9 ms·

Interesting. It seems to work for Finland. In some countries it would probably make you a kidnapping target.

Cthulhu_ 5y ago
You become a kidnapping target by being rich, whether that's a matter of public record or just someone cruising the wealthier neighbourhoods is arbitrary. I mean over here you can't look up who makes how much, but the rough value of houses and neighbourhoods, which is used to determine property taxes, is public record. I'm sure there's some rich people / families living in otherwise underwhelming houses, but they're generally a minority.
- pmoriarty 5y ago
  The solution to this is to eliminate wealth disparity.
  - faeyanpiraat 5y ago
    We tried that already. It wasn’t pretty.
    - Tostino 5y ago
      When? When did we actually try that?
  - tengbretson 5y ago
    Why stop at eliminating wealth disparity when you can eliminate wealth?
    - syshum 5y ago
      Same thing, the only way to eliminating wealth disparity is to eliminate wealth. The Authoritarian Left that goes on and on about eliminating wealth disparity has no interest in lifting everyone up to be wealthy, not they want to seize the wealth and drag anyone down they deem is "too wealthy" Which is ironically always someone more wealthy than the person advocating for wealth redistribution, for example Bernie Sanders used to talk about "millionaires and billionaires" until he became a millionaire, now like magic only billionaires are a problem for him
      - mola 5y ago
        You know being a millionaire today has a massively different meaning than 20 years ago.
        losvedir 5y ago
        What? Now you're making me feel old. I remember 20 years ago... it didn't seem that different from today. What's "massively different" about being a millionaire then? You mean, inflation-adjusted, how it's $1.5 million today?
        convolvatron 5y ago
        you still get get to retire in comfort, but you don't get invited to the really swank parties seriously - maybe narcissism isn't the best character trait to structure your society around?
    - fennecfoxen 5y ago
      This has been demonstrated feasible! We can all be similarly poor together.
  - carapace 5y ago
    Maybe. But how? I think that, if you could somehow collect all the wealth and redistribute it equally, within a few years we would see disparity reappear. Some folks are better at accumulating wealth than others. It seems to me that you would have to keep reallocating wealth. And many would then ask, what's the motive for generating wealth if it's just going to be taken away from you?
    - Shacklz 5y ago
      > And many would then ask, what's the motive for generating wealth if it's just going to be taken away from you? The same motivation that drives some folks to study e.g. philosophy, even though it's perfectly well known that this will never make you rich: Because they like it. You don't just e.g. found a company for the sake of money - you also do it because it allows you to do things on your own terms, it gives you prestige, it gives you the satisfaction of being 'successful'. In todays day and age, this is usually equivalent with 'generating wealth', but I'm a firm believer that this does not necessarily have to be the case.
      - WalterBright 5y ago
        Economies based on this idea tend to do very poorly. For one thing, people won't have money to invest in new ventures.
      - w4 5y ago
        I’m not so sure. Running a business exposes you to tremendous personal risk, especially in a litigious country like the US. It’s also incredibly hard, most often fails, and typically confers less prestige than other much more reliable and substantially less risky high paying career paths (finance, law, medicine, consulting, etc).
      - Loughla 5y ago
        I find it absolutely fascinating that your arguments are shot down on this board, because it's business, but that is literally what you're told on a constant basis if you want to go into the education field in the US. You don't do it for the paycheck, you do it because you like it. Why education, social work, and other human services fields, but not business? That is odd to me.
  - ldbooth 5y ago
    The tax system is part and parcel with inequality.
- jeffreyrogers 5y ago
  > I'm sure there's some rich people / families living in otherwise underwhelming houses, but they're generally a minority. There are more than you think. Pretty much every city has a nice neighborhood where the wealthy residents live. The difference between someone worth $10mm vs someone worth $100mm is not visible from the street.
