At least 24 EU countries struggle with teacher shortages:
Most EU member states see a large proportion of their teaching vacancies unfilled at the start of each school year, often thanks to low wages, high workload, and an ageing teacher population.
Sweden has been reported as one of the worst affected, with 153,000 qualified teachers needed by 2035.
Only Croatia and Cyprus did not report a lack of education staff, according to the European Commission's Education and Training Monitor 2023 report, while Greece's existing public data does not allow it to assess whether all needs are covered or if specific subjects might suffer shortages.
Most countries face teacher shortages specifically in STEM subjects and qualified personnel in early childhood education and care.
Germany's Education and Science Workers' Union, GEW, has warned "against lowering the standards for pedagogical qualifications to compensate for the shortage of staff."
[...] However, an EU-level solution might be difficult to implement.
"One of the reasons why it is difficult to come up with a European comparable cross-country indicator on teacher shortage is because countries have different educational institutional rules," wrote education economist Giorgio Di Pietro in a technical report for the EU's Joint Research Centre.
"For instance, formal teaching qualifications can be obtained in different ways in different countries. In some countries, one automatically becomes a teacher when they complete the teacher preparation programme, while in others there are additional steps to complete."
(Score: 5, Insightful) by looorg on Tuesday September 03, @06:10PM (9 children)
It's not hard to understand why as there really are no benefits or perks in being a teacher. The pay is low for a job that, should, require a university degree. The workload is horrid, a lot of pupils are twats, their parents are even worse and the administrators won't back you up. Also the politicians in charge a clueless idiots to.
In essence there is a lot of grief and there are no perks and the paycheck is crap. In that regard it would be better to get any other job, the pay is the same and there is less grief. It has now become some kind of calling for a selective few.
Getting in to the teaching program at university is among the easiest programs to get into. The requirements to become a teacher is so low that it's not for the best and the brightest anymore. It's the bottom of the barrel as far as academia is concerned.
It doesn't really matter that there is no common qualification across Europe to be a teacher as there is no country that have a surpluse of teachers to send anyway. They can't get them from outside either, after all a lot of those countries require that you speak a language that few people not born there speak to a level that you can teach.
The high number from Sweden is probably due to them being more strict then a lot of the other countries and the system there require statistics for everything. The system loves reporting and stats.
Also as noted in one of the paragraph it's not an even distribution of the shortage. It's STEM teachers that are missing, there is enough gym teachers, history teachers, language teachers etc.
If you have a degree in Math then why would you want to be a teacher. They would never pay you enough.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday September 03, @06:41PM (1 child)
>If you have a degree in Math then why would you want to be a teacher. They would never pay you enough.
So, at one time, when my children were very young, I had a vague outline of a plan to move the family to an area distinctly lacking in STEM teachers and, when the need arose, retire from my tech job and teach STEM at the local high school. Life isn't all about maximizing the income number - cost of living is lower there and there was an arguable increase in quality of life.
> the administrators won't back you up. Also the politicians in charge a clueless idiots to.
Just a few of the problems that derailed that plan.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 4, Informative) by VLM on Tuesday September 03, @09:04PM
I kind of thought the same thing about being a substitute teacher. I ended up not doing it. Here's what it would be like for me to start out as a sub teacher where I live, based on memory plus some recent google searches.
You have to navigate 5 levels of organization simultaneously, which is kind of a PITA.
The Feds are not too picky at this level, and its mostly about passing a background check, fingerprints, etc. At least the district is blaming the feds. True or false? Doesn't matter they want prints and background check and all that. I had a Secret clearance in the Army and my life is much more boring now, so I'm sure I'll be fine. I got a speeding ticket once back in the 2010s, my life is not that exciting.
The State is very weird about licensing. If I had a K-12 Ed degree (nope, only a BSCS) then I could get a renewable 5-year license that's good for 45 days or less of substitution in any subject and grade level and over 45 days if my ed degree qualified me (like if I was a qualified music teacher (I am not) then I could teach music for more than 45 days of substitution, but not HS math... unless I was dual licensed as a HS math teacher). I could get a 3-year sort-of-renewable by having any degree (check, BSCS qualifies) and completing a two-day substitute training program ($280 offered about once per month at regional hotel conference centers). sort-of-renewable because my district will decline to sponsor my renewal unless I complete continuing education like a regular teacher (oddly enough the 5-year "BS Ed" degree holders are NOT required to take CEU to renew its forbidden to require that at the state level). The CEU requirements are rather minimal although I assume there are people who fall thru the cracks by failing to do or refusing to do any CEU classes.
