Norway, the Country Where No Salaries Are Secret (bbc.com) 218
In Norway, there are no such secrets. Anyone can find out how much anyone else is paid -- and it rarely causes problems. From a report: In the past, your salary was published in a book. A list of everyone's income, assets and the tax they had paid, could be found on a shelf in the public library. These days, the information is online, just a few keystrokes away. The change happened in 2001, and it had an instant impact. "It became pure entertainment for many," says Tom Staavi, a former economics editor at the national daily, VG. "At one stage you would automatically be told what your Facebook friends had earned, simply by logging on to Facebook. It was getting ridiculous." Transparency is important, Staavi says, partly because Norwegians pay high levels of income tax -- an average of 40.2 percent compared to 33.3 percent in the UK, according to Eurostat, while the EU average is just 30.1 percent. "When you pay that much you have to know that everyone else is doing it, and you have to know that the money goes to something reasonable," he says. "We [need to] have trust and confidence in both the tax system and in the social security system."
2001? (Score:3)
News? When the article is about something that happened 16 years ago?
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Re: 2001? (Score:3)
And it's the same in Sweden since many years.
Re:2001? (Score:5, Informative)
The reason it's in the current news (at least on the BBC) is that the BBC have recently published the salaries of many of their top earners for the first time. The discussion has arisen because many are earning in the millions and are effectively paid from the public purse (well, licence fee but all the same in the end...).
Original article [bbc.co.uk]
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Why do Evans and Lineker make so much more than the others?
Re:2001? (Score:5, Interesting)
It's still news to Americans that the world doesn't implode simply because someone knows how much you get paid, or why you went to see the doctor last week.
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Why should pay be a secret?
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As the US slides further left
Uhhhh, what?
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Because secret negotiations result in a lot of highly-skilled individuals being paid less than they're actually worth, because they mistakenly think their below-average pay is average. It's exploitation by the employers.
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Provided that the Bitcoin is keeping its value.
If in the future you can't exchange the Bitcoin for anything but the currencies of odd states in the future then it may be a virtual asset that's dead.
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In the tax reports the reported income is used for the tax calculation.
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In Norway, you don't have that option, and you haven't had it for some considerable time.
To put that into context, the majority of people I know who live, earn and work in Norway are not happy about losing their jobs, income and careers when Britain leaves the EU. Some are trying to marry local boys/ girls/ whatevers ; some are looking to try to get citizenships and some are looking at retirement.
I wonder if... (Score:2)
that kind of transparency generates a social pressure for high earners to justify their income.
Re:I wonder if... (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't see it making it hard to justify a large salary, what I see it being a complication for, is large yearly bonuses for management, while the rank and file get shafted.
Generalized higher pay grades, even really obscene ones, would not really be an obstacle as long as they 1) pay their proper % of tax, and 2) have that income as a steady, constant thing.
It is when the managers make up fairy stories about how "We gotta do triple shifts or the company will go under! OMG!", pay everyone beneath them peanuts, and then give themselves huge, fat bonuses at the end of the year for "Doing such a great job!!" that people will notice it, and then raise cain.
I personally would LOVE to see this level of wage transparency in the US-- It would make a great many HR, and management teams break out in cold, bloody sweats.
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I personally would LOVE to see this level of wage transparency in the US-- It would make a great many HR, and management teams break out in cold, bloody sweats.
I dunno. I could just as easily see an HR department using that against you.
"Well, we'd really love to give you a raise, but we'd have problems if everyone saw how much more you're making..."
Any Norwegians here? Would love to hear how this actually affects your relationship with your employer and fellow employees.
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That's the general fear about making salaries transparent - that high earners will have to justify their high salaries and thus see that it might be lowered. What really happens is those who make
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If wage transparency is bad for everybody, why does Norway have the world's 5th highest salaries [gazettereview.com]?
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RTFS:
Norwegians pay high levels of income tax -- an average of 40.2 percent
Sure, they pay a lot - but nearly HALF of that goes back to the Government in income tax alone. Yes, you earn more - and you get to give that right back.
Plus you have the third most expensive beer in Europe [goeuro.com], trailing two Swiss cities. In general, Norway is incredibly expensive to live in [oecd.org], nearly 50% more expensive than the EC/EU28 average. You have to earn more, because you pay more across the board - taxes, food, and all other expenses.