  - 411111111111111 5y ago
    Does that difference matter when kidnapping? Its not like the 100mm person has more money readily available, as they'll likely both have the bulk invested/tied up in some way. You can only get their fluid money which is probably quite similar in a time sensitive situation like that.
    - jeffreyrogers 5y ago
      I would assume someone with $100mm in assets has more of it in liquid assets than someone with $10mm in assets (a large amount of which would be their home).
    - yeetman21 5y ago
      when someone has a gun to your childs head, i dont think you will be thinking about longer term or short term capital gains
- btilly 5y ago
  Per The Millionaire Next Door (see https://www.amazon.com/Millionaire-Next-Door-Surprising-Americas/dp/1589795474 https://www.amazon.com/Millionaire-Next-Door-Surprising-Amer... for the link), most wealthy are those who have a reasonable income but good financial discipline. Which means that a shocking number of millionaires live in poor neighborhoods and have modest lifestyles. Those aren't the super-wealthy, of course. But most wealthy people can't be identified by where they live.
  - Retric 5y ago
    The millionaire next door uses an artificially low threshold for wealth. It’s not a book about the wealthy, it’s largely a book about retirement. 1M is only generating ~40k per year, if that’s your savings you can’t afford to live in an affluent area without a job.
    - btilly 5y ago
      That book was originally written decades ago. Its threshold corresponds to about $1.7 million in savings in today's world. Their median was $1.6 million, or about $2.7 million in today's dollars. And given that the people who attained that status on average lived in cheap neighborhoods, the fact that their income wouldn't stretch long in an affluent neighborhood isn't really a concern for them.
      - Retric 5y ago
        Even adjusting for inflation from 1996 half the population had 1.0 - 1.6 million. That translates to ~$1.7M - 2.7M, or an income of ~68k to 108k which is still not that significant.
        btilly 5y ago
        Where do you get half the population from? According to the statistics that they gave, an estimated 3.5 million Americans were that wealthy. In 1996 the US population was around 270 million so we're talking about the top 1.3% of Americans by net worth. For more about what this group looked like, read https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/longterm/books/chap1/millionairenextdoor.htm https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/longterm/books/c....
madsbuch 5y ago
The kidnapping problem is on a whole other level. Denmark is known for "leaving babies in strollers outside of cafes". The Nordic social-liberal countries (Finland included) solve this problem not by opacity but by having social support and trust.
- frockington1 5y ago
  Dumb person here. What is "leaving babies in strollers outside of cafes"?
  - a1369209993 5y ago
    When going into a cafe to order something, they leave their child (in a stroller) outside with the (allegedly justified) expectation that nothing bad will happen to it. (To be fair, babies aren't especially easy to liquidate if stolen, and strollers are inconveniently bulky, so this arguably says less about the amount of crime than about how petty, blatant, and asinine the criminals are.)
    - lolive 5y ago
      Reminds me of a Michael Moore movie where he goes to Canada, and checks in a neighbourhood whether people lock their main door or not. He litteraly enters a house, and asks directly to the inhabitants: "Why don't you lock your door?". And the canadians answer: "Why should I?"
- jeffreyrogers 5y ago
  I know that, but you mostly don't get to choose whether you live in such a country or not. Everyone would choose to live in a country like that if they could.
  - madsbuch 5y ago
    I think the point is, that the society as a whole should support public tax records. Finland (and Sweden) does.
boruto 5y ago
> kidnapping target. Or a target for scamming. Seems privacy nightmare too. I hope there is an opt out where you don't ask and yours is private.
- eecc 5y ago
  My guess the records are public but access is not anonymous; you'd need to identify yourself and leave a plausible reason on record.