The district I live in, has an opening RIGHT NOW for a long term substitute teacher at a different HS than my kids went to, that has an excellent reputation, honestly a little better than my kids school LOL. The pay is $130/day for 1 to 20 consecutive days and $170/day for more than 21 days. The district words it very politely but they will refuse to hire 3-year licenses if any 5-years apply because 5-years cannot legally work more than 45 days in a row in my state, also the district are kind of dicks and will not sponsor a renewal of a 3-year license without a very minimal CEU requirement just to be annoying. IT's rough, if anyone with a 5-year applies or a lifetime full teachers license applied they'd LOL at me and toss my application.
Meanwhile local individual schools have varying and weird in-school rules such that I'm not legally obligated by the teachers union contract to volunteer to be an aide in the lunch room but if I want to get invited back to sub I need to "volunteer" to not eat in the teachers lounge and instead babysit the kids in the lunch room at lunch. IDGAF, but I know the preferential treatment might eat some people up inside.
I could get a lifetime educator license by working full time for three years, then I don't need all this sub license crap nor would I have to pay for renewal etc. At the state license level they give tenure at three years of experience, LOL. Time spent teaching using a 3-year sub license does not count but time spent with a 5-year license DOES count (although it would probably take a decade of working as a sub to make it)
I can only get a provisional "real teaching" license by going back to university. If you already have a BS degree (I have a BSCS) then my institution offers an accelerated online 12 week night class that would qualify me to be a provisional full time non-sub teacher IF the district will hire me under a provisional license instead of a "real" Ed degree license. I'm not going back for a full K-12 Ed degree at either bachelor or masters level, but I could watch Zoom lectures for three months and take a couple quizzes, sure. Not all uni offer this, I guess you're just F-ed if your alma mater does not offer state approved provisional license prep classes.
I would imagine quite a few subs work during the day and take night classes to get their full-time license and I could in theory have a full time teaching license in 3 months.
My kids district has decided not to sponsor/hire state licensed "professional teaching permit" holders and will not accept job applications from permit holders at least for that sub job. Some districts will. Its kind of an apprenticeship program that is open to professional degree holders including my BSCS. They issued precisely zero to CS degree holders from 2010 to 2015 but sure its technically legally possible in my state. They mostly seem to hire unusual world languages, so if you have a degree in Chinese you can teach in SOME districts in my state using the permit process. I am unclear on what happens if you go to work and refuse to attend your 100+ hours of apprentice training, I imagine just like the trades you'd get fired. My entire state also hired precisely 3 music grads in the 2010s. The fact there's no data since 2019 bodes poorly for this program. Basically this program lets you get hired first then take your accelerated night classes later instead of demanding you take the classes first.
Honestly there's easier ways to make $130 for a day's work.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday September 03, @07:17PM (3 children)
Some people enjoy teaching. One person I knew enjoyed teaching so much, that when he retired from the US Navy, he applied for a teaching job at a private school, and was accepted. How many kids enjoy having a Navy captain for a teacher? The old man seemed to have a good relationship with classes of motivated learners, and things went well for him, and for his students. Granted, these were most certainly not typical US public school students taking general math classes.
A MAN Just Won a Gold Medal for Punching a Woman in the Face
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday September 03, @08:54PM
I had an ex-Navy history teacher for Senior high school Americanism vs Communism (required course.)
He wasn't a Captain, he was about 5'5' and had a serious Napoleon complex. He didn't enjoy teaching. We did not enjoy having him as a teacher.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday September 03, @10:29PM (1 child)
My guess is he was a JROTC instructor? His previous middle-to-high rank is a job requirement for the federal program.
(Score: 1) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday September 03, @11:34PM
Nope. Captain Goodwin's degrees included math degrees. He was hired to teach high school math at the high school and junior college level. As I said, it was a private school, where motivated over achievers went. Any class that was available at that level, Bad Bob was qualified to teach. He could have gone to teach in a real college, but he didn't want to play the academics game. Which was perfectly reasonable - he had just retired from the Navy officer game.
A MAN Just Won a Gold Medal for Punching a Woman in the Face
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday September 03, @08:05PM (2 children)
The only person I am directly acquainted with who has a BS in Math worked at a call center for minimum wage, she wasn't into programming and the supply of CS degree holders exceeds the supply of programming jobs by quite a bit around here...
