Norwegian politician gives away her salary

[Dwarniel]

Norwegian politicians for the left/socialist party "Rødt" (red) refuses to accept their high salary, and gives away hundreds of thousands every year. 

"The salary of 900.000 nok a year (97.255 USD) is way to high. It's absurd and unfair that I make the double amount of what a nurse gets. "

"It should not be the salary that appeals to politicians. The appeal should be getting to represent the people. When the salary gets to high, people become power hungry. They become more concerned about keeping their own positions than taking care of the people."

As a single mom for two Kids, the money would really help her out," but the principles are more important" she says. 

https://www.nettavisen.no/okonomi/rodt-representant-i-trondheim-nekter-a-ta-imot-full-politikerlonn/3423852502.html

 

Apparently they donate the money to their own party, but hey. Politics are becoming more conscious over here. 

Edited March 7, 2020 by Dwarniel

[Hansu]

Lol, 97k us dollars sounds a lot but its Norway. High education jobs pay A LOT in Norway.

Her action sounds very populistic to me. She's just fishing for popularity among people who worry about money all the time.

 

Considering how much work being a politician is, its important to give the position a salary that can at least somewhat compete with high education jobs

If you pay politicians the same salary as, lets say car repairman, you'll quickly be in situations where politicians go for revenue sources outside their politics. Revenue sources that will 100% affect their positions and decisions in politics.

Nobody becomes a politician because "Lol its easy work and I'll earn a lot of money". If they did, then her action would be explainable by conscious thinking. EDIT: I made a mistake here. "Politician" means different thing in my language than what we are discussing here so what you are understanding of my text might not mean what I am meaning to say!

Edited March 8, 2020 by Hansu

[roar]

5 minutes ago, Hansu said:

Nobody becomes a politician because "Lol its easy work and I'll earn a lot of money". If they did, then her action would be explainable by conscious thinking.

Sorry Hansu, but a lot of people in Norway become politicians because "it's easy work and I'll earn a lot of money".  Also because of their narcissistic and power-hungry traits..

[Hansu]

EDIT: I made a mistake here

Edited March 8, 2020 by Hansu

[Dwarniel]

1 hour ago, Hansu said:

Lol, 97k us dollars sounds a lot but its Norway. High education jobs pay A LOT in Norway.

I live in Norway and i can assure you that a lot of high education jobs does _not_ pay 97k us dollars. Maybe when you have worked for several years, but they do not start you on a million norwegian kr. 

Also, it's not just her from Rødt who donates her salary. Many of the politicians in that party does because of their principles,including the leader. 

In an ego-obsessed world, selflessness and love gets questioned and demonized. 

Edited March 7, 2020 by Dwarniel

[Dwarniel]

45 minutes ago, Shiva said:

Many rich people actually give away money first and fore mostly because it serves them. It gives them more popularity, which leads to more votes, which leads to more power, which is what a politician wants.

Also donating money often has massive tax advantages. For example, when Mark Zuckerberg supposedly donates 99% of his wealth, he is actually putting it into his own charity, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, which is essentially a nice loop hole to avoid being taxed. In addition, he can improve his public opinion this way and exert more political influence. So, it's a win-win-win for him.

So, when someone says they are giving away money, what I am interested in is, who is receiving that money? And how is the person actually helping people beyond just giving away money they don't need to buy popularity and polish their image to get what they want?

Now, I'm not saying that this must inevitably be the case for every generous donor, but it's definitely a pattern among politicians and the rich and famous.  

I understand what you are saying, but it is not the case here. These people have transcended Orange long ago, I say this with confidence after years of careful study and observation. 

It saddens me how everyone questions their motive and paint them as devils in disguise. But I can understand it I guess, politicians do not have a lot of trust. 

Edited March 7, 2020 by Dwarniel

[Hansu]

4 hours ago, Dwarniel said:

live in Norway and i can assure you that a lot of high education jobs does _not_ pay 97k us dollars.

http://www.salaryexplorer.com/salary-survey.php?loc=162&loctype=1&job=22&jobtype=1

How accurate are the salaries mentioned on that website in your opinion?

 

118 000 US dollars a year for something as basic and as easy as a CAD design is ridiculously high.