Just like if you're an engineer in San Francisco, you tend to e
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Wage transparency is bad for everyone.
Wage transparency is good for employees and bad for employers (because it means they are dealing with employees more as a group than individuals).
I'm Norwegian but I've also lived in the US (Score:5, Informative)
As the article stated, it used to be that everything was completely open and searchable on the internet for a few years, before that point you had to visit city hall (or the post office) and manually search through huge books.
The current setup is actually very nice, in that the transparency goes both ways:
In order to be allowed to access any tax records you first have to use the same two-factor authentication you would use to deliver your own tax return, and if you then look at any tax return except your own, the person you looked up will be notified that you did so.
I.e. if I think my neighbors are spending too much money and want to check what they have declared, they will immediately be told that I did so.
Terje
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Someone should set up an exchange website where people can do look ups for other people in exchange for them doing requests on their behalf. All the person being checked knows is that some random person they don't know made a request.
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That's actually a good idea, or it would have been if Norwegians hadn't been both trusting and trustworthy.
I.e. there have been several international comparisons where Norway end up with very high productivity, supposedly because the fact that we can (at least mostly) trust people.
My favorite story is the time when I lost my wallet on the bus and someone who did the cleaning for the bus company found it and phoned me three weeks later (it had gotten stuck between the seat cushions.)
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I.e. if I think my neighbors are spending too much money and want to check what they have declared, they will immediately be told that I did so.
Terje
How about doing it this way - the moment you checked up on anybody's salary, not only would they be notified that you looked it up, they would also as a bonus be told what you earn! And let them do whatever they like w/ that information
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Re:I wonder if... (Score:5, Insightful)
"Well, we'd really love to give you a raise, but we'd have problems if everyone saw how much more you're making..."
That is a Good Thing. If two people are doing equal work, one should not get a raise just for being more assertive.
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"Well, we'd really love to give you a raise, but we'd have problems if everyone saw how much more you're making..."
That is a Good Thing. If two people are doing equal work, one should not get a raise just for being more assertive.
What makes you think they are doing equal work?
Re:I wonder if... (Score:5, Insightful)
Everybody here is missing the other point: This global transparency ensures that people know their tax money "goes to something reasonable"
It totally keeps the rich, the government, etc., in check.
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That article is garbage, since Norwegians make far more than $19k on average and Norwegians do not have the highest average salaries. Norway is doing quite well for itself but this article is simply not accurate.
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"That's their problem. Either I'm worth the extra money to you or I'm not. I think I am, but if you disagree I'm confident I can find employment elsewhere."
It is the company's problem, including the other employees, if they cannot attract enough top talent to compete in the marketplace. On two occasions I have had to say no to a company which really needed help because their pay grades were too strict. My wife works at one of those companies and their IT problems in particular will probably never be solved if they cannot hire some $175k+ talent (Midwest suburbs, so not as high as the coasts).
This might not be a big problem for an entire country which operates
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"I don't see it making it hard to justify a large salary, what I see it being a complication for, is large yearly bonuses for management, while the rank and file get shafted."
But in Norway, doesn't the tax system give everyone about the same net income, no matter how much they may gross?
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Nope. Some other European countries have high tax brackets for big earners, but Norway's top tax bracket is only 39%, which is lower than the USA: https://taxfoundation.org/how-... [taxfoundation.org]
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But in Norway, doesn't the tax system give everyone about the same net income, no matter how much they may gross?
No. The base tax is 36%, but there's a decent base deduction on the gross income to find the taxable income. Then, if you make more than a certain amount (taxable, higher than the average income) you pay an extra ~10% on the amount above that limit.
Re:I wonder if... (Score:5, Insightful)
Wage transparency is great for so many reasons. As well as preventing the kind of abuse you describe, it also makes it easy to get a fair salary without heavy negotiation, and be sure you aren't getting screwed over.
As a result it also tends to drive down various pay gaps (gender, ethnicity etc). Some people claim that such gaps don't really exist, but the fact that they are reduced in countries with wage transparency disproves that.
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The US has a much different culture when it comes to social justice. Old countries, like Norway and Japan, have more of a sense of community than the US, where no-one gives fuck about anybody but themselves. In business negotiations a deal can be struck where the opposing party may suffer irreparable damage, where in civilized countries though is given to the other party's survival.