The next step up is a place called the Mathnasium (thousands of centers across the country) or Kumon or similar competitors and I just checked and Mathnasium pays around $12.50/hr today in 2024 for tutoring IF you have a math degree. They charge the parents around $300/month and pocket the difference, which seems substantial. Those places are like car repair... if the car repair shop charges you the customer $145/hr, then the guy changing your oil must be unimaginably wealthy... however he's only taking home like $17/hr
K-12 Teaching pays around $24/hr equivalent around here for the first year. Most people can't survive that environment more than a couple years, so treat it like part time or a contract job not a "career". A truly remarkable percentage of ed degree holders spend longer getting their degree than they spend teaching.
The next step up for a math degree holder above public school teaching is something like retail fast food, which pays around $25/hr for lower stress. You don't need a math degree to work at Panda Express or Dominos, but you will get paid more for working with felons and dropouts than you could realistically hope to get paid for working with math degree holders.
(Score: 3, Funny) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday September 03, @08:55PM (1 child)
Friend of mine got a MS in Physics - deeply devoted atheist. He ended up maintaining the office computer system for the Archdiocese for many years.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 05, @07:17AM
He was only trying to suck the Holy Spirit out of the system. He used daemons and zombies.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by VLM on Tuesday September 03, @07:44PM (32 children)
I wonder if its like my USA state.
By the time my kids were in middle school I was older than almost all of their teachers. Was not like that when I was a kid...
The question no one will ask for obvious reasons is why the average teaching career is shorter than the average football player pro career.
I'm related to two ex- public school teachers, and have kids who went thru the system, so I know a fair amount about all of this.
Some of it is oversupply of grads leading to low salaries leading to people rapidly leaving. Everyone who can get a job ANYWHERE else already left and got that job, leaving behind... interesting coworkers. My state uni system used to graduate about two grads for each statewide opening, so half the new grads don't get jobs, luckily enrollment absolutely cratered a couple years ago and someday, teachers might (... might) be paid a living wage. Just not now, and not in the recent past. And that's just state U, not counting private colleges and alternative forms of teacher certification, I'm certain a majority of Ed degree holders in my state never stood in front of a classroom. I live in a supposedly "good" district, and starting pay for zero experience elementary in my district is $48K if you believe Google, and roughly 11% of those teachers quit every year. Now of course school teachers do not work over the summer, which works quite well for people double dipping into military reserves and second careers and side gigs. However, IF a brand new elementary school teacher worked 2000 hours in my district (LOL, as if) then they'd be getting $24/hr. Which is $10/hr more than the teachers aides get or lunch ladies get. Panda Express has a sign up offering $25/hr which is $1/hr more than new elementary school teachers get. My point is not that magically paying teachers more will result in smarter kids, but greed is at least somewhat motivating and apparently if you hire people who don't care, or can't care, about income because their pay is so low, that's how you get a cadre of inexperienced teachers generally all with only a couple years experience who aren't good at their jobs. "Back in the old days" when teaching was a life-long job and not something you quit before you're 30, the old timers got pretty good at it by osmosis or pure stubbornness, resulting in better teachers on average. As I recall the teachers who had the most impact on my life when I was a kid were older than my parents. There are no teachers over 30 in my district anymore, pay is too low. And of course the rot flows upwards, some of the worst management in the entire country is in the educational system, which results in even MORE good teachers quitting. Really, the fundamental problem is not a lack of dumb inexperienced 22 year olds, we have a massive oversupply of them, its a lack of anyone in the entire building over age 30. Something wrong with a school when the people in the building with the most wisdom, experience, and practical knowledge, are the lunch ladies and custodians.
Some of it is the strange new generational notion that behind every "front line educator" there should be at least one support or admin person not in front of classes, almost always paid more than the front line teacher. If you make more money as a reading specialist or speech teacher than as a mere teacher, you can't blame them when the inflation rate is so high. The problem with the school district is the teachers are at the absolute bottom of a pretty incompetent feudalistic system, and the competition for those few jobs is so intense that it selected for the craziest psychos.
So you end up with a system that is a furnace turning cash into hot air where the production people are the lowest caste and most people trained to do the job can't do it because of competition and/or they can't afford to make so little salary, meanwhile the people running it are hypercompetitive for the $250K/yr admin jobs so they're absolute sociopaths. Meanwhile none of the teachers have any wisdom to teach because anyone wise leaves the field before they're 30.
