There are sensible reasons why information on who funds political parties or what taxes people pay should be public. I can’t think of any reasons it needs to be quite so in-your-face accessible though: funding of US presidential candidates/the taxable income of every Norwegian in the last three years.
4 thoughts on “common knowledge”
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Eirik
I agree. What’s more, this information isn’t necessarily reliable. For instance, the taxable income published in Norway often says more about how good someone’s accountant is, rather than what they really earned.
BTW: Nice to have have you back and blogging again! 🙂
Lars
Precisely the reason why the records are public, Eirik. You probably already know who is rich and who is not. You probably wouldn’t know that the rich guy pays less taxes than the other guy if this information wasn’t public. Of course, drowning the interesting inequalities in a sea of average incomes sort of ruins the point. But the law can’t discriminate. That’s up to the editor (or, in this case, possibly up to the person conducting the search).
Eirik
You seem to have missed my point, which is this: when the public records are misleading, as is often the case here, they are essentially useless. I do not necessarily know who is rich and who is not, and I have no sure way of finding out whether the number listed reflects true income or is the result of clever tax planning (really rich guys usually own companies, remember).
Deena
Yes, but if you look at the overall statistics, it is alarming. Particularly at http://www.fundrace.org/citymap.php
which shows how MUCH more money Bush is getting!