The US was founded on conquest, genocide, slavery, and war. The Land of the Free's constitution was written by slave owners who
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A sense of community is easier in a homogeneous society. People are more willing to help their neighbors if their neighbors look and think like they do.
Scandinavians are not as happy to help the poor when they are Syrian and Somali refugees.
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Norway actually has a very low population density. The one in USA is 6 times higher and Japan 20 times.
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Is it that low if you consider only the habitable parts, such as the south of the country? Most of the north is just mountains or snow. I'm assuming not much of the country's population lives north of Trondheim, which would be what - some 60% of that country's area?
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It does mot really matter, Norway has only 5.xM inhabitants ... most obviously live in the few big cities.
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Really? No. Just no.
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Though personally I lean more towards the guys who came up with the window tax [wikipedia.org], which is exactly what you think it is. It's often
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This eliminates the situation where lawful people don't even ask because it's against company policy
It's much easier to know you are underpaid, and then perhaps do something about it, if there's complete transparency.
Of course it could work both ways.
Re:I wonder if... (Score:5, Insightful)
- the only 'explaining' they 'have to do' is so that others can also try and do the same. AFAIC income and wealth taxes are robbery, armed robbery regardless if it is 100%, 50% or 0.00000000000000000000000000000000000000000001%
Somalia was tax-free for almost a 1/4 century; you should have emigrated.
If nothing else you'd have a much greater appreciation of both the value of taxation & what "armed robbery" is really like.
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If the tax-hating, gun-loving, Bible-thumpin' had things their way, Somalia is but a taste of what that paradise will be.
A lot of them are preppin' for the apocalypse and ready to bring it on. Just so I can keep an eye on what the extremists are up to, I have subscriptions to a number of newsletters from the fringes.
There seem to be no shortage of places to buy powdered eggs & milk, an astonishing variety of lethal weapons & many book-length expositions on how Barack & Hillary sold their souls t
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THIS!!! I'm more often than not happy to treat the salaries of others as none of my own business. Likewise, what I make or spend is nobody else's either. I just need to be making enough to be prosperous myself.
People who bitch about how much CEOs make overlook the fact that looting those guys is not gonna increase their net pay.
Same in Finland. (Score:3, Informative)
Same thing in Finland, everyones total income is public, of course you don't nesseccary know how much you peers salaries are as, they might have additional income from through other work etc. However income from stock and other investments are show separately as they have different tax structure.
Nice to have for corporation tax too (Score:5, Insightful)
Profit is easy to manipulate, in order to make tax liabilities disappear, yet the offending company still uses the infrastructure in the country. This is a point made by Warren Buffett, that well-known communist, not specifically by me.
That way, we know which companies to boycott. And yes, since you're asking, I have no FB account, don't buy anything from Google ads and am beginning to minimise my use of Amazon. https://www.hive.co.uk/ [hive.co.uk] support local bookshops in the UK, for example.
is 40% high (Score:5, Interesting)
I mean I know we Americans like to pretend to have low taxes, but, in reality, we just have a lot of misdirection and backdoor taxes.
Every fee you pay for a government service, especially the ones they impose on you like driver's licenses which need to be renewed for some reason and the same with car registrations. Then they setup their regulations to maximize offences so they can disproportionately rake in money from the poor. Those fines are all taxes really.
40%? That isn't far off from some estimates I have seen for totals of what a lot of Americans give our worthless government.
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Just as a datapoint: I earn about $54k in Norway, and I paid an effective 36% in direct taxes, plus the sales taxes (25%, 12% on food).
Re: is 40% high (Score:3)
40% income tax is high, and on top of that is VAT. You get taxed 40% on what you earn, and 18% or 25% on most of what you spend.
Re: is 40% high (Score:4, Informative)
Entry level graduate earns around 250K NOK (Norwegian Kronor). Senior Engineer earns around 550K NOK.
Mobile smartphones are between 5000 and 6000 NOK. Mobile network connection seemed to come in two bills of about 1500NOK each. Electricity bills were split up into network/distribution and production but didn't cost more than 600NOK/quarter. Internet access costs would be subsidized by the employer. Weekly shopping is around 800NOK for one person (Meny, Rema1000) but use-by-dates were only a couple of days, as everything is imported from the rest of Europe.
There's a vehicle import duty of 25K NOK, so everyone usually ends up buying the high-end range of cars and vans - with large touchscreen at the center of the vehicle. Homes started at 250K NOK. Student places rent for 700NOK, luxury apartments 1500NOK.
