What is it with Leon Louw and his columns trashing estimates of global inequality? In his latest diatribe, he attacked Oxfam’s statement that "the world’s richest eight white men have more than the poorest 50%" as "manifest absurdity" (Huffington Post flak highlights politically correct balderdash, April 26). If Louw had bothered to check the Oxfam report concerned, An Economy for the 99 Per Cent, he would have discovered that its calculations are drawn from Forbes billionaires lists and the Credit Suisse Global Wealth Databook 2016. Oxfam’s reports are meticulously argued, their factual data sourced from bodies such as the World Economic Forum’s global risk report, the World Bank, official statistics and peer-reviewed academic literature. When Credit Suisse reports about wealth distribution, it indicates clearly that it is referring to private wealth. In other words, it is not referring to state-owned wealth. If this is Louw’s objection, he should say so. As for his assertion that ...
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