Yes, I agree with this idea. Finns are quite full of themselves in that matter. They like immigrants as long as they immigrate to other countries than Finland and don’t show up in their own backyard. But don’t worry. Finland will change a lot in the near future and many newcomers will arrive here. Then we shall see how Finland and Finns deal with immigration. After all, I don’t think Finns will take care of their own parents and grandparents, drive their own busses, clean their own public toilets, and be able to support their own bloated social security system. All of that can only be maintained with fresh blood in the country. Otherwise the inverted demographic pyramid will let Finland go bust.

The key issue in my mind is getting jobs or studying opportunities to the immigants. The other priority should be our general attitudes towards people who differ from the majority of us. Even those things alone would probably take us pretty far. A vote for color blindness and equal treatment as well!

Well, any foreigner (even really highly qualified with work experience and all that) who has tried to get a job in Finland knows how hard that can be. Jobs are traded informally and in Finnish language only.

Talking about people who escape here from other countries. I have nothing against it, but it would be nice if the housing (arranged by the goverment) would be located so that the immigrants cant live in a bubble, but would be forced to interact with the larger society.

If you have spent ten years in Finland and not managed to learn enough finnish/swedish to follow news and carry daily conversation, something must be wrong. Phil’s been here three years and apparently you can read Hesari at least to some extend.

Phil

Finnish language may be bigger barrier than you think. Its not close to any other language, and its very hard to learn (The nuts and bolts are easy, just all those strung together phrases)

Only good news is almost everyone knows English, which I found to be a bad trend, as even the store clerk’s quickly switch into English rather than let one try Finnish.

It might be better to separate refugees from other types of immigrants as voluntary immigrants, like Phil, are better able to handle the conditions they subject themselves to, unlike regugees, which are told which country that they will go to and where to like, etc.

“Finnish language may be bigger barrier than you think. Its not close to any other language, and its very hard to learn (The nuts and bolts are easy, just all those strung together phrases)”

Not using Finnish is a great excuse for an employer to not hire someone. But don’t let that fool you in thinking that that is the only reason. Learn Finnish and you will quickly see how unimportant the language is after all. I can’t even count how many times I was told how important Swedish was! (and no, they were not Government jobs.)

First about the borked comments… There was “Joonas” in the name field!!!! I am the beaver FGS!

Joonas you’re correct, but it’s not only about creating job opportunities for immigrants that would help, it’s making more and better opportunities for all! If overall unemployment would be much lower than it is right now, if there would be more job openings and a dynamic labour market, it would automatically help immigrants to get work. Studying? More bachelor programs in English. Now it’s only Masters programs where one has a choice, besides the (yaaawn) international business degrees.

I do not believe in special efforts towards immigrant groups. The reason why at the moment Finland has almost no trouble with it’s immigrant population is because there are so few. Hardly any achievement. But I do see signs that things could go wrong in future. Finlands needs to learn right now from the European countries where there is unrest and analyse that.

Phil, As you know all countries in the world have problems with racism, prejudice, etc. The US have coloured people. So has Europe, but people with a religion that hinders cultural integration is a different problem. America does not have the amount of islam followers that European countries have, so you can’t compare.

Language demands will normalise as soon as unemployement levels also will!

First about the borked comments… There was “Joonas” in the name field!!!! I am the beaver FGS!

Well apparently that goes both ways as I getr offered the beaver – with and website address and all!

Any clues Phil, as I never got that password email either even though I tried to register some time back? (Not that this is an urgent matter in any way.)

Joonas you’re correct, but it’s not only about creating job opportunities for immigrants that would help, it’s making more and better opportunities for all!

No disagreement there.

[quote]Not using Finnish is a great excuse for an employer to not hire someone. But don’t let that fool you in thinking that that is the only reason. Learn Finnish and you will quickly see how unimportant the language is after all. I can’t even count how many times I was told how important Swedish was! (and no, they were not Government jobs.) [/quote]

I’m new here, so excuse me if I’m not 100% on the etiquette of the board

Well, Finland IS bilingual. Swedish IS the official language aswell, so I don’t find
that odd for it to be a necessity.
Also, I work within a industry that has to follow certain safety regulations
implimented by law so for the employer to be able to minimize injuries at workplace and also guarantee the safety of others, not just one employee,
all need to understand finnish enough to be able to really take in the regulations.

Just a question, how many jobs can u get in the U.S and UK, if u don’t speak a word of english?

Not many. Probs the same ones u can get in Finland.

Besides there are many companies in Finland that don’t require 4 u to speak any finnish. You just need to be good enough to be hired into one of them.