You have all the catalog brand names: H&M's, Dressmann. Narvesen is the equivalent of WH Smiths and convenience stores. They stock newspapers, confectionary, magazines as well as hot food like hot dogs wrapped in bacon.
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>"40%? That isn't far off from some estimates I have seen for totals of what a lot of Americans give our worthless government."
Do you REALLY think income tax is all the taxes they pay? You completely skipped VAT, employer's SS tax, corporate tax (which gets passed onto the price of everything), excise tax, property tax, Inheritance and gift tax.
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There is no gift tax or inheritance tax.
Also note that the tax inclued health insurance, and public pension (although most people have a private one paid by the employer on top of the public one).
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>"There is no gift tax or inheritance tax."
Someone should correct the Wikipedia page, then.
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If you look at the title of the spreadsheet, or scroll right and see that the totals add to 100%, you'll discover that it's about the breakdown of taxes and nothing to do with the total amount of taxes.
So, in a way you are correct: Norway is relatively up front in taxing income and raising money in other ways. Poor research in the original article though.
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Small to mid-sized businesses generally dont get any of those breaks. America has a very hostile tax environment for small to mid-sized businesses. The highest rates in the world. These arent VAT taxes but they are quite similar in actuality. A tax on profits might as well be a tax on added-value.
Re:is 40% high (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually being a small business is very advantageous. While "rates" may be high, you can deduct pretty much anything. This is in stark contrast to an individual wage earner that has to bear nearly 100% of work related costs.
Corporate tax rates even for small businesses are only relevant to profits after all expenses including wages.
Even lush bennies for low paid employees can be seen as a tax dodge for the business owner.
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You can't deduct things from your profit. You deduct expenses from revenue to get the profit you're taxed on. Taxing a company's revenue makes zero sense unless you want to randomly bankrupt all low-margin businesses.
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Came to post this. Left satisfied.
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Which is why the IRS will rape you if you are a sole proprietor contractor. Particularly with only a few or one client.
Even lush bennies for low paid employees
The IRS gives companies serious tax breaks and leeway on deductions in return for their complicity in enforcing tax regulations on individuals. Actually let your rank and file employees use too many legal tax breaks and your company will get audited into the ground. Lincoln freed the slaves, but our government still isn't happy about seeing people walking around without masters.
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Or to put it another way, why pay $10 for benefits for low-paid employees to get a $3 tax deduct
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Let's see: 10% of 47 cents is 4.7 cents per dollar reduction. If we assume each employee costs $50K with benefits (probably low balling it), 12 employees would be $600K, which is 4.7% of your net income before taxes. That means your income before taxes is about $13 million and after taxes $6.8 million.
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He's pointing out that a small business is a very efficient vehicle for co-mingling business and personal expenses.
Which is also a great way to have Mr. IRS Agent come, audit, and slap you for improper deductions, back taxes, and tons of penalties!
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Sure. Your car registration is SUCH a burden. If that's all that you can think of then your argument is pants.
Re:is 40% high (Score:4, Insightful)
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like driver's licenses which need to be renewed for some reason a
I can't speak for everyone, but I don't look anything like the picture that was on my drivers license 20 years ago.
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I can't speak for everyone, but I can't remember the last time I cared what the photo on the government issued card I shouldn't really need for much of anything looked like.
same goes for US government jobs (Score:3)
if you are a federal worker, your salary is not a secret.
Except that in contrast to Norway it is harder to find
$50k (Score:2)
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I make about $1.7m/yr between my porn star and supercar test driver gigs.
I pay close to 30% (Score:2)
with 0 transparency. When will the US catch up? I would love to see this shit here. There would be CEO blood in the streets and it would be glorious.
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Since when are CEO salaries not public in the US? Are you talking about pretentious small or medium sized business owners who call themself CEO to feel bigger? When I hear CEO I generally assume we're talking about a publicly owned company. Are there publicly owned companies that don't report executive compensation? I thought it was mandatory. I certainly know the total compensation of the executives of the company I work for from reading the SEC filings.
I'd be shocked if the union reps negotiating contract
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Obviously actual CEO blood in the streets would be bad. Unemployed CEOs due to their employees demanding their corporation hire someone less focused on self-enrichment, however, would be good.