But it all brings up uncomfortable questions so "journalistic" stories are vague unease about "shortages" where we have to carefully avoid discussing why there are shortages.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday September 03, @09:03PM
>Some of it is the strange new generational notion that behind every "front line educator" there should be at least one support or admin person not in front of classes, almost always paid more than the front line teacher
When I was in school, my county schools Admin building was an old brick Middle School on the bad side of downtown - hardly luxurious.
Shortly after I graduated, the county schools administrators decided to construct themselves a new glass 5 story office building on some (pricey) riverfront property. This, while my high school was a mold brewing conglomeration of flat-roofed structures joined haphazardly on some poorly drained land not quite large enough for a football stadium in the field. MANY years after I attended with 4 years of chronic bronchitis (only while in the building) they finally demolished that one, I guess a lawsuit or two were about to catch up with them.
My mother (high school classroom teacher for 50 years) tried an Admin job in that riverfront building for a year in the middle of those 50 years - drove her nuts. Money was a tiny bit better at her level, and promised to get much better if she could learn to gas light and back stab with the rest of them, she opted to return to the classroom. If you weren't actively politicking - the Admin job was deathly boring for her, very little to do besides go to meetings about little or nothing and listen to others trying to climb the ladder on each others' backs.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 5, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday September 03, @09:13PM (30 children)
>you end up with a system that is a furnace turning cash into hot air where the production people are the lowest caste and most people trained to do the job can't do it because of competition
Friend of mine graduated with a dual BS in business and psychology - got a job as head teller at a bank, just below the "caste line" in that field. Her branch manager was just above the line. Once a year all the branch managers and their higher-ups (who were too good to show their faces in a retail branch) would take a "retreat" to Cancun, or similar. There, for a week, they would decide things like salary increases for the year. Seems that everyone at the retreat rated 10% raises and bonuses, but those who didn't get to go to the retreat were deemed worth only 1/2 of inflation COLA increases, usually 1% per year.
It's endemic throughout our society, the "decision maker class" is deciding that they need to get richer, while everyone else they have authority over does not - because: reasons.
Transparency is Always the Answer - all this "don't discuss salaries" needs to go straight out the window and adopt the Scandinavian model where you can look up anybody anywhere and see what they are reporting as income to the government. From there, we can start some rational discussions about why the top keeps accelerating away from the bottom and how we are going to dis-incentivize that going forward.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday September 04, @01:35AM (29 children)
How do you square that with privacy rights? For me, that should be as protected as medical information.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday September 04, @02:00AM (28 children)
>How do you square that with privacy rights?
I square that with privacy rights just like Finland, Denmark, Sweden and Norway do. Income is public information. Just like your property ownership is public information, and most court records as well.
>For me, that should be as protected as medical information.
Hate to break it to ya, bean counter, but the personal data you handle just isn't all that precious. Keeping it in the dark does more harm than good, at least for the majority of people.
Now, if the people with more money are afraid that exposure of what they have will lessen their ability to hoard ever larger piles of it, maybe they should move out of the democracies and enjoy their lives as lords over serfs somewhere else.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0, Troll) by khallow on Wednesday September 04, @02:23AM (27 children)
Needless to say, I don't.
You just aren't aware of how that information can be used against you. For a glaring example, an income list is a who-to-steal-from list.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 04, @04:40AM (1 child)
You steal it back from the owners of the bank, not the workers there.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday September 04, @12:37PM
Income reporting is completely irrelevant to who owns what. It's very easy to cloak capital gains even if you're subject to the jurisdiction of the law in question. And stealing from banks is stealing. Not seeing the point of digging that hole deeper, even if I were to ascribe to your defective viewpoint that banks are theft.
(Score: 3, Touché) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday September 04, @10:48AM (24 children)
>You just aren't aware of how that information can be used against you. For a glaring example, an income list is a who-to-steal-from list.
Oh noes! Because I has a jerb muh layabouts neiberz iz gunna hack on muh bank and teke muh munniez!!!
Or do your clients convert it all to gold and bury it in the yard?
Personally, I see possessions as quite a bit easier to steal than assets like bank accounts and investment portfolios. I'm not suggesting that account numbers and passwords be made public.
I am suggesting that attitudes like yours contribute heavily to cheating on tax responsibility, as well as the delusion that taxes are immoral and bad for society.
