What does "far right" mean anyway?

[Mecky]

It seems to me that everyone these days is working on improving everybody's standard of living, but we have a basic disagreement about the best way to achieve this. I know that's not the way everybody sees it.

 

That's because it's not true, at least it never has been under a tory government because it runs against everything they stand for

[angos]

So people become disabled so they can claim benefits?

 

My original statement was about people talking about the ill and disabled as if they made a lifestyle choice. That is different from people pretending, which few people do.

 

Read back.

 

In that case you are still wrong, because people don't talk about the genuine disabled claimant, they talk about the people that exaggerate their disability or illness in order to claim something they are not entitled to, they talk about the people that pretend to be disabled in order to clam money they are not entitled to.

They might even talk about people that become disabled because they made the life style choice to be very inactive and lazy, or chose to take drugs and drink excessive amounts of alcohol, or smoked, all of which could result in self inflicted disability.

 

Then theirs the man from Austria that cut his own foot off just so he could claim extra benefits, if there's one there's likely to be others.

 

Find me a single case of anyone that wants to deny financial help to someone that is disabled through no fault of their own and is incapable of working, bare in mind that many disabled people do actually work, whilst others with less severe disabilities choose not to work.

 

---------- Post added 21-09-2013 at 07:29 ----------

 

It seems to me that everyone these days is working on improving everybody's standard of living, but we have a basic disagreement about the best way to achieve this. I know that's not the way everybody sees it.

 

I often ask socialists what the goal is of their policies. Is it to make the poor better off relative to the rich, or just to make them better off in absolute terms.

My own opinion is that it doesn't matter all that much if a few people are very wealthy as long as the lot of everybody is improving.

Does taking the wealth from the most successful actually achieve the goal of making the poor better off in absolute terms, or does it serve them better in the long term for the wealthy to be left with more of their own money which they tend to invest in businesses which employ people?

 

Sometimes I get the impression that the socialists think that there is a fixed amount of wealth and that it morally must be divided more equally. That would be fine if it was true, but the amount of wealth is not fixed and behaving as if it is is just bad maths.

 

Is the government the best means of getting money from the wealthy to the poor, or would the poor and the wealthy do a better job working it out between themselves? The wealthy want to be more wealthy and they also want to spend their wealth on things that they enjoy. More wealth comes from investing in business that employ people (sometimes indirectly). The things the wealthy enjoy have to be built or in some way provided by a workforce.

If we get into a state of affairs where the competition to attract workers to your business is fierce, where there is a genuine shortage of labour, then competition for workers will drive wages up much more effectively than a national minimum wage ever could.

In contrast, if the government soaks up too much of the wealth of the successful, there is a disincentive to become successful. There is also a lack of investment in businesses which means fewer jobs and workers competing for whatever jobs they can get rather than employers competing for workers. This naturally drives wages down.

 

As I say, the goals are not all that different. The disagreement is about the best way to achieve them.

 

The "left" like to classify anybody who doesn't agree with redistribution as evil and heartless. This is unhelpful at best. I'm sure that there are some anti-socialists who are selfish and lack empathy, but there are far more who just genuinely disagree with the socialists about the best way to forge a better future for everybody.

For me, the socialists insistence all too often on demonising their well intentioned political opponents, is what convinced me that they are not properly engaging in the debate and without such engagement they cannot contribute to building up collective wisdom on which of the two basic approaches is better.

 

Just on this thread there were very quickly posts attempting to undermine my points and questions not by countering them directly but by ad hominem. I'm not somebody set in my views and I'm a great fan of evidence based decision making; convince me that I'm wrong and I won't hesitate to back down.

On the other hand, if you insist on playing the man rather than the ball, I'm just going to assume that you already know that you're wrong and you're acting out of desperation.

 

Excellent post, some people tend the see the gap between rich and poor as the problem, my guess is they would still be dissatisfied if poor people drove porsches whilst the rich flew everywhere in jets and helicopters.

