The Dirt on Sadiq Khan

[pErvinalia]

[mistermack]

I find it ludicrous that you can give credence to the government figures on fraud.

By it's very nature, if you get away with a fraud, you will be counted as genuine.

Has that bleedin obvious thought not occurred to anyone???

[Hermit]

I find it ludicrous that you can give credence to the government figures on fraud.

Um, right. I suppose your unquantified estimate that there are "a load of cheats", on the basis that "I know that for a fact, because I personally know some of them" is superior. Extrapolating 'some' to whatever thousands looks suspect to me in regard to accuracy.

[NineBerry]

It's the conservative mindset: "The society is full of evil-minded cheating criminals. I know because me and all my chaps are."

It's the old question whether people are angels or wolfs. Well, people are were-angel-wolfs. So you need a mixed system.

[Brian Peacock]

The fact is cheats exist and the Tories have every right to rout them out. Any draconian methods used by the Tory party lays at the feet of the cheaters and not at the ebil Tory party. You are using emotive language to make the Tory party out to be monsters when they have every right to be careful with taxpayers money. A lot of people work very hard in shitty jobs but fuck them right, lets just throw their money away as we wouldn't want to upset the lazy cheating cunts would we.

I do not think that you can really claim that I have resorted to 'emotive language' in my previous remarks - not by a long chalk. If you genuinely think this, rather than perhaps just resenting having you conscience tweaked as someone who personally identifies with the current government's mindset, then by all means feel free to lead by example.

I didn't say there were no people faking disability benefits claims or that the government shouldn't do something about it - I am simply challenging the view that the existence of fraud does not justify whatever action the government decides to take. I said that fakers should have as much money as possible reclaimed and prison should certainly be an option in the most egregious cases, but even in that I think the disability benefits system should be predicated on helping the vulnerable and not on excluding cheats and fakers at any and all costs. So, if you read my remarks again you see that I acknowledged that fraud and error exist and were, to some extent, inherent in the system, but the point is that it remains low - very low. Fraud is inherent in the taxation system too, as well as in many areas of society, so lets not cite disability fakers as some kind of special case as the government has been inclined to do.

Nonetheless, I was pointing out that when overpayments due to error or fraud amount to c.2% of claims, and underpayment rates far outstrip overpayment rates for disability/sickness benefits then a system that is heavily weighted against the 98% of so-called 'genuine' claimants appears disproportionately stringent, and indeed is having some serious adverse effects for a major chunk of that 98% of genuinely, non-faking claimants. The idea that it is justifiable to make the lives of disabled people more difficult and more financially precarious in order to prevent fraud by tiny fraction of claimants is, imo, unbecoming of any society that aspires to calling itself civilised.

I know the government like to play the dichotomous 'deserving' vs the 'undeserving' card here, with their talk of 'genuine' claimants in receipt of social support and, by implication, 'bogus' claimants when applications are refused, but let us not forget how we came upon this issue here. It cropped up when I used disabled people as an example of what can happen when a particular group is, to all intents and purposes, officially demonised for their apparent inherent moral laxity. Let us also not forget that the reason I dug up the figures in reply to mistermack was to highlight that the idea of disability and sickness benefit claimants being a 'load of cheats' is not supported by the evidence even while this seems to be a commonly held opinion in society at large. And finally let us not forget that because of the low status of disabled people and the low regard in which disabled people are currently held they seem to have become a fair-game target for opportunist bullies and abusers - both among members of the press and the government as well as among those who appear to have no compunction about abusing disabled people in their everyday lives in their communities and in their homes. You may also like to refer to a previous reply I gave to you on this matter here.

Look it is easy to hold the moral high ground when you are spending other peoples money, god aren't you so generous.

Silly.

Taxation is spending everyone's money on everyone's behalf. Sick and disabled people aren't a special group in the respect that anyone, regardless of age, sex, class, educational background, political perspective, can become sick or disabled - It could happen to you tomorrow. But as nobody chooses to be sick or disabled, thus sick and disabled people are a special group in as much as they are disadvantaged by their cicumstances, then it falls to society not to acquiesce to calls to just push them out onto the ice to die because somebody has decided they cost more money than they make.

There is a limit to how much the government can give to worthy causes and no amount of virtual signaling from you is going to increase that.

You're not really engaging here are you? Yes, there are limits to the extent of government spending, but when the cost to the treasury of cutting taxes for high-earners is paid for by cutting public sector spending for no-earners then it looks like groups like the sick and disabled are paying for the extra holidays and new cars of the well off.

There isn't a magic money tree to pick ripe fruit from and god help inflation if there was.

Now are you saying that tax revenues are somehow naturally limited so it's only natural to spend less on people in need, or are you saying that sick and disabled people need to be treated shoddily to keep inflation down?

The budget is what it is...

Ah, you think the budget is a force of nature, like a flowing river or an Eastward breeze. No the budget is within the purview of the government of the day.

... and has a thousand other causes demanding money for their pet projects.

How do you feel about that, about categorising keeping vulnerable people off the bread line or out of the mortuary as a 'pet project'?

Increasing taxation on the wealthy just either disincentivizes them or they move to another country.

So you're a trickle-downer as well eh? The thing is, if limiting the income of the wealthy disincentivises them to contribute economically then why is limiting the income of the poor supposed to do the exact opposite and incentivise them to work harder?

