Guest post by Indur M. Goklany
On its website Oxfam reminds us that its name comes from the Oxford Committee for Famine Relief. Today it claims to work to “find lasting solutions to poverty and injustice.” So imagine the surprise when I read on WUWT that Oxfam is now pushing an international tax on maritime transport.
Why the surprise?
Such a tax would increase the price of all goods that are traded via shipping. First, it would add to the difficulties that many developing countries have in meeting their demand for food. In particular, a substantial share of the food consumed in developing countries is imported:
- In least developed countries, cereals account for 57% of the calories consumed. But net imports of cereals amount to over 15% of domestic production. [Data from FAOSTAT.]
- In Africa, cereals account for 50% of food calories consumed, but net imports amount to 41% of indigenous production.
Thus, even a small increase in the price of imported crops would push many who are already living on the margin in these areas into poverty and hunger. The UN Food and Agricultural Organization estimates that 925 million people suffer from chronic hunger worldwide. Adding to these numbers would seem to be antithetical to the purpose of the Oxford Committee on Famine Relief.
Second, a tax that would increase the price of traded goods would reduce trade and, with that, economic growth. But economic growth is the best antidote to poverty. Historical experience shows that poverty is reduced fastest where economic growth is greatest, as suggested by the following figure.
This figure shows that the most spectacular reductions in poverty occurred in East Asia and the Pacific, where the number of people living in “absolute poverty” (defined as living on less than $1.25 per day in 2005 dollars), dropped from 1,071 million to 316 million between 1980 and 2005. And as anyone who has bought anything in the past few years ought to know, their economic growth was driven substantially by trade.
To summarize, despite Oxfam’s claim that it works to “find lasting solutions to poverty and injustice,” the policies it pursues assures that it will never be out of a job.
Figure: Poverty rates (in %) in the Developing World, 1981-2005. Source: PovCalNet, World Bank (2010).
OxFam would better stand for Oxford Famine Production. They kicked off their existence in the early days by supporting the Biafran rebels with whom they sympathized politically. This had the effect of turning the Biafran War from being a two week walk over into a long drawn out struggle which slowly starved thousands.
The law of unintended consequences? The road to hell paved with good intentions? Take your pick. I have always said that a modest success beats a heroic failure …
Right. Bureaucracies, notwithstanding mandates and mission statements and directives from above, NEVER operate to work themselves out of business. They make their target problems worse and more intractable to guarantee their own growth and longevity.
International tax on maritime transport … aka a tax on being Australian.
The thing that confuses me is all these types of organisations, Oxfam, WWF, Greenpeace, seemed to start off with such good intentions. I find it hard to believe they have all strayed so far from their roots and can’t see the consequence of their actions
@alex Heyworth
Or British or Canarian (what are people from the Canary Islands called apart from Spanish) or Jamacan etc
Since charities like Oxfam, Greenpeace, WWF and Christian Aid put AGW at the top of their priority list I tell chuggers (charity muggers) “I’m sorry, I put the money I would have given you towards reducing my carbon footprint.”
“…find lasting solutions to poverty and injustice…”
They appear to have embraced a final solution to poverty.
They could use the revenue collected from the ships to subsisise the goods carried by the ships whose prices have had to increase to cover the tax.
Naturally the bankers and accountants will have to be paid to service the exchange, and the money sucked out of the system by them would be paid for by the affected parties or perhaps by the carbon credit market.
“, the policies it pursues assures that it will never be out of a job.”
Is that not the credo of any political party anywhere in the world?
Give your old clothes to OXFAM for the poor in Africa, it will also assure that there are no clothing factories to employ the poor unemployed.
OXFAM another green disaster..( in Germany 89% of those that donate to OXFAM also vote green )
@MangoChutney
Yup, just about anybody who’s not mainland European. Some worse than others, though. I used Australia as an example because (a) I live here and (b) we have a very open economy. You could also add (c) a lot of our exports are high volume stuff like coal, iron ore, LNG.
Oxfam is a charity. The first job of a charity is to expand its customer/client base to ensure its own survival and growth. The second is to demand measures/regulations/taxes/imposts/regulations/fees/processes etc to “capture” the customer/client base to ensure their continued and, especially, deepening dependence on the charity provider.
See Charities-101 from the Chicago School of Economix.
Lunacy, the policy harms so therefore it is wrong.
A double calamity – less nett revenue (after tax) and increased competition for exports combined with increases (added tax) in costs to buy food imported.
File list of UNIX timestamped txt files.
Can be opened by Foia Grepper.
http://www.ecowho.com/foia.php?search=__________|
Good intentions? Those with good intentions were overrun by marxists, mostly. Now they are no more than (virtual, green, zero carbon) vehicles for various left-wing agendas.
During the first five to eight years of the typical “Social Justice” NGO, its ranks are filled with its founders (who tend toward the technocrat side, because the problems that comprise their mission are, at heart, technological ones) and the founders’ choices of employees (who tend to be technocrats also, because who else would a technocrat boss hire to solve such problems?)
As time progresses, the perception that there’s “not enough money” grows and grows, and so new hires change from problem-solving technocrats to fundraisers.