[unbeliever]

Can we have your opinion on business tax? I run a business, I pay my taxes. My taxes are used in order for the good of the state (you, me, everyone) Why can't I be exempt from paying that tax?

 

I'm quite sympathetic to that idea. All business revenue either goes into expanding the business which serves the greater good; or it shows up as peoples' income in which case it gets taxed as such. It's not clear to me that taxing business directly is necessary or justified.

 

---------- Post added 21-09-2013 at 07:52 ----------

 

That's because it's not true, at least it never has been under a tory government because it runs against everything they stand for

 

I strongly disagree. The conservatives make the case that fiscal discipline within government and liberating business grows the economy for everyone and thereby improves everyone's standard of living. Maybe they're wrong about that. Maybe economic growth is best served by some other strategy. But they're doing what they judge is best for everyone.

 

Collecting money and handing it out without condition risks creating perverse incentives and slowing the growth of the economy, or in the worst case shrinks the economy. Borrowing money in order to do it just exacerbates the problem.

 

It feels good for those of us who are doing better to be charitable to those who are not; and certainly some will always need our support as they are unable to fend for themselves. For the majority who are benefits dependent are we really doing them a favour by allowing them to stay that way?

[I1L2T3]

In that case you are still wrong, because people don't talk about the genuine disabled claimant, they talk about the people that exaggerate their disability or illness in order to claim something they are not entitled to, they talk about the people that pretend to be disabled in order to clam money they are not entitled to.

They might even talk about people that become disabled because they made the life style choice to be very inactive and lazy, or chose to take drugs and drink excessive amounts of alcohol, or smoked, all of which could result in self inflicted disability.

 

Then theirs the man from Austria that cut his own foot off just so he could claim extra benefits, if there's one there's likely to be others.

 

Find me a single case of anyone that wants to deny financial help to someone that is disabled through no fault of their own and is incapable of working, bare in mind that many disabled people do actually work, whilst others with less severe disabilities choose not to work.

 

I think we're getting there.......slowly.

 

In the context of this thread the point is that it is a right wing trait to vilify whole groups of people based on flimsy evidence.

 

Now, my point is that the disabled community has been vilified by the press off the back of a sustained political and media campaign. The kind of comments you made simply add fuel to the fire. And it is always the same - everybody knows a neighbour or has links to Daily Mail articles. And the point is always the same - disabled people should be seen as potential fraudsters unless they can prove otherwise.

 

You're just displaying simplistic right wing group think to beat up on the vulnerable.

[angos]

I think we're getting there.......slowly.

 

In the context of this thread the point is that it is a right wing trait to vilify whole groups of people based on flimsy evidence.

 

Now, my point is that the disabled community has been vilified by the press off the back of a sustained political and media campaign. The kind of comments you made simply add fuel to the fire. And it is always the same - everybody knows a neighbour or has links to Daily Mail articles. And the point is always the same - disabled people should be seen as potential fraudsters unless they can prove otherwise.

 

You're just displaying simplistic right wing group think to beat up on the vulnerable.

 

I think its something you see because of your apparent bias against a group of people, I haven't come across anyone or seen any news articles that vilify the whole community of disabled people. What I've seen is government trying to weed out the lazy scroungers that are defrauding the system out of money they are not entitled to.

[Mecky]

I think we're getting there.......slowly.

 

In the context of this thread the point is that it is a right wing trait to vilify whole groups of people based on flimsy evidence.

 

Now, my point is that the disabled community has been vilified by the press off the back of a sustained political and media campaign. The kind of comments you made simply add fuel to the fire. And it is always the same - everybody knows a neighbour or has links to Daily Mail articles. And the point is always the same - disabled people should be seen as potential fraudsters unless they can prove otherwise.

 

You're just displaying simplistic right wing group think to beat up on the vulnerable.

 

You can disagree all you want, but you're still wrong

[I1L2T3]

You can disagree all you want, but you're still wrong

 

Wrong about what?