Being an entrepreneur is not easy as everyone would be doing it and they are hard to replace let alone discouraging them in the first place.

So treating sick and disabled people shoddily is necessary then?

Yes disabled people have a shit time of it and if I had a magic wand I would wish it all away but I don't and nobody else has one either.

This just shows the paucity of your assumptive non-argument. No super-natural agency is required to treat disabled people with respect, to acknowledge their difficulties, or help them live honest, dignified lives. It just requires making a decision to do so. Being fatalistic about the experience of disabled people is not only belittling to them but it betrays a deficit in the capacity for empathy on which compassion relies.

Do corporations take the piss when it comes to taxation, well yes they do but they hold all the cards and tell any government to fuck off. I'm a capitalist not a corporalist though a country needs big business to employ people, when people are employed it helps the country whether they are good tax payers or not.

Hmm, this speaks to the need of an effective regulatory framework for business and a robust taxation system, but it is still no justification for essentially making disabled people lives more difficult and financially perilous or to use them to effectively pay for tax cuts or to reduce business tax rates.

Do you know any disabled people?

[mistermack]

My beef is with fraudulent claimants, not genuine disabled people.

Why on earth do people take exception to that? It's the fraudulent claimants that make life hard for the genuine ones. There would be much more money available if nobody cheated.

Some people I know have actually convinced THEMELVES that they are disabled, when I remember them talking openly about how to con the system just a few years ago.

One guy is now taking the drugs for depression that he managed to convince the doctor he needed, and he now reckons he's pretty low if he stops. And yet he started out copying a friend who told him what to say. There was nothing wrong with him at all.

[Brian Peacock]

That is a shocking and reprehensible thing to do, but, as I said, overpayments rates due to fraud and error are 2% for all benefits, and 0.5% for ESA (sickness and disability benefits) while underpayment rates are 1.8% for all benefits and 2.3% for ESA.

[Rum]

I know two real life examples of how tough the system has become. The first from our very own Dawktor (who I see from time to time), who spent some time managing part of the disability claimant system. I have it at first hand from him how tough they had been forced to become. He left, partly as a result.

The second concerns a cousin of mine. He worked without a break as a gas fitter for thirty years. He then had a weird medical condition which makes his ankle impossible to walk on - it is related to an inoperable blood clot in his thigh. Despite a GP providing him with evidence that he is unable to work he has been refused disability allowance.

Benefits were a joke a couple of decades ago. People would 'go on the sick' for years at a time and nobody much troubled them about it. The Tories have gone, it seems to me, to the other extreme.

[DaveDodo007]

Increasing taxation on the wealthy just either disincentivizes them or they move to another country.

So why aren't all the global wealthy living in Ireland then? :scratch:

The weather as it is just as shit as the rest of the Birtish isles.

[DaveDodo007]

What it all comes down to is conservative moralising. It's fucking sick and twisted.

#magicmoneytree, #iamgenerouswithotherpeoplesmoney.

#idontunderstandeconomics

#idontunderstandinflation

[pErvinalia]

Increasing taxation on the wealthy just either disincentivizes them or they move to another country.

So why aren't all the global wealthy living in Ireland then? :scratch:

The weather as it is just as shit as the rest of the Birtish isles.

Oh, so the rich will flee, but only if they can work on their tan? Sounds plausible.

[pErvinalia]

What it all comes down to is conservative moralising. It's fucking sick and twisted.

#magicmoneytree, #iamgenerouswithotherpeoplesmoney.

#idontunderstandeconomics

#idontunderstandinflation

#idontunderstandwherewealthcomesfrom

[Brian Peacock]

#thesehashtagsaresoongoingtobetoolongfortwitter

[JimC]

It makes my brain hurt to read them!

[mistermack]

I know two real life examples of how tough the system has become. The first from our very own Dawktor (who I see from time to time), who spent some time managing part of the disability claimant system. I have it at first hand from him how tough they had been forced to become. He left, partly as a result.

The second concerns a cousin of mine. He worked without a break as a gas fitter for thirty years. He then had a weird medical condition which makes his ankle impossible to walk on - it is related to an inoperable blood clot in his thigh. Despite a GP providing him with evidence that he is unable to work he has been refused disability allowance.

Benefits were a joke a couple of decades ago. People would 'go on the sick' for years at a time and nobody much troubled them about it. The Tories have gone, it seems to me, to the other extreme.

Of course there are people like your examples. That's the point I originally made, that it's impossible to tell a clever faker from a genuine claimant, especially when resources are limited.
So we have a shit situation now, where people like your examples don't get what they're due, and others are successfully scamming the system.
That's a result of life not being perfect.
You can either pay more to genuine people AND to the scammers, or less.
The Tories have decided it will be less.

But in some ways, I respect that. Because you if the country is to stop borrowing more money than it makes, everything has to be squeezed.
What annoys me is that they are only squeezing one bunch of people. The poorest and neediest. While cutting taxes for the rich.
But they are Tories. That's what they do.
Labour would do the opposite. They would up the borrowing and pay out a bit more.

I personally would try to squeeze everyone equally, meaning the rich would be paying a lot more, with me in power. But I wouldn't be upping the spending much, till the borrowing was under control.
Which it really isn't. It's all very well being generous with benefits, but not if it's the next generation who end up paying for it all.