Egalitarian Finland most competitive, too

Christian Science Monitor ^ | October 26, 2005 | Peter Ford

[Pangolin]

That said, I love my country. Even though winters might be considered harsh or environment is rural, there are much wonderful things about Finland and finns. Welfare, our government, or system just don't belong in those.

[socal_parrot]

Hey, what do you expect? It's Monty Python.

Next, you'll be telling me there are no Norwegian Blue Parrots pining for the fjords.

[cloud8]

> Even if socialism "works" somewhere, I still consider it morally wrong. Right to property is in my opinion absolute.

How about the Allemansret?

[MirrorField]

There is a big reason for the decline of Finnish GDP in the early 1990. It has to do with the fall of communism and the Soviet Union. Finland trades a lot with its neighbor in the East. When communism fell Russia fell into chaos for a brief period. That harmed Finland, but now the Russians are doing better and that helps the Finns.

Exactly. During the coldest of cold war Finland sold lots of stuff to USSR and got paid in kind (ie. material goods). Lots of opportunities for small country with western technology base and more-or-less market-based economy (despite constant leftwing drive to "sovietize" Finland) to make lots of money.

[Pangolin]

Good point, but note that "The main rule is that one can walk, ski or cycle everywhere as long as nothing is harmed and nobody disturbed".

Wilderness can in my opinion considered as unused land, if I haven't plowed fields or used it in any way. I wouldn't see that as a violation of my property in any way.

If I had, I should have the right to bar entry, not that I neccessarily would do so.

[Pangolin]

I have little love lost towards russians.

Our dictator for 25 years was KGB agent and KGB also practically was the most powerful party in Finland because of recruited politicians even after his reign.

Even now there are such skeletons in our politics that unlike in most of europe, they didn't allow to publish the names of suspected Stasi agents here. Social Democrats hold the power here so it's no wonder, but I am amazed how sheepishly everyone takes this from our humanist president. Not to mention her shadowy past and political history, which was prominently aided by outed KGB agents.

God knows how many were or are in the service of GRU even after the collapse of Soviet Union. I think that when you are recruited, you can't get out. SU might have helped Finland economically, but they invaded and we were on the leach for decades since, even though nominally more independent than Baltic countries. And now it seems Russia wants to intimidate us again.

I wish our military was based more on individual based guerrilla war (not suitable for attack) and system like switzerland and our politicians, if we must have them, would be purged of Soviet era traitors.

[cloud8]

> Our dictator for 25 years was KGB agent and KGB also practically was the most powerful party in Finland because of recruited politicians even after his reign.

The dictator of Kekkoslovakia was KGB?

[Pangolin]

>The dictator of Kekkoslovakia was KGB?

According to high ranking defectors Gordievsky and Golitsyn, he was recruited in 1947.

[Pangolin]

>I am amazed how sheepishly everyone takes this from our humanist president. Not to mention her shadowy past and political history, which was prominently aided by outed KGB agents.

I am discussing with myself here, but I am horrified because she is candidate for re-election. She supported a state (East-Germany) which killed those who tried to escape communist utopia. Then she had a boost for her political career from another outed KGB agent Sorsa (which is silenced in Finland) to be parlamentary secretary.

Her time as president has been quiet, but when shit eventually hits the fan (her socialism nonwithstanding), sooner or later, I wouldn't ever want her to be the president in those times.

[cloud8]

Pangolin, thanks for your insights here. Please ping me for Finland threads.
Kiitos.
t. Bill

[Pangolin]

Certainly, although I just registered for this thread alone. Thank you.

[Meldrim]

"And when they retire they can look forward to generous pensions that amount, for the average Finn, to 60 percent of their last salary."

Kotlikoff. "The Coming Generational Storm". Sorry, the "generous pension" myth is just that; it is not actuarially sound. The government(s) won't be providing generous pensions in anything other than inflated currency.

[Meldrim]

Is your military still conscript? I've dealt with a few of your units and they were all very squared away. No females either...at the time at least...I liked that.

[Little Bill]

You have that right.

[wideminded]

Finland in 1955 was neither poverty-stricken nor were its people poorly educated.

I worked with some men who had been Mormon missionaries in Finland, probably in the early 70's. They emphasized to me that life was pretty hard economically for people in Finland. However, they also quoted Finns as saying: "You think it is bad here, you should see it in Russia." (an adjacent country) IIRC the Finns had to pay some sort of reparations to the Soviets after their wars and this hurt the Finnish economy.

[wideawake]

It's a matter of perspective. In 1955 the UK was just coming off the WWII rations system.

Few people would call the UK back then "poverty-stricken" although life then was definitely harder than now.

Finland had its postwar economic dislocations but was not a place where there was hunger or crippling unemployment.

And saying that the Finns were a poorly-educated people in 1955 is an outrage.