IMO, it's horrendous. Everyone can look up my income and wealth on the internet. Must be a field day for ID theft and blackmailing.
Well they've hit oil now, haven't they? Before social security the U.S. was starving its elderly, but now they are not. So what does this prove?
They should do it here too, then i will find the richest person in my area, me and my gang will stalk him day in day out and when the time is right CHOOOOOOOOOOP
Martin, perhaps you have more first hand information than I, but my impression is that Norges Bank actually is more open than say the US Fed. I say this because they have elected lay persons on their central bank board. Another interesting feature to me is the way they handle public retirement funds. They don't invest exclusively in Norwegian sovereign debt instruments. Instead the money is invested world wide in a very wide range of investments. They preclude, however, investing in certain types of businesses, weapons manufacturing for example. The Norges Bank is responsible for administering the fund and they list all the holdings and performance data on the Norges website. Norway is obviously more homogeneous and much smaller in population than the US, nevertheless we might take a few lessons from them. Financially, and in terms of education, poverty and crime they seem to be doing quite well. I am not convinced, when you include the indirect inflation tax, that US taxes in total are that much lower than taxes in other countries, and I am also not convinced we get our money's worth, but no one will ever convince me that the US Tax code is not an unmitigated nightmare compared to any other country on earth!
The members of the executive board of Norges Bank are all appointed (by the King in Council, i.e. cabinet), not elected. What I was referring to, however, is that the way Norges conducts monetary policy and operates in the mkts is pretty much identical to what every Western CB does. Yes, this is one way that Norway is unique. Everywhere else SWFs are standalone, rather than administered by the CB, and are much less transparent.