With income transparency, our politicians have less cover for their graft.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday September 04, @12:48PM (23 children)
Yes. Yet another sarcasm fail. Or those layabouts will just break into your home and take stuff. It's not rocket science.
And a list of income would be great information for determining who has possessions. I also find it telling that you think that this is somehow about making account numbers and passwords public. That fails on multiple levels: such as income != savings/investment and nobody suggesting such a dumb idea in the first place.
Even if it does, so what? I notice you don't even bother to pretend to care what those taxes are spent on.
They'd have more than enough. A strong sign of terrible law is that it harms everyone for the flaws of a few.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday September 04, @01:11PM (22 children)
>Or those layabouts will just break into your home and take stuff.
Too bad you have to live in fear.
Maybe if the layabouts won't find work for themselves we should put them in debtor's prison, that's a real quick way to pay $80k per year to get someone to mop the floor, poorly.
https://capitalbnews.org/alabama-exception-loophole-lawsuit/#:~:text=Alabama%20is%20one%20of%20four,face%20punishment%2C%20effectively%20enslaving%20them. [capitalbnews.org]
>And a list of income would be great information for determining who has possessions
Gee Gomer, thanks for the list, I wuz havin' trouble figgerin' out which McMansions with new flash automobiles wuz tha rich ones.
Never known a thief dumb enough to need a list who is smart enough to read it. In Miami in the 1980s they would just look for gold Rolex in the grocery store, follow them home, knock them over the back of the head and take the watch, sometimes the car too.
Re: societal attitudes
>Even if it does, so what?
Yep, instead let's just train all our children to fear anyone different than themselves, hate them for everything they might get that we might not, make sure that most people are poor and desperate, oh and let's all arm ourselves with deadly weapons too... That's a great way to live!
>A strong sign of terrible law is that it harms everyone for the flaws of a few.
You share your income information with the government, but not your fellow citizens... I still see no actual harm in expanding the transparency.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday September 04, @05:48PM (21 children)
Do you see actual harm in burglars targeting your home or scammers targeting your family? I sure do.
Not all of the wealthy advertise. I recall you going on [soylentnews.org] about a poor plumber with zero clue about how much he was actually worth. I noted he fit the characteristics of the self-made millionaire. Why screw over this guy's life for imaginary transparency? He lived in a neighborhood with significant crime.
A thief doesn't need to steal, but they do it anyway. Talking about "need" shows mental dysfunction here. A thief wouldn't need a huge list of juicy targets, but they would be quite capable of exploiting such a list, should someone provide it.
Your inability to see obvious harm merely indicates a problem with your optics rather than a serious observation.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday September 04, @06:52PM (20 children)
>Do you see actual harm in burglars targeting your home or scammers targeting your family? I sure do.
Oh, yes, Mr. Fearmonger, beat those drums!
Meanwhile, Real Property records already tell anyone in the world, any hour of any day, exactly what my home and any other real property assets I own are assessed for, what their sales history is, etc. If I have your name and the county of your residence, I can put a finger on not only what your home is worth, but also the physical address - pull recent aerial photography of the property, plan entrance and escape routes... are you skeered yet? It has been this way for 25+ years for most of the U.S.A. and we've not noticed much of a problem with "criminal exploitation" of _those_ public records, have we? Even before the internet, there were service agencies who would travel to the county property offices and collect this information for the real people you need to worry about scamming you: companies with the resources to actually target you and your likely hot buttons to get you to give them money.
>Not all of the wealthy advertise.
Yeah, sure, the rock star that bought the 10 acres on the river next to us, he paid a lawyer to set up an LLC in Nevada to hide his ownership - took all of 15 minutes to unwind that shell corporation back to the real owner, 10 minutes more to find an article in the local paper with him shooting off his mouth about "havin' a place up on the river outside of town."
Our neighbors on the other side on the river were net worth in the high 10s of millions, they drove matching white Chevy Caprices - just went to the dealership and said: "gimme two of those, nothin' flashy." Of course, his posiition as CEO of the local hospital was kind of a clue, not to mention the $2M assessed value of his primary residence, acreage owned on Hilo, etc.
So, tell me again, how someone with millions of income in Scandinavia is "more exposed" to scammers and burglars because their income can be verified on public record?
> I recall you going on [soylentnews.org] about a poor plumber with zero clue about how much he was actually worth.