Oops…guess the [quote] doesn’t work here..I’ve been hanging in ImDb
too long..

Well, any foreigner (even really highly qualified with work experience and all that) who has tried to get a job in Finland knows how hard that can be. Jobs are traded informally and in Finnish language only.

Well, it is that way anywhere in the world, isn’t it? It’s all about who you know.

That aside, I have met many people in Finland working in relatively high and/or well-paid positions who didn’t speak Finnish at all. The trick is to work for an international company (or one that pretends to be). The IT sector is a little different, of course, as it is anywhere in the world.

As for Fred’s comment about the importance of Swedish, did you think that native Finns don’t hear lame excuses for not being hired all the time? It just sucks to be a job applicant in Finland, regardless of your nationality or language skills. It all comes down to the inflexibility of the job market and – partly – the employers being assholes. The example of Denmark shows that a flexible job market is not necessarily incompatible with the Nordic model.

Hi dalifemme77. Could you list all those companies that run on Englih and where no Finnish is required to be hired? The question arises for which jobs one is hired? Since you are sooo good it seems, what is your job profile so that you were gobbled up so promptly into the job market?

“Could you list all those companies that run on Englih and where no Finnish is required to be hired?”

The trick is having a skill that they are looking for. Most of the international Corporations in Finland will accept you without Finnish Language skills if you have a skill that they need.

I spent a year working with one firm where all the meeting I attended were in Finnish, except when I spoke, which I did in English. Somehow it worked, mainly because I had experience that others in the company did not.

I also spent months working in the Port of Helsinki. Almost nobody could speak English there. I was sort of an oddity. Then again, I was there because I had a skill that was needed (and was stupid enough to take a job that Finns did not. “konttitarkastaja”)

So it is possible to find work in Finland.

Swedish is indeed an official language. If you live on the coast you can actually belief that it’s true. Go only to Lahti, where I live, and all traces of Swedish have vanished. No road signs, no newspapers, no shop assistants with badges that show they speak fi, se, and more… That’s how official it is.

It’s not fair either to compare countries where the natives speak already a world language to Finland. What is the first choice of language between people of different origin? Exactly!

And FF I agree with. So much depends on how the labour market behaves. Here in Finland it’s slow, conservative and stuck. It explains why employers act the way they do. Unfortunately I think it won’t change… Not even with a totally different government.

oh, I meant the freeridin’ FF… Not that I disagree with Fred Fry now

of course jobs are “traded informally and in finnish language only”.

1. almost anywhere i’ve been in the world, one has a better chance of getting a job with an organization where one has an inside connection-in other words infomally.

2. this is finland. if you live here, you should expect to speak finnish. tell you what, if you can’t speak english or spanish, your chances of getting a job in the states are nil.

since i have arrived in finland, i have gone out of my way to use and improve my finnish as much as possible, through public courses, private lessons, and insisting that my friends speak to me in finnish. i’ve also started studying swedish since it is the 2nd official language. my finnish speaking finnish friends think that i’m insane for doing so, i’m guessing because they were forced to study swedish in school. of course in the big picture, neither of these are major world languages, but hey, i’m gonna live here so i’d better develop my language skills as quickly as possible, right? and finnish isn’t as hard as the natives like to portray it. i know plenty of immigrants, both voluntary and refugees whose finnish is quite good after a short time in this country.

and finnish isn’t as hard as the natives like to portray it.

A lot of people here used to speak Swedish before changing to Finnish during the last 2 000 years or so. And many, many words were loaned from Swedish (or old norse and other IE languages). I believe the number of original FU words can be counted in dozens rather than hundreds, the rest is IE, sort of. So, Finnish is actually quite close to Swedish – although the grammar is different. And Swedish again is quite close to English. Often a little imagination is needed but just think about words like kuppi (cup) or hattu (hat). And of course there are the more modern common words like televisio and those orinating from Latin. Many things are said by using Swedish kind of “word combinations” (don’t know what that’s in English … expressions?) linquists have told me. So, I wouldn’t say that Finnish is unlike any other language.

Majava…in the states the black folks do largely practise the Baptist religion and, of late, there has been a new spate of church burnings in Alabama…7 at last count in the last month or two. There are plenty of Muslims in the US, too. Along with a plan for a 700 mile wall along the border with Mexico, the US has nothing to hang over Europe’s head in terms of doing immigration ‘better’.

I think it would be a nice libertarian freedom to be able to choose not to accept any immigrants without an education and a job. We are a free nation, are we not? Isn’t it just smart not to take in people who can’t contribute to the society in any positive way?

