FALSE CORRELATIONS

FALSE CORRELATIONS

26 Jan 2018

POVERTY AND INEQUALITY Listening to Radio 4’s Today (aka NHS Daily) I heard a professional lobbyist from Oxfam explaining that poverty and inequality are inextricably linked. Most of us are against poverty and inequality and, if we suffer from neither, probably feel slightly guilty about both. The counter argument, which is fairly obvious, is that economic growth is the only practical way to relieve poverty; that economic growth is best served by liberal democracy or free market capitalism, (if you think that term is more honest); and that inequality is always promoted by such growth. Reading its latest polemic about the “inequality crisis” I learn that Oxfam broadly agrees with the argument that economic growth is the answer to poverty. Between 1990 and 2010, the number of people living in extreme poverty (i.e. on less than $1.90 a day) halved, and has continued to decline since then. This tremendous achievement is something of which the world should be proud.   Reward work not wealth: Oxfam January 2018 It goes on to say that we would have done even better if we had eradicated inequality. This is the big contentious and unknowable point and is therefore the object of lobbying rather than reasoned argument. Oxfam’s lobbying might be more convincing coming from an organisation that rewards its executives less lavishly. The president of its US operation was paid a package of $504,000 last year; its CFO $258,000. Oxfam UK’s eight directors averaged £113,000 having received an inflation beating 3.7% rise. What first struck me about the Today item was that I heard the Oxfam lobbyist say that “we (Oxfam) know more than anybody else the power of enterprise to help overcome poverty” – this is bragging worthy of Donald Trump and is perhaps evidence of how his influence is becoming pervasive, even among those who presumably despise him. On reflection I was more taken with the casual way that poverty and inequality were conflated. Dodgy correlation is everywhere. Take two facts or convincing assertions and smoothly merge them into one conclusion that appears plausible because the two original statements can be presented as truthful. PRIVATE EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITY PLACES 7% of UK pupils are privately...