You become a kidnapping target by being rich, whether that's a matter of public record or just someone cruising the wealthier neighbourhoods is arbitrary. I mean over here you can't look up who makes how much, but the rough value of houses and neighbourhoods, which is used to determine property taxes, is public record. I'm sure there's some rich people / families living in otherwise underwhelming houses, but they're generally a minority.

pmoriarty 5y ago
The solution to this is to eliminate wealth disparity.
- faeyanpiraat 5y ago
  We tried that already. It wasn’t pretty.
  - Tostino 5y ago
    When? When did we actually try that?
- tengbretson 5y ago
  Why stop at eliminating wealth disparity when you can eliminate wealth?
  - syshum 5y ago
    Same thing, the only way to eliminating wealth disparity is to eliminate wealth. The Authoritarian Left that goes on and on about eliminating wealth disparity has no interest in lifting everyone up to be wealthy, not they want to seize the wealth and drag anyone down they deem is "too wealthy" Which is ironically always someone more wealthy than the person advocating for wealth redistribution, for example Bernie Sanders used to talk about "millionaires and billionaires" until he became a millionaire, now like magic only billionaires are a problem for him
    - mola 5y ago
      You know being a millionaire today has a massively different meaning than 20 years ago.
      - losvedir 5y ago
        What? Now you're making me feel old. I remember 20 years ago... it didn't seem that different from today. What's "massively different" about being a millionaire then? You mean, inflation-adjusted, how it's $1.5 million today?
        convolvatron 5y ago
        you still get get to retire in comfort, but you don't get invited to the really swank parties seriously - maybe narcissism isn't the best character trait to structure your society around?
  - fennecfoxen 5y ago
    This has been demonstrated feasible! We can all be similarly poor together.
- carapace 5y ago
  Maybe. But how? I think that, if you could somehow collect all the wealth and redistribute it equally, within a few years we would see disparity reappear. Some folks are better at accumulating wealth than others. It seems to me that you would have to keep reallocating wealth. And many would then ask, what's the motive for generating wealth if it's just going to be taken away from you?
  - Shacklz 5y ago
    > And many would then ask, what's the motive for generating wealth if it's just going to be taken away from you? The same motivation that drives some folks to study e.g. philosophy, even though it's perfectly well known that this will never make you rich: Because they like it. You don't just e.g. found a company for the sake of money - you also do it because it allows you to do things on your own terms, it gives you prestige, it gives you the satisfaction of being 'successful'. In todays day and age, this is usually equivalent with 'generating wealth', but I'm a firm believer that this does not necessarily have to be the case.
    - WalterBright 5y ago
      Economies based on this idea tend to do very poorly. For one thing, people won't have money to invest in new ventures.
    - w4 5y ago
      I’m not so sure. Running a business exposes you to tremendous personal risk, especially in a litigious country like the US. It’s also incredibly hard, most often fails, and typically confers less prestige than other much more reliable and substantially less risky high paying career paths (finance, law, medicine, consulting, etc).
    - Loughla 5y ago
      I find it absolutely fascinating that your arguments are shot down on this board, because it's business, but that is literally what you're told on a constant basis if you want to go into the education field in the US. You don't do it for the paycheck, you do it because you like it. Why education, social work, and other human services fields, but not business? That is odd to me.
- ldbooth 5y ago
  The tax system is part and parcel with inequality.
jeffreyrogers 5y ago
> I'm sure there's some rich people / families living in otherwise underwhelming houses, but they're generally a minority. There are more than you think. Pretty much every city has a nice neighborhood where the wealthy residents live. The difference between someone worth $10mm vs someone worth $100mm is not visible from the street.
- 411111111111111 5y ago
  Does that difference matter when kidnapping? Its not like the 100mm person has more money readily available, as they'll likely both have the bulk invested/tied up in some way. You can only get their fluid money which is probably quite similar in a time sensitive situation like that.
  - jeffreyrogers 5y ago
    I would assume someone with $100mm in assets has more of it in liquid assets than someone with $10mm in assets (a large amount of which would be their home).
  - yeetman21 5y ago
    when someone has a gun to your childs head, i dont think you will be thinking about longer term or short term capital gains
btilly 5y ago
Per The Millionaire Next Door (see https://www.amazon.com/Millionaire-Next-Door-Surprising-Americas/dp/1589795474 https://www.amazon.com/Millionaire-Next-Door-Surprising-Amer... for the link), most wealthy are those who have a reasonable income but good financial discipline. Which means that a shocking number of millionaires live in poor neighborhoods and have modest lifestyles. Those aren't the super-wealthy, of course. But most wealthy people can't be identified by where they live.
- Retric 5y ago
  The millionaire next door uses an artificially low threshold for wealth. It’s not a book about the wealthy, it’s largely a book about retirement. 1M is only generating ~40k per year, if that’s your savings you can’t afford to live in an affluent area without a job.
  - btilly 5y ago
    That book was originally written decades ago. Its threshold corresponds to about $1.7 million in savings in today's world. Their median was $1.6 million, or about $2.7 million in today's dollars. And given that the people who attained that status on average lived in cheap neighborhoods, the fact that their income wouldn't stretch long in an affluent neighborhood isn't really a concern for them.
    - Retric 5y ago
      Even adjusting for inflation from 1996 half the population had 1.0 - 1.6 million. That translates to ~$1.7M - 2.7M, or an income of ~68k to 108k which is still not that significant.
      - btilly 5y ago
        Where do you get half the population from? According to the statistics that they gave, an estimated 3.5 million Americans were that wealthy. In 1996 the US population was around 270 million so we're talking about the top 1.3% of Americans by net worth. For more about what this group looked like, read https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/longterm/books/chap1/millionairenextdoor.htm https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/longterm/books/c....

madsbuch 5y ago

The kidnapping problem is on a whole other level. Denmark is known for "leaving babies in strollers outside of cafes". The Nordic social-liberal countries (Finland included) solve this problem not by opacity but by having social support and trust.

frockington1 5y ago
Dumb person here. What is "leaving babies in strollers outside of cafes"?
- a1369209993 5y ago
  When going into a cafe to order something, they leave their child (in a stroller) outside with the (allegedly justified) expectation that nothing bad will happen to it. (To be fair, babies aren't especially easy to liquidate if stolen, and strollers are inconveniently bulky, so this arguably says less about the amount of crime than about how petty, blatant, and asinine the criminals are.)
  - lolive 5y ago
    Reminds me of a Michael Moore movie where he goes to Canada, and checks in a neighbourhood whether people lock their main door or not. He litteraly enters a house, and asks directly to the inhabitants: "Why don't you lock your door?". And the canadians answer: "Why should I?"
jeffreyrogers 5y ago
I know that, but you mostly don't get to choose whether you live in such a country or not. Everyone would choose to live in a country like that if they could.
- madsbuch 5y ago
  I think the point is, that the society as a whole should support public tax records. Finland (and Sweden) does.

boruto 5y ago

> kidnapping target. Or a target for scamming. Seems privacy nightmare too. I hope there is an opt out where you don't ask and yours is private.

eecc 5y ago
My guess the records are public but access is not anonymous; you'd need to identify yourself and leave a plausible reason on record.