Building codes also push prices higher. In the EU, the recent regulations force developers to build luxury buildings as a baseline, at a high cost.
Not all buildings require elevators, intelligent thermostats, triple-panel windows or electric car plugs. Especially when you are experiencing a housing crisis.
I will say that the open and transparent design of Nordic society has some obvious issues when colliding with the hostile Internet we have today.
The issue here though was whether having a full database is materially worse than relying on existing public resources. I can do identity theft all day with public resources; I don’t need a full database dump.
There are plenty of reports online about how identity theft is becoming widespread in Sweden. The fact that something didn't happen to you is not evidence.
Because tax is not your bill from 'government Corp ', its your contribution to the community, to your tribe. And we have explicit goals for this, besides bringing revenue (like the strongest back should carry the heaviest burden).
When we have communal contributions in other settings, your contribution is usually not a secret.
It is meant to give the tax system more legitimacy, that you don't gave to wonder if people sneak out of their contribution, you can check. It also leads to yearly debates about the tax system as the list of the richest(usually inherited) is published together with what they pay in income tax vs wealth tax.
Previously you could check up anyone anonymous. These days you have to log inn, and they get a notification. But the list of the richest and their tax contribution gets published in the newspaper.
This has also the effect of fueling envy, and allows employers to discriminate you if they see that you have side income (or if you don't). Why make all of this fuss about RGPD if private data is in the open?
And why not include medical data as well? The "tribe" has the right to know how much each one costs, right?
It is usually those with little power that suffer when you do that, and those with a lot of power that suffer from financial openness. I ask this in the most naive way possible I think the Pandora Leak was a good thing, do you not agree?
Richer people have many ways to protect themselves from society, unlike poorer people who have to bear the envy of others and can't escape it. Just ask any homeless person.
A rich man can just (and likely should, given the comments here) leave the Swedish crab basket.
Having society obsessed with watching how their neighbor is doing is a very good way to get everyone to look away, while, in the case of Sweden, a single family owns a large part of the stock exchange.
First, lets me clarrify that I am trying to explain how this practise is justified in Norway, I am not arguing for or against it. Some of the justification is pure cultural traits, which you can try to understand even if you dont agree with them yourself. Also note that this is not completely non-controversal, but it seems like the current setup (where you need to log in to search, in addition to the public lists in the newspaper) has reasonable strong support.
This has also the effect of fueling envy
Yeah, I guess the same feeling can look like both "envy" and "sense of justice", depending on where you see it from. But we can't protect everyone from their feelings.
and allows employers to discriminate you if they see that you have side income (or if you don't).
I have never heard about this, and I don't really see the dynamic here. What definitely IS a effect is that it makes it a bit harder for employers to give employees with equal tasks very different salaries.
Why make all of this fuss about RGPD if private data is in the open?
Because this is seen as, at least partially, public data.
And why not include medical data as well? The "tribe" has the right to know how much each one costs, right?
No. And this is where you must just belive me when I say that this is just a truth about the cultue, most people (in Scandinavia) would not agree with argument. Your contribution is public, your weakness is private.
Let me give an example: The local kid socker team is organizing a cup, and the parrents need to help organizing, making and selling cookies, etc. This is organized through an app, where you sign up for tasks, and everyone can see what you are commiting to contribute. The same team also have an arrangement where the(small) membership fee can be waivered if you can't afford it, or you can get help buying equipment(shoes) for your kid. This is handled by you letting the trainer know in private, and he will discretely handle it.
Common citizens aren't supposed to be blockwarts judging who deserves or not their money.
> But we can't protect everyone from their feelings.
We can protect ourselves from the feeling of others by not sharing this data.
> equal tasks very different salaries
Unless you are an unqualified factory worker on a line with quantifiable output, in a service economy "equal tasks" are highly subjective.
> This is handled by you letting the trainer know in private, and he will discretely handle it.
Maybe the poor kid would rather not tell the trainer that he is poor and face paternalistic attitudes? And the rich kid wouldn't be reminded all the time that he is guilty of having richer parents? Add race/migration and you'll quickly tolerate bullying because of "social reasons".
As I said above, I explain the cultural norms making it seen as acceptable. I am not trying to convince you, and I am certainly not interested in a bunch of random tangental discussions.
Maybe the poor kid would rather not tell the trainer that he is poor and face paternalistic attitudes? And the rich kid wouldn't be reminded all the time that he is guilty of having richer parents? Add race/migration and you'll quickly tolerate bullying because of "social reasons".
It would be the parrent who ask the trainer to have it waived, not the kid. No kid, rich or poor, would know if they received help in paying the bill or buying equipment. The whole point of the example was exactly that while peoples contribution is public, their requirement for support is not, so there would be no cultural acceptance for the arguement "since taxes are open so should healtcare-usage". And again, this is a explanation of the cultural context, it is irrelevant if you feel like that culture is good or bad.