I'm sorry, I didn't realize the profound depth of your lack of ability to read and comprehend... Said plumber's net worth is lower middle class, that tiny house in Miami may be worth $300K or so these days, other than that I believe he's living job to job with less than 6 months' income in liquid assets, at least to hear his wife bitch about it for the past 25 years that seems to be their perpetual state. I suspect the real problem with his income being made public is that some of his clients might be able to clearly see that they have paid him more than he declared on his taxes for the whole year, but then we're not hiding our income to protect illegal acts, are we?
Contractor I bought this home from, 10+ years ago now, played fast and loose with his income accounting - which is how he ended up cross grained with the IRS and needing to sell this asset before they took it from him. On the one hand, my sympathies to the poor bastard whose lucky streak ended, on the other: it's about damn time he started paying his taxes like "the rest of us."
>A thief doesn't need to steal, but they do it anyway.
Oh, that depends very much upon the thief you are talking about. There are many people out there who are hungry enough that stealing for food is actually a thing they do from time to time. They're more visible in the "blue" cities, but they also live in the "red" rural areas too - and in greater percentages of the local population, but the rural areas I have lived in tend to be in denial that "those people" actually exist in "their" part of the world.
>Your inability to see obvious harm merely indicates a problem with your optics rather than a serious observation.
Your panties in a bunch over something proven harmless in so many ways here and around the world just shows your continued argument from your own little island of perspective. The social benefits of transparency, killing graft and corruption through exposure, far outweigh any supposed increases in exposure to lawless exploitation. I would benefit far more from curtailment of "legal" exploitation that only exists because it is hidden in the shadows than any harm that may come from illuminating those shadows.
In local news, another win for transparency (where none was intended): https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/sep/03/florida-park-whistleblower-fired [theguardian.com]
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday September 04, @10:28PM (13 children)
Fortunately, we're not talking in a vacuum. We have precedent and can use that history to understand the problem rather than merely mock it cluelessly.
For example, back in late 2012, a week after the Sandy Hook School shootings, a newspaper deployed [wikipedia.org] an interactive map with the names and addresses of all pistol permit holders in two counties north of New York City (the permits were public information). The map stayed up for a month until a burglary of a house on the map occurred in which the burglars headed for the gun safe, but were unable to open it. A week later the map disappeared.
Consider also that names and addresses of victims of rape, domestic abuse, and the like (who happened to own pistol permits) were published as were those of law enforcement officers.
You can babble all you want about fearmongering and transparency. But someone did it and immediately pulled back when the unintended consequences started to happen in just a month.
Whistleblowing doesn't violate the privacy rights of 23 million Floridians. Think about it.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday September 04, @11:17PM (12 children)
> an interactive map with the names and addresses of all pistol permit holders in two counties north of New York City (the permits were public information). The map stayed up for a month until a burglary of a house on the map occurred in which the burglars headed for the gun safe, but were unable to open it.
O.K. - so a map to gun nuts' houses results in attempted gun thefts in the home, my heart bleeds.
Meanwhile, a table of income shows how much money people report on their income taxes. Again, unless they are storing that income in buckets in the garage or other modes of savings that went by the wayside approximately 100 years ago for approximately 99%+ of the population... I don't think there's an analogy here. Just khallow stretching to attempt to justify his imaginary fears of something new.
Meanwhile, khallow's other constant bitch: government graft and corruption, is constantly stealing from all of us, collectively, and here's something new that has a strong probability of reducing that overall, but... it doesn't stroke your ego which loves the idea that the rich people trust you with their financial information but not the rest of us. Boo hoo. I disagree with your perception of privacy and risk related to well established practices of income disclosure at a national level.
> violate the privacy rights of 23 million Floridians
So, you're saying, it's O.K. to disclose your income to the IRS because they're the government, you can trust them, right?
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday September 04, @11:28PM (11 children)
I guess is what the Brits call "bleeding stupid". I don't care what your rationalization is for treating this harm as acceptable. I just showed it. But consider this: gun nuts aren't the only ones on that list. So are victims of domestic violence, rape, and similar crimes as well as law enforcement.
It's just obvious targets for scams, theft, and kidnapping - none of which require the victim to bury their loot in the backyard or in their mattress. You're not even thinking.
None of which are addressed by public income records. Again, think about it.
No, because you're required to by law. No trust required.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday September 04, @11:53PM (1 child)
>you're required to by law. No trust required.
Excellent insight into the gap between your ears.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday September 05, @02:24AM
This thread would have gone differently, if you could take advantage of "excellent insights".
