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New Florida law requires city officials to disclose net worth; some are resigning instead
(www.usatoday.com)
this post was submitted on 31 Dec 2023
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LOL. How in the world did this legislation get passed? In Florida, of all places.
Also sponsored by Republicans, voted for by a state Congress with a Republican super majority, I'd love to know what the catch is, but it's definitely a law that should be everywhere, public servants should always have transparency to prevent corruption and as the sponsor said "bring parity" to local elections.
Absolutely obscene. Just thinking about my average apartment that would include 5 desktops, 2 phones, 2 tvs, couch, sundry jewelry, etc. Plus cars and other big ticket items. And I really don't have a lot of stuff outside my computer hobby. I'm almost certainly missing quite a few things, as well.
I also see room for creative interpretation.
That laptop might have been worth more and $1K a few years ago, but is it still? Probably not, but does the law make that distinction?
Yes, depreciation is a pretty standard thing.
The law was written to specifically target city level officials (who are often Democrats) and includes jail time for any errors found during an audit.
The law specifically does not apply to state level officials (who are almost all Republican).
So it is an open question if depreciation is considered at all, because this law is not a Transparency Law, it's a "Punish Democrats we don't like with Jail" law.
Is that actually average in the US? I own not a single thing worth more than $1000 and I do have a job. I'm not trying to make a point or anything, just interesting to think how much people have.
Many computers are going to be more than $1k, especially when talking about laptops that aren't shit hardware. Gaming desktops can easily move into the $3k tier now for high end systems, not even including other expensive components like gaming monitors which can be over $1k by themselves.
Then there's large quality TVs and home theater projectors. While a large TV can be purchased for fairly cheap now, there's a big difference in image quality and capability between a $500 TV and the $4k one sitting next to it even through they're the same size. TV technology has a pretty wide range now, it's no longer a simple question of resolution, size and maybe a couple simple panel categories like LCD or Plasma.
And for whatever reason flagship phones are in that range now as well. A new iPhone 15 Pro is $999, the 15 Pro Max is $1199. The Samsung Galaxy S23 and 23+ launched at the same price points. For the base capacity, without any upgrades.
That's why I love my thriftiness! I have a gaming PC, not the nicest but it can run any modern games well enough at 1080p/60fps, it might be worth around 1000 but I've upgraded it slowly over years. I have no TV, I bike to work, I got my phone for 300 in 2019 and it still works great.
I looked into upgrading my phone recently, I can't even find a phone that has better hardware that I would want for a reasonable price, the only major improvement would be the camera, all other stats on mine are just as good or better than comparable new phones.