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In Norway, everyone can know how much you earn [video]

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Re: In Norway, everyone can know how much you earn [video]

#151

Post by charlesdm »

bjourne wrote: post #148
charlesdm wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's great for transparency, researchers and journalists and makes corruption much harder to get away with. So, I think in this case, "transparency", "researchers" and "journalists" are all highly irrelevant. 1. Journalists shouldn't write articles about how person X makes €Xm a year. The friend of my cousins husband was abducted when he was a kid, because the press kept writing articles about how wealthy his fam…

> 1. Journalists shouldn't write articles about how person X makes €Xm a year. I disagree. If some CEO says that workers salaries are too high and he himself increased his salary by 50% the last year, that is important for journalists to write about. > 2. Researchers: the data could easily be anonymized. Researches are interested in seeing how different variables correlate with salary. Like gender, age, education lev…

> A lot of corruption involves one party "gifting" the other something. That kind of corruption has been caught by the tax authority.

Like what? A house? You can't really catch cash transactions.

I would assume that in developed economies the "easiest" and least transparent way of corruption happening is friends doing each other favours. I.e. person A can influence the granting of permits through his friend, person B. In return for helping person C get a permit, he gets a board seat in the company of person D, via person C.

Re: In Norway, everyone can know how much you earn [video]

#152

Post by PunchTornado »

ajmurmann wrote: post #69
PunchTornado wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Wow, THAT is creepy! Did you get fired?

nope, I faked them as tests and anyway there was no pressure about it. it was relaxed, never got a question about it.

my point is that for people with poor negotiating skills, like me, knowing how much other people make would have helped me when I was younger.

Re: In Norway, everyone can know how much you earn [video]

#154

Post by lobster_johnson »

jomamaxx wrote: post #136
zer0gravity wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't have anything to hide, or you don't want to trick people by paying less then the value they produce, then this kind of system is much better because it promotes honesty and a kind of mutual respect. It may seem strange at first but usually democracy and transparency go hand in hand. Secrets are most of the time the tools of cheaters and liers...

"If you don't have anything to hide, or you don't want to trick people by paying less then the value they produce, then this kind of system is much better because it promotes honesty and a kind of mutual respect. " Why doesn't Sweden force everyone to publish their sexual history? Medical records? Amount of vacation time? It's utterly absurd. Your finances are your private information - unless there is a specific rea…

> It's utterly absurd.

Your argument is literally argumentum ad absurdum. You can't show something to be absurd by pointing out that other, hypothetical non-existent things are absurd.

Re: In Norway, everyone can know how much you earn [video]

#155

Post by Broken_Hippo »

DanBC wrote: post #131
Broken_Hippo wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The stuff you are citing, btw, is basically an accepted conspiracy theory as well. The problem is that it really isn't the truth as you are stating it.

You don't seem to be aware of it, but the Norwegian model is frequently criticised as being too severe. There's probably some court case about to happen to protect the rights of children because the Norwegian model is too severe. Here's one example of international concern about the severity of the system: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-36026458 Those parents hit their children, and so the parents need punishment…

I am actually aware of the other side of it as well. I generally tend to agree with some of the severity, especially in abuse cases. I'd rather things swing on the side of keeping children safe than the opposite, especially in abuse cases. The right they are upholding is that children should live in a violence free household. That law is pretty strict. There is good and bad with the methods, and that tends to be the case anywhere.

I do think with cultural differences, perhaps not enough upfront education is done - and cultural differences are part of the issue. It is difficult for parents to figure out what is and isn't allowed. However, I think the current EU/Schengen Area free movement policies probably hinder such a thing and I'm not sure how to educate a continent of people about such things.

I also realize that much like the states, most of the folks that speak out have been in some sort of trouble with them. It wasn't much different in the states - child protective services was invisible until someone had an issue with them. In general, neither place comments on ongoing cases in the protection of children.

The folks I've met that have dealt with them: One person simply had a meeting or two and a follow up, as there wasn't much to say about it. The other was having meetings in their house weekly for a bit plus some parenting classes. Both were immigrants. I know the system isn't always harsh.

