You carefully omit any substantiation, I notice Shadow Minister. Tut tut.

>>"charities don't have COGS." Maybe you would care to read their financial statement OOPS There is such a line<<

Here's one for you. The one that was top of my fat-cat list, World Vision.

http://www.worldvision.com.au/aboutus/annualreport/files/2007_Financial_Statements.pdf

Revenue: $356,474,735
Cost of Goods: nil

>>Thus the managed funds people using your logic (similar industries) could point at the insurance business and say that they were a bunch of over paid leeches<<

It would help me to understand a little better if you could describe the similarities between the managed funds industry and the insurance industry, in the same way that I drew the parallels between charities and insurance. Source and destination of funds is always a good place to start.

You will be allocated marks for ingenuity in your explanation, but there will be deductions for snide remarks.

Also for red herrings.

And how about having the courtesy to acknowledge your Coles furphy. You must admit, it was way outside off stump.

Pericles

You are being deliberately obtuse to try and create a smoke screen for the collapse of your argument.

Considering the minute detail with which you excised expenses from the annual report in the link YOU provided, you might have bothered to look at page 53 (summarised income statement) where you might see the following lines.

From sale of goods by Oxfam Australia Trading Pty Ltd 8,839
Cost of goods sold and services provided by subsidiaries 3,831

Further more as the source of income for insurance industry come from the sale of financial instruments (policies) with definable value to an established market, compared to the sale of "feeling good" with no discernable value.
The out flows being payment on policies vs feeding, training and educating people in poverty, I would say that the comparison between the insurance industry and the charities is as tenuous as your grip on reality.

The reference to coles was simply to illustrate how the MER was not valid for non financial institutions. As Oxfam has a trading component, finding the link should be as easy as finding your rs. Maybe I could lend you a flashlight.

Trying to divert the discussion now to world vision is an admission of defeat, especially considering your claims were against the execs of Oxfam. No red herrings either.

To sink your comparison here too. Refer to

Page 18 cash flow statement "receipts from donors and merchandising"
Page 19 section iv
etc
This is like taking sweets from a baby.

A insurance policy is a financial instrument that is crafted and valued by actuaries, as are shares, securitised mortgages etc, and are traded as such through the re insurance industry as such. Need to borrow the flash light again or are you going to ask me for a lengthy disertation on the insurance industry.

It is becoming increasingly difficult to take you seriously, Shadow Minister

But not to worry. As you have kindly pointed out, I am minor clerk in a gov dept who is also a retired mortgage broker, alien to real world salaries and requirements, trite and purile [sic], guilty of simplistic drivelling, blinkered either by prejudice or ignorance, fond of inane pontification and preposterous statements as well as hot air, make bleating, broad brush scurrilous comments, and show either an ineptitude so deep that I should never be let near a cheque book, or a deliberate attempt to distort the truth.

>>Trying to divert the discussion now to world vision is an admission of defeat, especially considering your claims were against the execs of Oxfam.<<

Actually, if you would care to check back on this very thread, my major objections are against that corporate colossus, World Vision. The remaining NGOs - signatories to the original article - were added to underline the broad nature of these executive-friendly money machines.

It was you who picked out Oxfam from this bunch, and chose to make an example of them.

But that's ok.

Oxfam runs Oxfam shops. Hence COGS.

http://www.oxfamshop.org.au/aboutus

>>Any surplus we make goes towards our further development or the work of Oxfam Australia in alleviating the condition of communities living with poverty and injustice.<<

World Vision takes a different accounting view, and does not separately identify COGS that presumably arise from its sale of "indigenous artworks". This may be i) because these artworks are themselves donations or ii) that they choose to take the cost of turning these artworks into cash as a management expense.

None of which is relevant to the core discussion here, which is that corporate charities are executive gravy-trains.

I'm fairly certain that you are only arguing for the sake of it.

But if you are serious, start looking more closely the businesses who live off the misery of others.

Pericles,

Since your every attempt to supply supporting evidence that the large charities are simply gravy trains has either been erroneous or a distortion, and my actions were simply to catch you out and expose the errors in your position which I found offensive.

