Norway is no different from all rich oil-producing countries. Just selling oil is not that hard, but what will happen when Norway run out of oil?
I expect owning 1% of all the stocks and bonds in the world will see them do just fine.
In Norway, everyone can know how much you earn [video]
41–50 of 172 posts
Re: In Norway, everyone can know how much you earn [video]
#42Norway is no different from all rich oil-producing countries. Just selling oil is not that hard, but what will happen when Norway run out of oil?
Norway is handling their oil wealth pretty responsibly and have a huge (U.S. $873 billion) government fund based on petroleum profits[0]. This American Life ran a podcast segment on it back in 2011 which was interesting[1].
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_Pension_Fund_of_Nor... [1] http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2011/08/26/139972557/the-f...
Re: In Norway, everyone can know how much you earn [video]
#43What? You cannot do this in every democratic country? The government should be transparent, therefore everything the government bodies do that does not obviously need to be protected should be public.
For the government being transparent you have to know what the government collects. But for that it doesn't matter what a single person earns and pays. This might be more relevant with corporate taxes (where authorities make deals to keep a company in one location), subsidiaries or donations to political parties (which aim for influence)
Touché. However, I will continue to think that it is completely normal, as will most scandinavians ;)
Re: In Norway, everyone can know how much you earn [video]
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
Would you mind saying which country you live in? I'm from the UK, where income/tax is private, and my understanding is that this is the same in the USA, and most European countries. It's interesting that what's "normal" to me is so alien and unexpected to other people.
I think it's common in Scandinavia, and when moving out of the peninsula for the first time I was chocked that it wasn't like that for everyone. Now I feel queasy about having that data public.
I have the opposite experience, I moved to Scandinavia (Sweden), and this is still one of the weirder things to me. I like the ideas of transparency in general that are prevalent, but I don't see how publishing the tax returns of individual citizens working in the private sector contributes to transparency.
Re: In Norway, everyone can know how much you earn [video]
#45Re: In Norway, everyone can know how much you earn [video]
#46Norway has zero transparency when it comes to children rights. Some governments (Slovak, Czech, Romania) recommend not to travel there with children. EDIT: Some explanations. - In Norway social services (Barnevernet) can take children from family without any explanation. - Parents are under gag order, and can not talk about their case. Talking to press means you loose parental rights. - There is no appeal, proof, or…
What do you mean? What can happen?
Norway is big on protecting children. In particular, some things that seem normal in some cultures - open-handed slaps, whipping them with a belt or other such weapon - are illegal.
There have been some cases recently where children have been removed from their families, and because Norway is so big on protecting children, they don't release to the press the details of the cases.
I suspect that some of the outcry might be because of these two facts; because "of course" it's ridiculous to take children from their families because of a little physical punishment, and combined with the information vacuum, rumours and supposition take the place of fact. There will also be a strong correlation between immigrant families (from physical punishment cultures) and the application of physical punishment, which will make the stats look odd at first glance.
Re: In Norway, everyone can know how much you earn [video]
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
Have you considered the alternative approach of talking to people? A lot less creepy than cyber stalking their tax reports.
not reliable. a lot of my friends were saying they were earning much more than were really making. made me depressed for quit a while. then I got a wonderful job as a data admin for an intelligence institution and for a few days when certain maintenance was due I had unlimited access to everyone's earning in my country. THE LIES! I always have issues negotiating my wage so knowing what other people are earning would…
did you try using your newfound powers for science as well? wage gap numbers are presumably drawn from smaller numbers in countries without public tax returns, actually computing this nationwide would be amazing
Re: In Norway, everyone can know how much you earn [video]
#48Re: In Norway, everyone can know how much you earn [video]
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think it's common in Scandinavia, and when moving out of the peninsula for the first time I was chocked that it wasn't like that for everyone. Now I feel queasy about having that data public.
I have the opposite experience, I moved to Scandinavia (Sweden), and this is still one of the weirder things to me. I like the ideas of transparency in general that are prevalent, but I don't see how publishing the tax returns of individual citizens working in the private sector contributes to transparency.
The transparency goes a long way in Sweden. You can call the tax office and say "I want this person and all his relatives' social security numbers, income statements, address history etc etc". They can't question it and you don't need any reason.
Re: In Norway, everyone can know how much you earn [video]
#50I must be naive but I thought this was public information in most countries.
Would you mind saying which country you live in? I'm from the UK, where income/tax is private, and my understanding is that this is the same in the USA, and most European countries. It's interesting that what's "normal" to me is so alien and unexpected to other people.
Sweden.