Muslims, hindus, christians, black, white, who cares? As long as they can take their share of responsibility they’re welcome.

Why do you think that some people find their place just fine and some other ethnicities and religious groups just line up for the tuitions , move to ghettos and become violent? I know it’s not a politically correct question and someone throws in the racist-card, but those statistics just are the way they are. I don’t think that sweeping them under the rug is the solution.

Both Finland and Minnesota accepted Somali immigrants in the early 90s. It would be instructive to compare the hyvinvointi of the two groups today, as well as the press reaction in both states to the newcomers. Although I have no information on the Finnish statistics, the following article on the Swedish Somalis is interesting (and presumably similar to the Finnish experience):

http://www.watchingamerica.com/svenskadagbladet000002.shtml

Some highlights:

Unemployment rate: 70% for Somalis in Sweden, 40% for Somalis in the US.

800 Small businesses rub by Somali immigrants in Minnesota. 38 in Sweden.

Clearly, I can’t judge one immigration system better than another by referencing the experience of one small group. However, I think mose studies have shown that these different experiences are pretty typical, except for the industrious Eastern European immigrants in Europe.

Also, I’m not sure why the US is in the doghouse for wanting to build a border wall to keep out Mexican immigrants. If the natural border wall of the Mediterrainian Sea was not there to stop them, Europe right now would be drowning in Moroccans and Tunisians. The US is just trying to enforce its own laws.

As for the church bombings, these are an incredibly minor event, comparable to some Finnish skinheads beating up a maahanmuuttaja in a hick town in Lapland or something. Would such an event allow us to comdemn all Finns and the Finnish government as racists? Of course not.

alexbafana: A list of companies? Firstly, I’m not allowed to give a list as I have worked for them and have written a disclosure. BUT think of a company that makes something you speak into, while u walk. And a company that makes something u can play on one of these “things” that u can speak into while u sit/walk, away from your house. Also, a company that makes somehing that allows all of this to happend. As I said. If u are good enough, u will be hired.

And just to add..why are ppl so upset that in Finland you need to *gasp* SPEAK FINNSIH, to get a job? You ever try to get a job in France or Germany, not speaking the language?

Well, DUHH. If the only real difference between countries that have big problems with immigrants and countries that don’t is that the countries that don’t have problems have fewer immigrants, then the painfully obvious conclusion is that the number of immigrants is the problem. If you want immigration, you want to do it a rate slow enough that the country can digest people without great convolutions, not to import absolutely massive numbers of people of the same (often culturally impossible incompatible) group at once. There’s no way to handle the kind of immigration that eg. France has been accepting without major problems, no matter how enlightened your grand social planning schemes sound.

The historical pattern of migration to countries like the US works in cycles. It starts massive wave of new arrivals and follows up with resentment against the new migrants. After a wave of nasty, hostile immigrant-bashing up to anti-immigrant militias (yep, they’re at it again, Google up “Minutemen”) and everything, immigration gets cut down and people gradually calm down; after a while they start realizing that the migrant wave is actually integrating and it wasn’t such a catastrophe after all, so the prevalent mood switches to bashing the anti-immigrant people for bigotry and immigration is again eased. A new immigrant wave is let in and the cycle begins anew. This is simply stupid and if we can avoid it with slower, steadier immigration, I don’t see why slow immigration simply can’t be declared the superior strategy (if we actually manage to stay the course).

Joonas – have you tried clearing your cookies yet?

Jaakkeli is absolutely right. I’d add that an essential part of an optimal plan is never to accept a large number of immigrants with a strong common but alien (to us) identity at once. Never let one religion, nationality, race, or any other identity marker considered important by the immigrants themselves or the native population dominate the influx of immigrants during a period of time, unless that identity marker is shared by the native population (us).

Another important issue is the necessity on part of government immigration officials to monitor the success of integration at regular intervals without any PC-blinders on against relevant benchmarks. The authorities should make appropriate adjustments to immigration policy according to measured, objective results. If some group proves troublesome, then severely restrict the immigration of members of that group in the future. Institute serious scholarly study on immigration. Thoroughly study the subject matter of integration and assimilation from a historical perspective. Never shy away from rational conclusions on for the sake of short-term political expediency.

At best heated identity politicking is a serious nuisance, at worst it results in hell (Yugoslavia, Rwanda etc.). There are many ways for multiculturalism to fail, sometimes spectacularly, but only few ways for it to work. See the blog Sixteen Volts Per Minute for details.