I don't follow. It allows citizenry to identify wage discrimination and other malpractices, people can get paid on the value of their work and not just how good they are at gaming the wage negotiations. Plus most of the civilised world has this thing called a "union" and "workers rights" that generally prevent your imagined scenario from happening.
What has medical data got to do with this? You can't very well go up to a disabled person and say, hey, you cost society more money, maybe you should have been born less disabled, you cost too much, pay more. Societal safety nets exist for a reason, and how much one is compensated for equal labour as your coworker... I don't see how it's related at all to the "make the disabled pay more" eugenics argument.
> It allows citizenry to identify wage discrimination and other malpractices, people can get paid on the value of their work and not just how good they are at gaming the wage negotiations.
Ah yeah, so you are for mob justice. "Value of their work" is a highly subjective topic, which everyone is an expert on, of course.
> Plus most of the civilised world has this thing called a "union" and "workers rights" that generally prevent your imagined scenario from happening.
Worker rights and unions don't prevent employers from setting wages freely with their employees. An employee with 0 revenue has much less negociating power if the employer knows about it.
> you cost too much, pay more
I'm pretty sure people can have envy about the disabled person earning as much as they do while he/she doesn't have to wake up in the morning. Or some disabled person would like to evolve freely in the society without having everyone know about it.
> eugenics argument
Sweden sterilized disabled and socially unfit people for a long time, until 2013, so yeah, I totally see it happening. Incidentally I have seen racial and social mappings made out of the Swedish public data in the past, so it's far from anecdotic.
Tax data is government data. Government data is public data. Instead of asking "what's the reason for making something public" the question is "what's the reason for making a carveout for some specific data to make it secret"
Government data about private individuals can be considered as private, for privacy reasons. If the government knows that I have a mental disability, should everyone know about it, so they can discriminate me accordingly? What kind of dystopian view of the world is this?
Or, if I own crypto, why should the government facilitate the work for criminals?
The Government IS the public. I agree that the public shouldn't necessarily know about your mental disabilities, but then you just shouldn't give this information to the government.
Giving this information to the government is needed to get either financial help, or just a card to justify accommodations. But yeah, let's create second class citizens out of disabled people, great idea, very "scandinavian" indeed. At least they stopped sterilizing them.
The Government is answerable to the public and should serve the public. But conflating the government with the public is simply bizarre, to my way of thinking.
Governments should be transparent as much as possible, yes. But that doesn't mean being necessarily transparent with sensitive information that they know about members of the public. Only with your (bizarre to me) conflation of the public with the government would this make any sense.
People thought that in France until a public official started to sell tax data to the mafia. Now there is a kidnapping almost everyday. Things can change faster than what you can imagine, and Sweden is not a safe country anymore by the way.
You will not find any reputable source for those statements, sure maybe as opinions. This is the issue here we are talking about facts. I have been able to look up this information for as long as we had a government in Sweden, and it works.
Financial privacy is a complicated subject, could you perhaps agree that there is a use for transparancy?
The problem is that when you get a high amount migrant from very different ethnicities and cultures than you, it starts to change. Those people do not necessarily want to play the same social game as you, and you risk having structured crime networks arising.
Just like in France where those kidnappings were made by the algerian "DZ" mafia (DZ is a slang for Algeria). Or in Netherlands, with the "mocro" mafia (= Morroccan) who put a price on the royal family's head, forcing the princess sibling to leave the country[0].
In the case of Sweden, this is now the case, although that many Swedish people continue to do as if it wasn't. Don't tell me that such news happens in a "safe" country:
And I don't see why there should be transparency about how much I own, or earn. I don't want the neighbors to know about it, or feed your voyeurist pulsions. The line is thin between "social justice" and "mob violence", or discrimination, in that aspect. Which is likely to happen in a country that sterilized "socially unfit" people for a long time.
I am wary to continue this, because you post unrelated tidbits and opinions.
My opinion is that opaque financial markets only benefits people with lots of money and power. Financial privacy is important here in Sweden, but having the net worth and income as public records has worked for us the last 250 years. I do not know where you come from and what society you live in. I do sense fear in your posts and that is usually a personal feeling. It might be different for us since it has been ingrained for so long.
I am talking from experience in our safe society (fact). Which obviously has severe flaws (opinion).
> Financial privacy is a complicated subject, could you perhaps agree that there is a use for transparancy?
No, because I don't believe in income tax or capital gains tax. I do believe in government taxes but they should be made on land holdings (Georgism) and on corporate activities, not on individuals' financial status (their earnings & capital).
No, the copyright is the colour of the bits, and red bits with a comment saying "these bits are blue" are not blue bits, but you may be prosecuted for fraud.
It's new, fast-moving technology, and the courts are slow and expensive.
It would take two stubborn businesses with a lot of money deciding that it is better to battle it out than focus on their business. Something like IBM v SCO or Oracle v Google.
Socialized healthcare means that the State has a direct financial incentive to reduce or ban consumption of poisonous goods, and crackdown on pollution.
Not all buildings require elevators, intelligent thermostats, triple-panel windows or electric car plugs. Especially when you are experiencing a housing crisis.
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