this post was submitted on 31 Dec 2023
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Two Daytona Beach Shores city commissioners have resigned as the latest in a wave of local elected officials leaving before Jan. 1, when they face more stringent financial disclosure requirements.

Mel Lindauer, a Shores commissioner since 2016, told The News-Journal on Wednesday the new requirement − submitting what's known as Form 6 − is "totally invasive" and serves no purpose.

Commissioner Richard Bryan, who has also served since 2016, said in his Dec. 21 resignation letter that he had another priority but added the Form 6 issue "affected the timing" of his decision.

...

Many state officials already file a Form 6, including the governor and Cabinet, legislators, county council members and sheriffs. The forms require disclosure of the filer's net worth and holdings valued at more than $1,000, including bank accounts, stocks, retirement accounts, salary and dividends.

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[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 39 points 1 year ago (6 children)

This sounded like a bad idea to me, but I can't actually come up with a reason why, so maybe it's not.

[–] GladiusB@lemmy.world 17 points 1 year ago

I can see why people would not like it from a privacy standpoint. It would never fly in America for everyone. For government officials? I like this one.

[–] jantin@lemmy.world 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The reason is it's like a treasure map with multiple "x"-es for any burglar. While in the Nordics it's not that much of a problem (though I did read once or twice stories of people who were repeatedly and uniquely targeted because they were somewhat richer than their neighbours and despite not showing off), in any country with a large, unsupported poor population and limited to none public trust...

[–] TopRamenBinLaden@sh.itjust.works 23 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

It's almost like places with honest and open financial records like that have policies that support less income equality and therefore less thieves exist there. What a concept.

[–] force@lemmy.world -2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I wouldn't exactly say that, Nordic countries have extraordinarily high rates of theft/robbery/burglary compared to the rest of Europe despite the fact that most people report feeling more safe from said crimes. Usually rates of those kinds of crimes are mostly correlated with how "rich" a country is, for example most first-world western countries have pretty high rates of theft while the "poorer" eastern European countries have extremely low rates of theft (and certain other crimes like rape and assault) – it's a pretty big culture shock to go to e.g. Tirana and see store owners just leaving €200 bottles of wine or jewelry or whatever on display outside the store without any containers, or women walking alone at night in secluded areas, because it's so uncommon to get crimed that way.

I'm sure it has a lot to do with the post-communism and very high income equality in those countries, or maybe it's because of extremely harsh punishment for said crimes under communism, but in the context of "richer" countries income equality seems not to be a big factor compared to how "privileged" or financially well-off the average person in the country is (in the context of the EU and America/Canada). But that's just the culture you get when you center your economy around capitalism/corporatism for centuries and money is made the most important thing/the biggest measure of success.

[–] Rusticus@lemmy.world -2 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] force@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

The link doesn't show me what you intend for it to show for some reason (Edit: it may be lemmy or my app, it is inserting a "registered trademark" symbol in place of the string reg). But here:

Robbery (2003-2017) – https://www.theglobaleconomy.com/rankings/robery/Europe/ Notice robbery is higher in Western/Northern European countries, notably Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Germany, Netherlands, compared to most Eastern European countries. Some outliers like Norway.

Larceny ("Theft"), Robbery, Rape, Assault (compiled from Eurostat 2018-2020) – https://www.eupedia.com/europe/crime_maps_of_europe.shtml for theft, robbery, and rape, western European countries lead by a long shot with an obvious extreme spike in Nordic countries. Burgalary is more of a mixed bag, with northern Europe and France/Belgium/Netherlands/Switzerland/Austria/northern Italy doing pretty god-awful, compared to just Slovenia/Croatia/Bosnia/Hungary doing poorly. Eastern European countries have much lower rates of assault than Germany, Italy, France (with the excetion of Hungary) but comparable to the rest of Europe. Homicide would seem more common in non-EU eastern/southern European countries + Romania&Bulgaria however.

Homicide (2021) – https://www.statista.com/statistics/1268504/homicide-rate-europe-country/ this suggests eastern/western doesn't have noticeable impact on murder, and most EU/associated countries form a relatively steady progression, with the exceptions of Finland, Albania, Montenegro, and the Baltics which are higher – with Sweden and France being the next highest of course.

The website you referenced also seems to give total crime overall (not specific crimes) to be mostly unrelated to geography in the relevant countries it has data for, with France, Belgium, and Sweden having the most. numbeo

Generally it seems like the statistics agree with me, although the amount of things that compare specifically theft between European countries is surprisingly little. And I'm mostly emphasizing theft since that has a clear correlation with highly capitalism-centric economies.

To clarify terminology, when I speak of "eastern Europe" I generally am referring to the UN Statistics geoscheme plus Croatia and Albania, in EU or EU association. I feel that is generally the best definition to work with and encompasses what most people think of "eastern Europeans" in this kind of context (but I'm sure some people think of eastern Europe as Serbia, Moldova, Ukraine, or the Baltics instead). And of course "northern Europe" is Scandinavia + Finland, "western Europe" is anything that lies east of Czechia + northern Europe (not the UK though). Slovenia is kind of impossible to label as one so I won't argue for any categorization but most western Europeans would probably place it in "eastern" if they had to choose between that and "western" due to being post-communist & Slavic-language speaking.

[–] Keineanung@lemmy.world 14 points 1 year ago

Had the exact same thought process.

[–] Valar_Morghulis@jlai.lu 10 points 1 year ago

Because you see it from your personal point of view. Seeing it from a government perspective it’s public money and should be easily identified. Also if I remember correctly, in Norway you have to identify yourself to get access to the data.

[–] havokdj@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

Because it could potentially subject you to a planned robbery? That's about it, although I think it definitely depends on the place too. Norway likely doesn't have to worry about that issue.

[–] AlligatorBlizzard@sh.itjust.works -3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I think it's because tax forms also contain information that definitely should not be available to anyone who wants it. Employer information especially - anyone trying to escape from an abuser really doesn't want that info widely available.

[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 10 points 1 year ago

You don't have to reveal everything on the form.