A sovereign state handles immigration as it sees fit, what its requirements are and what type of people it is looking for. So it seems reasonable to me that one of the requirements for possible immigration, should be a solid commitment to the shared values in the liberal pluralistic democracy of Finland.

How one gauges such commmitment would have to be determined through a battery of question and answer tests over a period of time, possibly even a lie detector test as well. Loyalty to shared democratic principles and respect for all its laws are extremely important. Taking a language test is nothing compared to the values of the applicant. KGS

“I’m hearing way too many people in Finland boasting about how well Finland deals with immigration”

I haven’t heard anyone.

TomiA,

the sentence “I believe the number of original FU words can be counted in dozens rather than hundreds, the rest is IE” is a ludicrous non sequitur. For example, “kännykkä” and “loiskis” are not “original FU” words, so according to your logic they’re IE words… right? In reality, the first is a derivation, the second is onomatopoeic – and everyone should know that Finnish uses a lot of both to come up with *new* words. (The base word for “hand” is a common FU word, though.) The second point is that the other FU languages have replaced words with derivations/loanwords as well, so there are obviously going to be proto-FU words that today only exist in a few FU languages and can’t be identified as common FU vocabulary. That is, that today we can only deduce X words to be almost certain proto-FU vocabulary doesn’t mean that there aren’t *way* more than X words dating back to proto-FU: just because the Hungarians forgot some word doesn’t mean that our word suddenly became “Indo-European”. Proto-FU/proto-Uralic is as ancient as linguistic connections can be deduced, going back 6000 years or more, so *obviously*, *by construction* the number of common words is going to be extremely small. (In fact, by following your logic you’d also have to conclude that Indo-European languages have only a handful of Indo-European words!)

That is, summing it up, there are thousands of non-IE words in Finnish. You shouldn’t have much trouble breaking that “hundreds” yourself, with minimal effort.

tä?

SOIA hit the point, but no country would dare refuse the refugees-the largest group without proper education/language skill. UN makes quota for them and countries like Finland have to accept them. Janpan is an exception, they throw money to Africa, so that they do not have to let people in.

“Janpan is an exception, they throw money to Africa, so that they do not have to let people in.”

Well big up for Japan! Helping people where they are is the way to go, not causing more problems by taking them away from their cultural roots.

First of all, Swedish cannot be studied as labour training; only Finnish classes are offered (unless you happen to live in Vaasa) and what is offered in evening classes at the työväenopisto is barely usable for conversational basics.

Secondly, it hardly matters whether someone can or cannot speak Finnish. Worse, it is often considered an irritant when a foreigner has mastered the language, because suddenly they are perceived as “better” for mastering both their (foreign) native language and Finnish, and everyone knows how having an edge over anyone in anything is forbidden in this country.

Thirdly, Finland treats foreigners with absolute contempt, even in the case of qualified labour, as recently exposed in Helsingin Sanomat’s story on Brett Young.

For those who read French, I have written an article on this issue, comparing Finland with other EU states, in Europeus.

I think it was Finnstats (tilastokeskus) that reported that in 2030 there will be 300’000 working-age people less than today and 600’000 pensioners more. Either we change our prejudicious attitudes towards immigrants and increase the immigration flow, or our precious little social-democratic welfare state is going bye-bye. We really could use the extra tax money that people willing to move here are going to pay. And please don’t anyone give me that “they’re just gonna live off the welfare state” -cr4p. The immigrant pop’s unemployment rates are falling and will absolutely take a crash dive after 2010, when the big age-classes will be out of work enjoying their (hopefully) well deserved pension.

How the USA handles the language problem.

Well we don’t even bother and we get an America where anything is possible, even Spanish-speaking Americans who become expert Chinese cooks.

see link: dynamism of immigrant culture in USA

I just can’t help but admire your attitude, jenkki immigrant!

Wow. Many comments in a short time. I tried to read them all very carefully, but have undobtedly missed things and/or misinterpreted things. I am not very interested in religion(s), but I am very interested in immigration.

Contrary to some of the comments here, Finland does not have an immigration or an immigrant policy as such.

There are (unwanted) immigrants in Finland, and this is a fact. There is not much to be done about that, since unlike capital, goods and services (the three other things specified in the SEA), people have rights. I’m referring to the EU now in particular.

No democratic state can have zero immigration. Even in dictatorships this policy just does not work.

It is necessary to separate between different types of immigration. Economic immigration, labour immigration, family immigration etc as well as asylum seeking are all different types. As you will find, Christian Joppke has argued asylum seekers to be the the greatest loosers when these categories become blurred.

