> Buffett is so vague that people are seeing in it whatever they want to see. This is true. And anyway, here's a couple of things I see. The first is a failed

> Buffett is so vague that people are seeing in it whatever they want to see. This is true. And anyway, here's a couple of things I see. The first is a failed (or at least truncated) attempt at articulating the concept of Structural Violence[1]. I'm surprised he got so far as publishing this op-ed, without having been told to read anything by Paul Farmer. At least it appears he hasn't, even though Farmer is quite well-known. I know George Soros counts himself as a member of the Farmer school. The second thing I see is Buffet slipping into the trap of armchair "big-picture" philosophizing. This is what Esther Duflo warned against in the very beginning of her poverty course on edx.org (she has also given a TED talk). Trying to make grand, blanket statements or generic judgements about aid as a whole, is a flawed exercise. Duflo holds up two books as the prime examples of this fallacy: The End of Poverty by Jeffrey Sachs, and White Man's Burden by Will Easterly. Fixating on big-questions and big-answers clouds thinking and hampers action. Instead, Duflo teaches a clinical approach as infinitely more productive. Ask specific questions, conduct trials and collect data. Doing experiments and making observations is a much better way to discover truth than thinking your way through an extremely tangled web of armchair philosophizing. 1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structural_violence http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structural_violence