[Annoynymous]

Norway is undoubtedly one of the most conscious developed countries in the world. It's political,  social and economic model is a role model for the rest of the world. It has truely got a social welfare system.If i am not making mistake, then Bernie Sanders of America is exactly trying to introduce the same kind of system in America. So obvoisly we can expect that kind of generousness that the OP has mentioned from the politicians of a highly concious country.@Dwarniel Thank you for sharing the news. I hope you will share more about the various systems of Norway in the future so that we can understand how a conscious country works practically.

Edited March 7, 2020 by Annoynymous

[Dwarniel]

30 minutes ago, Hansu said:

http://www.salaryexplorer.com/salary-survey.php?loc=162&loctype=1&job=22&jobtype=1

How accurate are the salaries mentioned on that website in your opinion?

 

118 000 US dollars a year for something as basic and as easy as a CAD design is ridiculously high.

 

CAD operators earn around 400.000NOK (43k USD) so i would say this is very inaccurate. 

2 hours ago, Shiva said:

 

 

[Dwarniel]

5 minutes ago, Annoynymous said:

Norway is undoubtedly one of the most conscious developed countries in the world. It's political,  social and economic model is a role model for the rest of the world. It has truely got a social welfare system.If i am not making mistake, then Bernie Sanders of America is exactly trying to introduce the same kind of system in America. So obvoisly we can expect that kind of generousness that the OP has mentioned from the politicians of a highly concious country.@Dwarniel Thank you for sharing the news. I hope you will share more about the various systems of Norway in the future so that we can understand how a conscious country works practically.

Yes, Bernie stands for many of the same values. I would pinpoint him as green, and the Scandinavian system is green as well. Even yellow spots here and there in big cities. It probably helps that we're not so many people here as in the us. It gives more flexibility when it comes to quicker change. 

[Hansu]

1 hour ago, Dwarniel said:

 

CAD operators earn around 400.000NOK (43k USD) so i would say this is very inaccurate. 

Yikes! That's less than in Finland, and even worse when adjusted to cost of living

[Annoynymous]

@Shiva i think you are making a lot of assumption rather than investing time  on investigating the case. If you wanna genuinely know about what happened, you should do a bit of research on Norwegian politics rather than making assumptions.  

Edited March 7, 2020 by Annoynymous

[Dwarniel]

1 hour ago, Shiva said:

There is another way to interpret this. And again I'm not informed about Norwegian politics so I could be totally off in this case, just putting this out there as food for thought.

One could argue that "giving away" money in this case is actually more selfish than taking it.

Income tax in Norway is quite high, so if you get a high salary it means that you give a lot of money back to the government as public funds. This is good because, in a sense, everybody gets a say in how the money is being used.

If, on the other hand, they keep the money in the party, it implies that they refuse to pay a lot of income tax. And at the same time, they get to decide what all of their money used for. They get full control over these additional funds and can use them to pursue their own political agenda without deductions and without the public getting any say in it whatsoever.

And while they are seizing power over funds that are meant to be used for the common good, they have the nerve to use this to boost their public image and convince voters by pretending to be charitable.

It might be far more selfless to actually take the money, pay a good amount of taxes so that everybody can benefit from it (not just your own party) and then do good with your remaining net salary if you really want to.

Again, I'm not saying that this is true or that this is my opinion (it is not), but this is definitely a malicious yet reasonable perspective one could take.

I understand what you are saying, but it's not the case in this particular situation. They dedicate their lives to fight for the weak and poor. They fight for higher taxation of the rich and more support for the less fortunate. It's easy to talk but they are actually waking the walk. They give away personal luxury and comfort to set an example. Again, i understand the suspicion, as politics in general is very corrupt. I see this as one of the least corrupt political partiets in the world, and I've studied them up close with conscious politics and spiral dynamics in mind for years. I might be wrong, but every piece of information points in the opposite direction. Of course nobody is perfect, but I feel like this is a grand example of green politics in action.

This is not a publicity stunt or a power grab attempt. They've refused unreasonable high salaries for years, and tries to get through cuts in politician salary (including their own) in order for that money to be spent on things like free kindergarden, better care for the elders/sick and so on. 

Edited March 7, 2020 by Dwarniel

[Hansu]

8 hours ago, Dwarniel said:

tries to get through cuts in politician salary (including their own) in order for that money to be spent on things like free kindergarden, better care for the elders/sick and so on. 