And then there is the entire matter of ... well, honestly, most folks expect others to follow the laws of the country they are in. Can't very well have a different system for immigrants than citizens.

Re: In Norway, everyone can know how much you earn [video]

#157

Post by lettergram »

danso wrote: post #111
lettergram wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally, (I'm less than 25) I make about 75% of my income from the company I work at, the other 25% doing odd jobs, websites, etc. That latter percentage is probably increasing every month too. I can't imagine the company I work at being super excited I'm (for example) doing code reviews; or running a website. Technically, I don't have a clause in my contract forbidding me from doing external work, so long as I gi…

Why do you feel justified in assuming what your company would think? And how do you justify working at such a place with the kind of corporate moral code that would punish employees for behavior not defined in the employment contract? There are plenty of scenarios in which an employer believes that they deserve to know how their employee conducts themselves outside of work, including other jobs, and in those scenario…

Sure there are plenty of scenarios where that might be fine. However, I'm sure every business is not the same and I know some of my managers would be offended.

Re: In Norway, everyone can know how much you earn [video]

#158

Post by friendzis »

lettergram wrote: post #70
ginko wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When would that be the case? When you have another job on the side? How is that your employer's business?

Personally, (I'm less than 25) I make about 75% of my income from the company I work at, the other 25% doing odd jobs, websites, etc. That latter percentage is probably increasing every month too. I can't imagine the company I work at being super excited I'm (for example) doing code reviews; or running a website. Technically, I don't have a clause in my contract forbidding me from doing external work, so long as I gi…

I'm just a little bit worried. You state that you do part time websites, your co-worker is doing system architecture, so I'm assuming software related job. Double check your contract and related documents, because while most contracts do not forbid working part time, pretty common clause is forbidding to compete or work for you employer's competitors. Currently I have CEO signed document explicitly allowing me to work part time in a completely unrelated company :)

Re: In Norway, everyone can know how much you earn [video]

#159

Post by friendzis »

charlesdm wrote: post #143
bjourne wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because by default, all government data is public. How much you pay in taxes is contained in government data. That's great for transparency, researchers and journalists and makes corruption much harder to get away with. Only when there is a compelling reason to keep the data secret which outweighs the public interest (such as the identity of a rape victim) is the data kept secret. People being embarrassed by people f…

> That's great for transparency, researchers and journalists and makes corruption much harder to get away with. So, I think in this case, "transparency", "researchers" and "journalists" are all highly irrelevant. 1. Journalists shouldn't write articles about how person X makes €Xm a year. The friend of my cousins husband was abducted when he was a kid, because the press kept writing articles about how wealthy his fam…

1. Should journalists write articles about how company X made €Y in profits last year? What about self-employed/single-person-companies?

2. As it was stated properly anonymized data would only allow faceting by absolute income and researchers are interested in many other facets.

3. I'm not from Norway (know some people there) so might be mistaken, but as far as I understand only 3 things are public: income, asset-value, tax. Income and asset structure (income may be wage or interest, assets might be cash in a sock/bank, shares or a house) are not disclosed. Health insurers ask you certain questions about your family health (e.g. any known cancer cases for 2 generations or whatever) and it is contract violation and possibly criminal offense to lie. More on this in side note.

4. The very reason a lot of corruption is gotten away with is simply capacity of tax authorities to dig deep, not the clever routing itself.

Side note: As far as I have observed, it is more or less cultural habit in Scandinavia to be obsessed with what I call "what would others think?". Practically this surfaces in two areas: 1. being really conservative about what is considered acceptable (count number of house colors in a neighbourhood :) ) 2. attempts to be better than your neighbour, which increases welfare

Re: In Norway, everyone can know how much you earn [video]

#160

Post by manarth »

ACS_Solver wrote: post #44
hkjgkjy wrote: post #19

Earlier 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 advantage that I can see to that transparency is the potential for reducing income inequality based on gender, ethnicity, etc. Whether that's effective is another question.
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