Is Oxfam right about the world’s richest and poorest people?
More or Less
BBC
4.6 • 3.7K Ratings
🗓️ 27 January 2024
⏱️ 11 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
We investigate Oxfam’s claim that “since 2020, the five richest men in the world have seen their fortunes more than double, while almost five billion people have seen their wealth fall”.
With the help of Johan Norberg, Historian and Author of ideas and Felix Salmon, Financial Correspondent at Axios, we explore the figures behind the wealth of the richest and uncover what it really tells us about the world’s financial markets.
And Charles Kenny, senior fellow at the Centre for Global Development in Washington DC, helps us unpick why, when looking at the world’s poorest people, measurements of wealth don’t always tell us what we really need to know.
Presenter: Tim Harford Producer: Debbie Richford Production Co-ordinator: Brenda Brown Series Producer: Tom Colls Sound Mix: Hal Haines Editor: Richard Vadon
(image: Elon Musk at the Viva Tech fair in Paris June 2023. Credit: Nathan Laine/Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Why do some big successful brands go bust? |
| 0:05.0 | Toast is back for a new series, taking a look at the decisions that often left investors burnt. |
| 0:11.0 | I'm Sean Farrington, a BBC business journalist. I'll be hearing about the hype. |
| 0:15.0 | They're going to do the deal that makes them the most money at that point of time. |
| 0:19.0 | And I'm picking what went wrong, talking to owners and employees to ask, what can we learn? |
| 0:25.4 | It was being undercut by similar rivals. It just couldn't survive. |
| 0:30.3 | Toast. Listen first on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:33.8 | Hello and thanks for downloading the more or less podcast. |
| 0:37.4 | We're your weekly guide to the numbers in the news and in life, and I'm Tim Harford. |
| 0:44.5 | This week, we're looking at a report recently issued by Oxfam, a global charity fighting to overcome poverty. |
| 0:52.5 | The new report, it says, illustrates the need for a new era of public |
| 0:57.4 | action. Loyal listeners will know that Oxfam puts out a report along these lines every January, |
| 1:03.4 | and we have often found the need to raise an eyebrow at previous editions. So what's in this year's |
| 1:10.3 | report? |
| 1:12.2 | The key message is this. |
| 1:16.3 | Since 2020 and the beginning of this decade of division, |
| 1:21.3 | the five richest men in the world have seen their fortunes more than double, while almost five billion people have seen their wealth fall. |
| 1:26.7 | They are correct. This is true, but it's incredibly misleading. |
| 1:33.0 | That's Johann Norberg, a Swedish historian of ideas. |
| 1:37.4 | But we're not just going to take his word for it, |
| 1:39.6 | especially since he's affiliated with the Cato Institute, |
| 1:42.4 | which is a well-respected libertarian think |
... |
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