Now with your pants around your ankles you claim of the arguments that you made "None of which is relevant to the core discussion here"

I choose Oxfam because you specifically pointed out their execs as overpaid money grubbers.

The facts I have used to demolish your claims are from the very links you provided and selectively excised information.

This extends to World Vision where you state:

Revenue: $356,474,735
Cost of Goods: nil

Then try and back track when I point out that this is simply not singled out. You then claim that it is probably because it is all donated including the indigenous art.

Again assumptions without even the slightest bit of reading or research.

If you even had the slightest inkling of what they did, you would realise that one of the kingpins of their programs is to help create trade for the most disadvantaged, and one of the main ways is to provide a market for indigenous art, which the major charities are probably the major distributers. There is virtually no profit in this other than to provide the destitute with an income.

Your complete inability to support even one of your claims but to continue making them, indicates a religious or flat earth mentality where inconvenient truths are simply ignored.

I challenge you yet again to give solid support to any one of your ridiculous claims, if you do you might even get me to take you seriously.

I have shown that for Oxfam au at least that:
The exec salaries are significantly below what they could get any where else,
The organised charities have a comparitively low administration cost, and compared to industry have very little fat.
The running of the charities differ significantly from "insurance industries"

In Indonesia U can support a child with the works for $AU2 a day, inc "good education," the whole box and dice.

Many of my pensioner "friends" here run charities, for nothing. The reason, is pursuant to VISA status they can draw down their income stream from Australia thru the charity vehicle legitimately pursuant to Indo law and pay no additional tax, fees or otherwise. This is a benefit and priveledge of being allowed to care for the Indo needy.

Now, instead of paying some poppet, addicted to excess lifestyle and no longer game to rock the political boat for fear of being shown to be a hypocrite in the public domain, why not simply advertise and educate Australian pensioners to this mechanism, with appropriate orientation programs etc etc such that they may on mass, sell their crappy little $AU500,000+ sand box in Oz, by a wicked villa on the beach in Indo for $AU15,000 - $AU50,000, live like an aristocrat on $AU500 per week and spend their time looking after kids and hanging out in restaurants or whatever with their ex-pat mates discussing education techniques and other matters of state, WiFi LapTop in one hand, beer and MB in the other with a veritable army of $AU10 a day workers ready to snap to and jump thru hoops in an instant.

1 clown in Oz $AU500,000 p.a., OR for arguments sake, 1 orphan @ a rate of $AU1,000 a year equates to 500 kids p.a?

Wouldn't a quick ad campaign deposing to the web to tune pensioners in be a quick way to solve a lot of problems on the ground really fast?

U keep up the good work *sHADOw* as the more the likes of U seeks to substantiate bloated vested interests, the greater the chance that those filthy child abusers in the liberal party will never again come to power at a Federal level, until such time as they are "Born Again" HaHaHa and become "True Believers."

;-)

P.S.
Treat em mean, keep 'em lean.

I think you have finally managed to obscure the wood behind a fine array of trees, Shadow Minister, for which I heartily applaud you. A splendid career in politics awaits you.

>>you claim of the arguments that you made "None of which is relevant to the core discussion here"<<

You see, you even got that bit wrong - it is your arguments that are irrelevant to the discussion.

A simple point, I know, but an important one.

>>I choose Oxfam because you specifically pointed out their execs as overpaid money grubbers.<<

One example of a number, only after I had specifically named World Vision. You really have a thing about those Oxfam folks, don't you?

Anyhow, to the main course.

My image of corporate charities as homes for the lazy executive looking for a cushy billet stems from my belief that charities should direct their energies towards solving the problems that they identify as their targets - starvation, lack of work, that sort of stuff - rather than pay handsome wages to their management who face fewer than half the challenges of their counterparts in industry.

You happen to see things differently, which is fine. But you haven't come close to convincing me that I have the wrong impression, if that is why you began this conversation.

>>I challenge you yet again to give solid support to any one of your ridiculous claims, if you do you might even get me to take you seriously.<<

Whether or not you take me seriously is of utter indifference to me, Shadow Minister. In fact, given your tendency to prefer personal insult to reasoned argument, I hold your opinion of me to be completely irrelevant.

Have a nice life.

http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/nonprofit/2008/06/nonprofits-in-t.html