Lets say that Norwergian politicans salary was cut with 50%. So thats roughly about 50k a year per politician. Assuming there is 169 politicians at one time (Im not 100% sure) that would make 8.4 million dollars.
That 8.4 million dollars is NOTHING compared to social costs of ANY country, especially in northern countries. I dont need to look up Norways social costs to tell you that 8.4 million will have absolutely no dent on anything.

I get that their intentions are good, but intentions dont bring the supper to the table. They are just wasting their effort if their goal is truly to increase the social costs budget by making big cuts on the salary of a very, very small field of profession.

 

[Apparition of Jack]

@Hansu The purpose of this is symbolic, not pragmatic. Clearly no one believes that a single politician cutting their salary is going to make any significant contributions to the state budget, not even her. The point is to make people aware that politicans are paid so much in the first place, especially when compared to the people they're supposedly trying to represent. And it's working - the very fact that we're having a discussions about this is proof that awareness around politicians salaries is being generated, and the hypocrisy of earning too much while trying to serve the people is being highlighted. It alone won't do everything, but it's an important step in building the energy needed to get rid of corrupt money interests in politics and making the political process more human and holistic for everyone.

[Hansu]

11 minutes ago, Shiva said:

You know what is anther great way to give away 50% of your salary? - Just pay your taxes! That's what taxes are for and that's why we have higher tax brackets for higher income people.

That too. Taxes rise absurdly fast after a certain point in Nordic countries

40 minutes ago, Apparition of Jack said:

It alone won't do everything, but it's an important step in building the energy needed to get rid of corrupt money interests in politics

Corruption is created when people in power DONT earn enough. Like I said, salaries in politics need to rival with the salaries in jobs of high education.

Otherwise, why would a doctor who earns 120k a year doing ~8-10 hours of work a day pick up politics to earn say, 60k a year working 12 hours a day and having to walk on eggshells all day long because one wrong sentence can ruin all the hard work they have done to get people to listen to them? Its a huge risk to give up your position and pursue politics even when the salary does rival with your old job.

I still doubt there is any politicians in western countries who are in it just for easy money and "lols I dont need to do anything". Anyone who has thought about joining politics knows its a huge workload and effort to dethrone even the stupidest of politician to take their position

[Dwarniel]

1 hour ago, Apparition of Jack said:

@Hansu The purpose of this is symbolic, not pragmatic. Clearly no one believes that a single politician cutting their salary is going to make any significant contributions to the state budget, not even her. The point is to make people aware that politicans are paid so much in the first place, especially when compared to the people they're supposedly trying to represent. And it's working - the very fact that we're having a discussions about this is proof that awareness around politicians salaries is being generated, and the hypocrisy of earning too much while trying to serve the people is being highlighted. It alone won't do everything, but it's an important step in building the energy needed to get rid of corrupt money interests in politics and making the political process more human and holistic for everyone.

????????

[Roy]

@Hansu Most people are extremely attached to money. It is literally survival after all. To give it away says a tremendous amount about her and her commitment to higher principles. Only 1 in 10,000 people, probably even LESS, would be willing to depart with that much. She is willing to discard her own potential comfort and survival to serve something greater. That is quite high consciousness, not the opposite.

Reflect and consider your reaction might because you maybe don't liking her political leanings, therefore you dismiss it as just a "move" by her to get more votes. Perhaps you resent the fact she is exercising a choice that you yourself couldn't make, given your current attachments to your own selfishness or survival.

I don't say this to be inflammatory. Just want to point out stuff you might be missing.

Edit: Nvm I won't get through to you I wasted my time. I just saw your giant meme as a response to someone stating very obvious truths about politicians. Which is ironic because not only are you naive but also contradict your own views. Corrupt people don't become politicians, yet they're willing to do manipulate virtue signaling to squeeze extra votes? Ok lol.

 

Edited March 8, 2020 by Roy

[Dwarniel]

Like i understand where you guys are coming from, but this is a party you have no knowledge about and a system you probably never stuidied and/or understand. I think It's better to ask questions and be curious than create issues that doesn't exist from this position. 

Edited March 8, 2020 by Dwarniel

[electroBeam]

97000 USD is fucken nothing. That's poverty. 

But I guess in Europe, if you earn 200K a year, 102K probably goes to taxes, so you're left with 98K anyway