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday September 05, @01:22PM (8 children)
>No, because you're required to by law. No trust required.
Blind faith in what you consider to be authority. You know there are 195 nation states recognized by the UN, at least 100 of which you could easily emigrate to, dozens where you wouldn't even have to learn a new language. You trust your government with your income information, and by far they steal more from you than other criminals ever have.
But, you trust them, without even thinking about your options:
https://www.selectanguilla.com/business-tax/ [selectanguilla.com]
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(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday September 05, @07:37PM (7 children)
Like faith that you'll see serious prison time, if you just don't pay taxes at all for long enough? Is there some reason you're straw manning this thread so much?
You could too. No need to deal with Florida shenanigans.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday September 05, @07:59PM (6 children)
>Like faith that you'll see serious prison time, if you just don't pay taxes at all for long enough? Is there some reason you're straw manning this thread so much?
You know, even the moron that sold us this house could have finessed his IRS interaction and gotten away with a LOT less fines, fees and penalties than he did, but instead if "yes, sir, I am so sorry, I did not realize..." he took what he considered his "high road" and called the "Owe more than $10K in IRS back taxes? Call us, we will FIGHT for you and WIN" people on his conservative talk radio ads... delayed while they strung him along, gave the IRS more attitude resulting in "well, I guess we need to look at your past 7 years now..." and ended up selling us this house. He's far from the only "small businessman" I know who considers it "acceptable, even honorable" to color outside the lines of their tax forms and appears to get away with it for decades, sometimes even until and beyond death... Hell, every waiter, waitress and hairdresser I have ever known seems to only report a small fraction of tips they receive.
Which is yet another reason why teaching these people that accurate reporting of income is not only the law, but expected, and good for yourself in the long run, not just something you do when you think you might get caught. Lower legal tax requirements for everyone, including them, and no need to construct believable lies. Just needs a little social boost to income at the bottom end to compensate for the extra taxes the current cheaters will be paying.
However, the band Genesis captured an all too common attitude in a lyric: "Someday they'll catch me, to a chain they'll attach me, until that day I'll ride the old crime wave."
>You could too. No need to deal with Florida shenanigans.
Been there, for a week - left with the impression that I wouldn't want to try without US$2M liquid assets as table stakes, you could do it for less, much less, but $2M is the point at which I might consider Anguilla preferable to "Florida shenanigans."
Every place I know of has got shenanigans, knowing who to trust is important - to me. As a starting point: no one.
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(Score: 1, Disagree) by khallow on Thursday September 05, @10:50PM (5 children)
I too like stories with happy endings.
Hrmmm, "lower legal tax requirements" somehow morphed into "extra taxes the current cheaters will be paying". Neither is connected to the government hooking up rich people with burglars and scammers.
The word here is "infrastructure". When it comes to trust, basically it's stuff that neuters the prisoners' dilemma - providing sufficient negative consequences to bad, but otherwise profitable behavior. The idea of public disclosure of income merely expedites criminal activities, of which I've already discussed plenty without a serious impairment of corruption. Similarly, the allusion to UBI "little social boost to income" is about a program that's needs-justified, but not needs-based. Neither are affordable except in societies that don't need those policies!
I find it interesting how poorly your proposals solve the problems you claim to care about.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday September 06, @05:07PM (4 children)
I find it sad how poor your ability to project the future would appear to be.
Meanwhile, regarding "tax cheats going to jail" - apparently not too often:
>Agency officials say since the program's launch, almost 80% of the 1,600 millionaires targeted by the IRS for failing to pay a delinquent tax debt have now made a payment, leading to over $1.1 billion recovered. And a in the first six months of a new February 2024 initiative, the IRS collected $172 million from 21,000 wealthy taxpayers who have not filed tax returns since 2017.
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(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday September 07, @12:18PM (3 children)
My take is that we run this out a couple of decades and if you choose to pay attention to reality, you will be pleasantly surprised.
Ok, was there supposed to be some sort of rebuttal coming from that quote? I didn't say that there would be perfect taxpaying compliance so it doesn't scratch the paint on my argument to show modest lack of compliance.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday September 07, @01:03PM (2 children)
$1.1B in unpaid taxes for 7 years doesn't scratch your "if you don't pay your taxes you will go to jail" paint?
