Lenox

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21094962 'The 100 richest people in the world earned enough last year to end extreme poverty suffered by the poorest on the planet four times over', Oxfam has said. - Put it another way - they could end world poverty entirely... and still have 3/4ths of their money to pull their puds over.
And we think pedophiles are wicked...

mikelincs

It always has been thus..

jackytoo

Always will be too. Share it all out equally next week and in a decade it would be the same. Actually Oxfam could do a bit better and spend more money on the poor instead of fancy offices and fat salaries

Fredbargate

Unfortunately that is the case with too many charities.

Pocaloca

That's just a distraction, even if it were true - in Oxfam's case it isn't, because they spend money to make money, and so they are able to do more with it. If resources were distributed more fairly, there would be no need for aid organisations.

In the old days, the poor attempted to remove their oppressors by having political revolutions. These days they do it by terrorism, it's no coincidence that the World Trade Center was a prime target for El Quaeda.

jackytoo

You can't tell me anything about large charities as I worked for a time as a charity accountant..specialising in fraud control! The larger charities are experts in creative accounting.

As for the rest...absolute drivel. perhaps you could get a job writing for the socialist worker

jimenato

Al Qaeda are poor?

cricketman

Yes, Al Qaeda obviously were led by a Saudi prince who brainwashed the poor into fighting for a "just" cause - in what was essentially a family dispute.

So pretty much the standard Western model of warmongery.

Although I also am very sceptial about many charities, I agree with the sentiment of the thread, the world does not lack money, food or medical treatment to stop millions of children dying every year, but it does lack the will and "humanity".

I believe that as we now live in a multinational globalized world, that it should be the right of every person to have basic healthcare and access to food, respective of their nationality. As I've mentioned before though, this opens up a can of worms regarding population control which is probably the biggest problem the human race has.

agoreira

9p in the £. And as we all know, investments can go down as well as up.

jimenato

Utter bollocks as usual. Just an unsupported assertion from a zealot. Try this instead...

So the first and second world wars, the Korean war, the Falklands war, both the gulf wars and the Afghan war were 'essentially family disputes'? I thought you said in one thread that you learnt history at school?

cricketman

I was going back a little further in time

Domino

sounds to me like its all the fault of the Crusaders taking on the Seljuk Turks who decisively defeated the Byzantine army in 1071 and cut off Christian access to Jerusalem.

don't you just love History.....

jackytoo

Ever since I can remember aid has been going to the same countries...nothing has changed, infact some have gone backwards through corrupt leaders and useless wars. Much of Africa could be self sufficient, we lived in the Congo and you could stick anything in the ground and it would grow. The mentality is not there. When one of the local workers was getting married we had a whip round and the money collected could have bought them a nice apartment. Instead he threw a 5 day wedding binge for the whole village

Give everyone in some countries enough to live off for life and they would either spend it in a few years or the army would have taken it off them. Most of live aid money went into buying arms. Some charities spend a fortune sending out UK workers when they could employ local workers

As for the charities £100,000 pa is not uncommon for the top staff. I have been to lots of conferences run by Brussels and Unicef and it's Gucci shoes R US The charity workers essential must have!

Dick Dasterdly

Sad and unfortunately mostly true.
The more I read about such happenings the more I tend to lose faith in human nature.
Wherever large charities and funding are involved, it seems the scum all rises to the top.
Where are the good guys, there must be some around surely, though to be fair I do see quite a few genuine unpaid ones giving the best of their own time and effort at grass roots level.

jackytoo

Yes, true. Lots of dedicated ones on the coast too spending all their time working in animal centres, translating in hospitals etc. Problem is when they get paid workers, you only have to look in the Guardian at some of the jobs in charities. They attract people who don't give a toss about the charity.