4 ms·

"The public" ... which you have statistics on? I'm sorry you feel bad but try not to speak for everyone.

hogFeast 7y ago
He is talking about the UK. There is a huge bias against single males here. To give one example: the number and size of tax benefits aimed at families is massive. Spending on these is something like £33bn...that may or may not sound huge to you but the total NHS budget (i.e. healthcare costs for 70-80m people) is ~£115bn. Not everyone thinks this. But it is definitely far to say that is the general view (and it is why Daily Mail skews female, which basically doesn't happen with right-wing news outside the UK).
- guerrilla 7y ago
  Families get help from the state, so the public hates single males? > that is the general view You should prove that.
  - hogFeast 7y ago
    Yes. I am not sure exactly what proof you are expecting but that is all the proof that exists (for obvious reasons, surveys do not generally ask specifically...do you hate X group of people? In the UK, saying that you do has legal implications besides anything else). It is equally true to say this of lone single female parents but that doesn't appear to have quite the same effect on tilting the Daily Mail crowd (because poor powerless women aren't seen as a threat whereas young single males are).
- throwaway66920 7y ago
  This is silly and naive. Tax benefits for families exist to help and encourage families. Society is better off when people can afford to raise a family. To twist it into an anti single man view is way off base.
  - hogFeast 7y ago
    Yes, when a powerful, politically active group forces another less powerful, politically inactive group to subsidise them it is definitely not discriminatory. You should tell that to India, those idiots thought making them pay for their own colonisation was bad...their society was better off. I can see now, it is so obvious. > Society is better off when people can afford to raise a family. Alternate theory: society is better off when people act like adults, and raise a family when they can afford to do so. No subsidies. No govt holding your hand. Even if you ignore the fiscal effect - it is huge because it is politically impossible to cut welfare that such a substantial amount of people receive, that is why govt spending in areas serving truly vulnerable people like care had to be slashed so aggressively - that is not what the policy is intended to do. The (original) focus of the policy was to increase labour force participation amongst single parents. This worked. But, as you are showing, it has become something totally different. And it is now a big feeding trough for a huge share of the population (something like 10%+ of the working population receive WTCs). Govt is not there for social engineering, it is there to help people who cannot help themselves. If someone is poor then they should get help. And this should be through focused policy that is aimed at poverty, not these insanely complex systems that backfire (tax credits are the prime example of this kind of policy). The system we have now means that the govt cannot actually take care of people who need help because of the obscene cost (again, tax credits alone are 30% of the NHS budget) of helping those who don't (but now feel deserving because they are helping society or whatever bollocks you are trying to say). It is extraordinary to totally ignore how this policy has actually worked out (esp. the cost and esp. against the original aims), offer some half-baked inaccurate theory of govt (govt should be involved in the sex lives of citizens), and then call an interpretation that is based in reality naive...but that is basically where we are with govt spending now. Greedy middle-class people scraping the bottom of the poor person's barrel.
    - throwaway66920 7y ago
      It is impressive how strongly held, yet also specific your beliefs are. Who told you this.
      - 7y ago

He is talking about the UK. There is a huge bias against single males here. To give one example: the number and size of tax benefits aimed at families is massive. Spending on these is something like £33bn...that may or may not sound huge to you but the total NHS budget (i.e. healthcare costs for 70-80m people) is ~£115bn. Not everyone thinks this. But it is definitely far to say that is the general view (and it is why Daily Mail skews female, which basically doesn't happen with right-wing news outside the UK).

guerrilla 7y ago
Families get help from the state, so the public hates single males? > that is the general view You should prove that.
- hogFeast 7y ago
  Yes. I am not sure exactly what proof you are expecting but that is all the proof that exists (for obvious reasons, surveys do not generally ask specifically...do you hate X group of people? In the UK, saying that you do has legal implications besides anything else). It is equally true to say this of lone single female parents but that doesn't appear to have quite the same effect on tilting the Daily Mail crowd (because poor powerless women aren't seen as a threat whereas young single males are).
throwaway66920 7y ago
This is silly and naive. Tax benefits for families exist to help and encourage families. Society is better off when people can afford to raise a family. To twist it into an anti single man view is way off base.
- hogFeast 7y ago
  Yes, when a powerful, politically active group forces another less powerful, politically inactive group to subsidise them it is definitely not discriminatory. You should tell that to India, those idiots thought making them pay for their own colonisation was bad...their society was better off. I can see now, it is so obvious. > Society is better off when people can afford to raise a family. Alternate theory: society is better off when people act like adults, and raise a family when they can afford to do so. No subsidies. No govt holding your hand. Even if you ignore the fiscal effect - it is huge because it is politically impossible to cut welfare that such a substantial amount of people receive, that is why govt spending in areas serving truly vulnerable people like care had to be slashed so aggressively - that is not what the policy is intended to do. The (original) focus of the policy was to increase labour force participation amongst single parents. This worked. But, as you are showing, it has become something totally different. And it is now a big feeding trough for a huge share of the population (something like 10%+ of the working population receive WTCs). Govt is not there for social engineering, it is there to help people who cannot help themselves. If someone is poor then they should get help. And this should be through focused policy that is aimed at poverty, not these insanely complex systems that backfire (tax credits are the prime example of this kind of policy). The system we have now means that the govt cannot actually take care of people who need help because of the obscene cost (again, tax credits alone are 30% of the NHS budget) of helping those who don't (but now feel deserving because they are helping society or whatever bollocks you are trying to say). It is extraordinary to totally ignore how this policy has actually worked out (esp. the cost and esp. against the original aims), offer some half-baked inaccurate theory of govt (govt should be involved in the sex lives of citizens), and then call an interpretation that is based in reality naive...but that is basically where we are with govt spending now. Greedy middle-class people scraping the bottom of the poor person's barrel.
  - throwaway66920 7y ago
    It is impressive how strongly held, yet also specific your beliefs are. Who told you this.
    - 7y ago