up with debts of various kind, making their net wealth negative!Oxfam, como casi todas la ONGs, necesita remover la conciencia de los ciudadanos para obtener el dinero que necesitan para finaciarse y financiar sus proyectos de ayuda. Y para remover la conciencia no sirve decir que las cosas están mejorando sinó que hay que mostrar imágenes trágicas de niños malnutridos o muertos para que aflojemos la cartera. Sin embargo, una cosa es exagerar tendenciosamente un aspecto de la realidad -cuya reiteración me parece igualmente manipulador y contraproducente- y otra falsificar datos. Mentir. Pero claro, para ellos debe de tratarse de una humilde mentira piadosa. Para nosotros, sin embargo, es algo más grave. Es aceptar que el fin justifica los medios.
According to this methodology, the poorest 2 billion people in the world have a negative net wealth. Someone who has 50p but no assets or debts would be above the bottom 30 per cent of the world’s population. It doesn’t take an advanced mathematician to work out that adding up lots of negatives at the bottom to an overall wealth share figure for the bottom 99 per cent will of course make that figure much smaller than a gross wealth figure. Oxfam has then taken this bogus figure, looked at recent trends (which show the share of the top 1 per cent rising) and simply extrapolated into the future to get their headline (which seems a huge assumption given the potential QE unwinding).
Aggregating net wealth figures is largely meaningless and not the way most people think about poverty, or indeed the ‘rich’. That Oxfam has been able to claim front pages with a nonsensical ‘report’ throws up all sorts of worrying questions about journalistic standards. But the more perturbing fact is that Oxfam’s latest meme will now be repeated ad nauseam by those who won’t examine the basis of the claim.