Eventually, the organization becomes entirely devoted to the raising of money. The measure of success changes from “lives saved” or “trees planted” or “spread of illness checked” to the more easily-measured “number of dollars raised.” Situations where the original problem greatly increases in severity and effect are no longer counted as failures, but rather as wonderful fundraising opportunities.
People give money to these organisations, that’s why they attract those who have other agendas – the left-wing nutters, etc., who infiltrate and take control, thus increasing the demand for more money, and using it to further their nefarious ends. It happens all the time. As these institutions grow, the more ideologies they adopt, the more powerful they become, the louder they shout, and the more influence they appear to have. Just give ’em your old clothes…
@MangoChutney.
It’s really quite simple. Something awful happens in a third-world country – drought, flooding, starvation – and there’s a news report that tugs at the heart strings of some decent people in … let’s say Oxford. A few chats at college cocktail parties lead to declarations of “we need to see if we can help these poor thirsty, drowning, hungry people” and a committee is formed. They recruit a few helpers and the movement gets some momentum. People’s lives are saved and everyone gets a pat on the back. Some of the committee realise that there could be more people needing help, so maybe they need to keep things going. In any case, pats on the back are really nice. Some of the original members no longer have the commitment nor the energy nor the time, so they recruit new members. They get lots of volunteers and the size of the committee grows to handle the bigger workload. Meetings last longer and longer, particularly when the new members need to make longer and longer statements about really important matters that are vitally relevant to the minutiae of the contract for toilet roll holders in … anywhere, really. As long as it takes a long time to make really boring speeches a bout it …, and some of the members can’t stay until the end because they have to get up in the morning to go to jobs or feed their children. Decisions are taken after most of the original members have gone home and the meetings are changes to take place at times when the original members can’t attend and then the meeting place changes and the original members aren’t advised of the change. And so it goes.
Standard procedure taught by “Moscow Central” in the good old days. Looks like their pupils have been good boys and girls and have applied their learning to lots of targets. Charities, environmental movements, political parties, …
This is a typical off the cuff attention grabbing shout from an organization that pays its CEO more than many bankers receive. Another wish to add to the list that is confirmation that mouth was opened before brain was switched on.
What’s OXFAM’s authority to do this?
And actually ship transport can be very efficient compared to land transport. The swedish “broccoli report” found out that “Interestingly enough, transporting the broccoli from Ecuador produced about 40% of the greenhouse gas emissions of transporting Spanish broccoli even though the broccoli from Ecuador is transported 12,000 km compared to 3,200 km for Spanish broccoli.” (see http://www.energybulletin.net/node/22737 )
I’ve withdrawn my support for Oxfam now. In a circular a while back, they stated that their prime concern was ‘Catastrophic Climate Change’, which in my view, it isn’t! I subsequently had what can best be described as an arrogant young man on the phone asking why I had withdrawn my support and how dare I not believe in catastrophic climate change – he wasn’t even vaguely interested in what I had to say, so I put the phone down on him.
For me, this is where the whole thing has gone badly wrong. In principle, the notion of developing more sustainable forms of energy (fossil fuels won’t last for ever and we owe it to future generations to leave as much as possible), taking better care of the world that we live in, making sure that there’s enough food and water for everyone are thoroughly laudable aims. But we should do them because they are the right things to do (in their own right) and not because if we don’t the world will collapse in on us.
How much real and useful research could have been done, how many hungry mouths, how many peoples’ lives could have been and could be genuinely improved with all the billions (or is it trillions?) of dollars that have been wasted on AGW?
It seems in the UK that peoples’ attitudes to climate change are becoming increasingly laissez faire. There’s only so much battering in submission that you can take!! In the end, I wouldn’t be surprised if people just said “we don’t care about the environment any more” and then more harm than good will have been done.
@Tez says:
December 13, 2011 at 12:24 am
“They could use the revenue collected from the ships to subsi[d]ise the goods carried by the ships whose prices have had to increase to cover the tax.”
I would not surprise me at all if that’s part of the plan.
Ah, but increasing the numbers of those in poverty and need are essential to the longer term game plan of making sure there is always someone they are “required” to patronise with their Aid services. The need to intervene and patronise the poor and the starving seems to be a form of psychological dependency now among the offspring of the educated middle classes and better off …
Either that, or they are completely blind to the impact on disposable incomes of ordinary people, national economies and jobs their advocated policies will ensure. Of course it won’t impact on them, the majority of Oxfams directors are from “independent moneyed” backgrounds and “work” in “charity” as a penance for their “privileged” upbringing. Naturally they rationalise their desire to impose these and other punitive taxes by claiming that shipping companies can afford it – if only they cut their profit margins.
Sadly, once they have reduced all western economies to the status of “developing nations” their incomes will not be affected as mummy and daddy will have had the good sense to set up Trusts to protect it. It is, as ever, the rest of us and our children that will end up paying.
I contracted (I.T.) for a very large multinational NGO for 15 years.
There organizations aim is “allegedly” : to stamp out poverty.
Over the years their “Advocacy” department has got bigger and bigger and bigger.
They sent a large continent to Durban and have have sent large contingents to previous climate conferences.
They average donator is only somewhat aware of the organizations every increasing active stance on climate change.
The organisation does not have a science department. All knowledge is scooped up from local and overseas media reports and papers from activists connected or associated with the IPCC. They have a media department to regurgitate this “gospel” into second hand “factoids”