Darren's summed it up pretty well....

On Thu, 23 Apr 2009 14:44:36 -0400, Warp wrote:

> Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
>> Maybe there, but not here...not everyone in the US has one.  Many
>> people who live in the US don't, even though they're legal.
> 
>   I can't understand how that can work. The most prominent problem which
> comes to mind is: How do they collect taxes if they don't know who is
> who? How can employers inform the government who is working for them if
> the employees have no ID? (At least here employers have a rather strict
> duty to have very accurate paperwork on who is working and every single
> cent is accounted for and notified, mostly for taxing and insurance
> purposes but also for other things, such as ensuring employee rights and
> such.)

No SSN != No ID in the US.  But most (not all) IDs are issued by the 
state and not by the federal government.

For foreign workers, for example, there are other ways and methods used 
to report that information.

>> > as it's an unambiguous unique identifier (and the government has your
>> > data associated with it).
> 
>> Over here we tend to be suspicious (some would say "overly suspicious")
>> of the idea of a national identity database.  Governments around the
>> world have demonstrated that they're not terribly good at keeping data
>> that should secure secured.  Though the most recent examples I can
>> think of are from he UK....
> 
>   One can be suspicious of a government that wants to keep accurate
> information on every single citizen of the country, but I really can't
> understand how a country can work without that. The Finnish government
> (and I'm sure it's the same for many other countries) knows the exact
> number of Finnish citizens, and their basic info (date of birth, etc.)

We do a census every 10 years to find out how many people there are 
here. :-)

Looking at my credit report (not managed by the government but by three 
separate reporting bureaus), they all don't have the correct address for 
me.  But they still track my credit without too much trouble - and I know 
that, because I check it at least monthly.

>   That might sound a bit draconian when said like that, but I have yet
> to feel that being abused. 

You're not in the US.  Finland has what I certainly would consider to be 
reasonable privacy laws.

> It seems to work quite well. One situation
> where the government knowing who you are works pretty well is in, as the
> name implies, social security. For example if you break a leg, you just
> go to the hospital, tell your social security number, and they fix you
> up for free. No hassle.

Ah, socialism that works. :-)  Seriously, I admire the health care system 
you guys have, and wish we had something similar instead of the crappy 
insurance-based system we have now.  Granted, having insurance is better 
than not.

Out of curiosity, how much of your salary goes to taxes?  Over here it's 
typically in the 30-40% range.

>   Naturally phonebooks are an exception to this. But even with them you
> always specifically choose whether you want your number on the public
> phone book or not when you create a phone contract. (And later you can
> change this with one phone call.)

We do have an option to be unlisted, but that doesn't stop abuses.  Right 
now there seems to be a dearth of telemarketing companies that skirt the 
DNC list rules - like saying they're calling to do a survey (legal) when 
the point of the survey is to see if you want to buy something (not 
legal).  Or political/charity organizations.  Or people who just refuse 
to identify who they're with or play by the rules.

We had one the other day who insisted that they were legally required to 
NOT disclose the name of the charity they were calling on behalf of, 
except to the named person they were calling (they claimed my wife had 
"done business with" the charity in the past).  

I had another who just identified himself by name, and when I asked who 
he was calling on behalf of, he gave me his name again and asked if my 
wife was home.  I asked a second time and in a more demanding tone who he 
was calling on behalf of, and he said something like "national 
registry" (I actually couldn't make it out).  I told him to take us off 
their calling list - which they're required by law to do if you ask - and 
he actually started to argue before giving up, saying OK and hanging up.

It doesn't help that there are certain categories of numbers that we 
cannot block at all.  We have to make a note in our phone's electronic 
phonebook to have it display the note when hey call (as if it were the 
caller ID).

Jim

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