Yes (Score:2)
It's already been stated (Score:5, Interesting)
But it would go a long way in calling bullshit on an employer who tells you no on a payraise because " budgets are tight " all the while paying each of their execs a yearly bonus that exceeds your lifetime income.
This sort of transparency would cause a great deal of discomfort for those companies who regularly lie to their employees.
In fact, those companies would find it difficult to keep any employees and, in the end, might have difficulty being a company at all when all of their talent leaves because of it.
The Income Inequality gap in the US is so wide now, this level of transparency would likely cause a great deal of anger at best.
An insane amount of violence at worst.
Sounds like a free market to me (Score:5, Insightful)
...and any time pricing information is concealed, it's NOT a free market.
You know the only people who WANT a free market, really want one? Small actors who have no leverage. The BEST deal you can get when you're small is a fair one, as produced by a free market. Every large actor (the company vs you, at salary time, say) wants a closed market, so they can use their size advantage. The Company knows EVERY salary in the company (and they always want to know what you were paid at every previous job, when you apply) while you only know your own, at negotiation time. That's a huge advantage for them, which they always wish to preserve.
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My employer (a fortune 100 company) provides every employee with a personalized annual report showing the target salary range for their job title and exactly where their current salary falls relative to the low and high ends of the range. The internal job listings show the target salary for every posted position with the geographic variation for different pay for the same job title in different regions of the US.
Is this unique? It's a company that gets a lot of hate posts every time it's mentioned on slashd
We Need That Here (Score:2)
Two things are missing (Score:2)
This lacks two properties to be useful, especially in the US.
1. Rich people do not need a "salary", even an "income". They already have "wealth", and "unrealized gains" from their investments. i.e.: they might have a mansion, and own stock in a large company, and receive zero salary but still sustain themselves, their heirs, and maybe three more generations without any additional "salary" (i.e: income tax). In addition to "income", "wealth" needs to be public as well. (But that will attract all kinds of thi
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When a person takes a break from work the people who stay working for weeks, months and years advance in the private sector.
Put in some effort and get rewarded.
The person returns to work and finds all their colleagues who put the long hours have got advancements and promotions.
Re "higher paying careers."
Some people want to be a doctor or a lawyer or a horse doctor. Some enjoyed studying biology. Some law, some management or arts.
Many nations don't suggest what to study and then o
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> Put in some effort and get rewarded.
Turns out, that's not how it works. Anywhere. Commonly held fallacy though.
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There is no such fact.
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LOL! I'm moderated troll when correcting someone and an AC with absolutely not argument is moderated as insightful.
Even adjusted for the measurable fact that women tend to be more educated than men for a certain job there is a real and measurable wage gap. Observe I use the word measurable twice - this isn't something I make up for some reason, this is something that have been measured. I don't provide links partially because the OP didn't, I don't to waste my time for a crowd that should be able to do some
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I live in the real world - in realtime. I live as much as possible based on truth (even if I don't like always like it) via the successive approximation of scientific measurements. You should try it rather than listen to politicians.
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Google is your friend. Be informed.
Re:And that's a good thing? (Score:5, Insightful)
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But in the USA, we all aspire to move to the big end of town. If you live in a socialist economy you might be content with never moving up. That's the 'bucket of crabs' analogy at work.
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But in the USA, we all aspire to move to the big end of town.
Everyone aspires to moving up, it's just whether you allow others an equal opportunity to also move up too. America out of all western nations seems to be one of the worst at this https://www.oecd.org/eco/growt... [oecd.org]
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Both the tax system and the social security system can be changed if people wanted to, we are talking about a democracy. How is your post relevant?
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can be changed if people wanted to
Not so much in collectivist cultures. Peer pressure will have most people voting against their own self interests.
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Refugee camps are not internment camps. We used to know what to do when a million fleeing people showed up on our borders.
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I like how you made a massive inaccurate generalisation of desperate people in order to excuse bad behaviour towards them. That was a lovely touch.
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Scandinavian countries have an extremely low crime rate.
Also they value assimilation for immigrants very high.
On the other hands immigrants are received with a relatively high standard of living. The total amount accepted by those countries is relatively small.
No idea why you think those immigrants would suddenly start robbing 'rich natives'.
Robbing anyone,regardless of rich or native, is a 'ticket home' ... from what ever hell they came (after serving prison time).
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If Norway was in the EU you'd have a point.