During that same seven years, how many unpaid taxes were liable from people who died and effectively beat the system? Far more than 10% of tax liability is held by people who will die in the next seven years. IRS in probate court is extremely rare, unless they have already started collection proceedings. The above quote is showing 1600 wealthy tax dodgers that the IRS found because they hadn't filed a return in seven years, that's not even scratching the surface of tax cheats and income deniers.
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(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday September 07, @10:19PM (1 child)
Given that the US would have collected somewhere in excess of $25 trillion in tax revenue over the same period, we're not talking a lot of money relatively. Further the IRS is bragging that they're collecting on that. It's "unpaid" no longer.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday September 08, @12:44AM
>Further the IRS is bragging that they're collecting on that. It's "unpaid" no longer.
They're collecting taxes, not jailing the non-payers
>somewhere in excess of $25 trillion in tax revenue over the same period, we're not talking a lot of money relatively
No, we're not. 1600 people (all millionaires, by the way) who failed to file ANY tax return for a period of seven years, vs many many times that amount of "taxpayers" who file returns with imaginary numbers, somehow always resulting in lower taxes paid, that get away with doing that their entire lives.
Transparency is always the answer. Show the income, pay the tax. If you were cheating pre-transparency, oh boo hoo - but odds are, a lot of the cheaters will still pay less under a transparent system where everybody actually pays what's owed according to the law, because the bigger cheaters will be paying a lot more.
It's not about more money for the government, it's about getting the money that's supposed to be paid. When the amounts collected go up, the tax rates can go down. Honest businesses benefit, dishonest businesses - too bad, so sad, try again on the level playing field and see how you do.
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(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday September 04, @11:01PM (5 children)
Because they are. Just look at your examples. You know of a few rich people in your neighborhood. Consider it in reverse. Few people know these examples are rich: locals, workers/contractors on the property, and people who drive way out of their way to case the place. But put them on a publicly accessible list? Then everyone knows.
We already have massive, industrialized scams. This just adds fuel to that fire, refining scammers' knowledge of targets. And of course, burglars obtain vital information about your financial status without going near your property. Then there's kidnappers. Really, you just aren't thinking about this at all.
Moving on, I think what's sad about making public lists of income is that it doesn't generate massive blowback only in high trust societies that don't need those lists. Sweden is far more law abiding than Florida is. It'd be insane to pull that crap in Florida. And it'll probably become insane to do so in Sweden too as scamming becomes even more widespread.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday September 04, @11:28PM (4 children)
>You know of a few rich people in your neighborhood. Consider it in reverse. Few people know these examples are rich: locals, workers/contractors on the property, and people who drive way out of their way to case the place. But put them on a publicly accessible list? Then everyone knows.
You mean like: https://svc.mt.gov/dor/property/prc [mt.gov] https://maps.greenwoodmap.com/fremontwy/ [greenwoodmap.com] etc.? Income is far more abstract, and well protected via direct deposit, etc. than real property that is mapped with assessed values and publicly accessible throughout the United States since, forever, and online for 25+ years now.
>I think what's sad about making public lists of income is that it doesn't generate massive blowback only in high trust societies that don't need those lists.
Awww, I think it's sad that you don't make the connections: They don't generate massive blowback _because_ the societies are high trust and understand the value.
>Sweden is far more law abiding than Florida is. It'd be insane to pull that crap in Florida.
Yep, no Nigerian princes e-mailing Sweden, no siree..
>And it'll probably become insane to do so in Sweden too as scamming becomes even more widespread.
I'll stick that prediction right in there with your "coral bleaching is no big deal" futurology fail. https://www.climatecouncil.org.au/resources/media-release-great-barrier-grief-bleaching-could-cost-queensland-1-billion-annually/ [climatecouncil.org.au]
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(Score: 1, Disagree) by khallow on Wednesday September 04, @11:32PM
They'll understand getting scammed or robbed too.
(Score: 1, Disagree) by khallow on Wednesday September 04, @11:39PM (2 children)
What's supposed to be the big deal here? Note the widespread use of the word "could". Sure, that could be bad. Or it could not be bad. Shouldn't we get evidence first?
Remember that Australian coral bleaching has other non-climate causes such as sediment buildup, pollution, and overfishing. This seems to be forgotten every time you bring this up.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 05, @05:22AM (1 child)
Perhaps because it isn't a good faith effort to understand. It's an effort to promote a conclusion.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday September 05, @12:22PM
Heavy use of weasel words could indicate something here. Maybe.