 

---------- Post added 21-09-2013 at 14:47 ----------

 

I think its something you see because of your apparent bias against a group of people, I haven't come across anyone or seen any news articles that vilify the whole community of disabled people. What I've seen is government trying to weed out the lazy scroungers that are defrauding the system out of money they are not entitled to.

 

Some research about the role of the media in the campaign against disabled people in the following link

 

http://fullfact.org/blog/disability_benefit_media_coverage_Glasgow_university-3149

 

We've had no end of media fluff supporting Ian Duncan Smith and giving him a platform to peddle blatant lies.

[angos]

Wrong about what?

 

---------- Post added 21-09-2013 at 14:47 ----------

 

 

Some research about the role of the media in the campaign against disabled people in the following link

 

http://fullfact.org/blog/disability_benefit_media_coverage_Glasgow_university-3149

 

We've had no end of media fluff supporting Ian Duncan Smith and giving him a platform to peddle blatant lies.

 

I got to this and decided that further reading was pointless.

 

The 
focus 
groups
 all
 claimed 
that levels
 of
 fraud
 were 
much
 higher
 than
 they
 are 
in
 reality.

 

Because in realty they don't know what the level of fraud is, they only know what level the detected fraud is. They don't who's committing fraud until they catch them and in many cases they will never catch them.

 

 

According to the Labour Force Survey, disabled people are now more likely to be employed than they were in 2002.

In 2012, 46.3 per cent of working-age disabled people are in employment.

There are over 6.9 million disabled people of working age which represents 19% of the working population.

There are currently 1.3 million disabled people in the UK who are available for and want to work.

 

That leaves 3.2 million not working out of which 1.3 million want to work.

Do you think the other 1.9 million are incapable of working because they are more disabled than the ones that work or want to work?

Edited September 21, 2013 by angos

[I1L2T3]

I got to this and decided that further reading was pointless.

 

 

 

Because in realty they don't know what the level of fraud is, they only know what level the detected fraud is. They don't who's committing fraud until they catch them and in many cases they will never catch them.

 

 

According to the Labour Force Survey, disabled people are now more likely to be employed than they were in 2002.

In 2012, 46.3 per cent of working-age disabled people are in employment.

There are over 6.9 million disabled people of working age which represents 19% of the working population.

There are currently 1.3 million disabled people in the UK who are available for and want to work.

 

That leaves 3.2 million not working out of which 1.3 million want to work.

Do you think the other 1.9 million are incapable of working because they are more disabled than the ones that work or want to work?

 

Focus groups are just used to gauge opinion. They are not the ones that actually do the fraud detection. People do think benefits fraud is much higher than it actually is. That misconception is being used by politicians and the media to cut benefits and services for vulnerable groups.

 

In terms of levels of fraud have a look at:

 

http://www.cas.org.uk/features/myth-busting-real-figures-benefit-fraud

 

It puts it in perspective.

[angos]

Focus groups are just used to gauge opinion. They are not the ones that actually do the fraud detection. People do think benefits fraud is much higher than it actually is. That misconception is being used by politicians and the media to cut benefits and services for vulnerable groups.

 

In terms of levels of fraud have a look at:

 

http://www.cas.org.uk/features/myth-busting-real-figures-benefit-fraud

 

It puts it in perspective.

 

There you go making the same mistake. You don't know how high benefits fraud is, so you can't know that People think benefits fraud is much higher than it actually is.

Just because something is undetected doesn't mean it isn't happening.

 

 

From your link

The UK government estimates that total fraud across the whole of the economy amounts to £73 billion a year. UK government figures for 2012 estimate benefits overpaid due to fraud is £1.2 billion and tax credit fraud is £380 million. So just under £1.6 billion in total; less than 1% of the overall benefits and tax credits expenditure and less than benefits underpaid and overpaid due to error.

 

How can the government estimate how much fraud takes place, and when did you start to trusting what they say. One minute you claim they are lying and the next you agree with them because what they say supports what you think.

Edited September 21, 2013 by angos