Furthermore, the idea of “venue shopping” in these terms (originally by Virginie Guiraudon) does prove handy at times when trying to observe why certain things take place at EU level and other things do not.

When it comes to the nation state an sovereignty, I would recommed reading Saskia Sassen and Yasemin Soysal on immigration and sovereignty. They certainly give ideas, even if they’re not to everyone’s taste.

Yes, hm, trying to put too much stuff into a little remark. Just try to avoid all that namedropping.

you’re rambling is fine.. very informative

Yes, well it is always the same thing. If you read anything by men, they are against immigration; and if you read women, they are always for immigration.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11414568/site/newsweek/

heres a kind of interesting story i found perusing u.s. media on the web. it seems this editor is incarcerated in yemen, facing a potential death sentence for publishing censored copies of the now infamous cartoons along with an article that was actually quite pro-muhammed (in the words of the accused). i wish the level-headed muslim folks would say enough is enough and take care of their extremists in one way or another.

Here is something interesting as well:
http://tundratabloid.blogspot.com/2006/02/moderate-danish-muslims-defy-islamist.html

As I have been saying from the very beginning, this cartoon business has more behind it than meets the eye.

Muslim moderates in Denmark are fed up with the reign of the Islamist Imams, and want to take back their religion. KGS

Bragging “my folks brought me up to be color blind” is like saying “my folks brought me up to see the world in simplistic sweeping generalizations”. Color blindness is certainly a virtue in a world that is color blind. If the majority of your fellow citizens are practicing color-based discrimination, then insisting that you will be color blind is naive and ultimately unfair.

Take an example: suppose you have a Friday evening party. At midnight, two of your friends leave. One is white and the other is black. They both have to take public transport home in different directions and they have to cross some area where there will be drunken teenagers (who, whenever they get drunk, are overcome with a desire to protect their fatherland from dark skinned foreigners by abusing them or roughing them up). You can be color blind and bid goodbye to both of your friends at your doorstep. Or you can be color-sensitive, and escort your black friend home. What would you do?

jaakkeli, this so much off topic that I just quote a FAQ about Finno-Ugrian Languages. I says about the same thing I was trying to say – although I must admit that I probably exaggerated a bit, but so did you …
http://homepage.univie.ac.at/Johanna.Laakso/Hki/fufaq.html :

Because Finnish deviates from Indo-European languages in many visible respects, it seems even more exotic than it really is. In fact, the FU languages are quite typical Northern Eurasian languages. Particularly the Finnic languages have been deeply impregnated by Indo-European (especially Baltic and Germanic, also Slavic) influences, both in vocabulary and grammar.

after thinking about my last comment for a little while (#41) i realize it is quite naive and hypocritical. i stated that “i wish the level-headed muslim folks would say enough is enough and take care of their extremists one way or another”. i suppose they could wish that level-headed westerners would take care of our extremists one way or another also…i guess in the case of good old “sure shot” dick cheney, perhaps our extremists are starting to take care of themselves..

Well, I think Finland handles immigration perfectly. We should not take any more people in, who cant finance themselves. Lets just wait for the first bomb to explode in Finland..

Joonas – have you tried clearing your cookies yet?

Yeah, my Firefox should empty all cookies when it’s shut down, but it seems that there’s no recognisable pattern here. Sometimes (like now) the Name filed is empty as it should be but sometimes not.

As for the registration part, I never got a password to my email and the retrieve password function doesn’t do it either, even though it claims to have sent a password to me. Apparently I’m registered though as it won’t allow me to register my name as “it’s already in use”.

Technology acts strange sometimes and as I said this isn’t a big problem, just thought you should know that Majava isn’t the only one with this. If and when you have the time, Phil.

TomiA (assuming you’re still TomiA, it says anonymous),

I did not exaggerate one bit: everything I said is absolutely correct and nothing in the FAQ you linked to contradicts anything I said. There is no way to defend such a claim as “Finnish only has some dozens of non-IE words” by even claiming that it’s a mere “exaggeration”. This claim is comparable to honestly believing that Martti Ahtisaari is larger than the Moon and, upon finding out that it’s not true, claiming that this was only an “exaggeration”.

The problem here is your strange idea that to be non-IE words Finnish words would have to exist in proto-Finno-Ugric. This is ridiculous. For yet another example, there are no walruses at the great bend of the Volga river (or any of the other places commonly suggested to be where the FU languages arrived from to Fennoscandia after the Ice Age) or in fact in any areas where the FU languages have been spoken, *except* Lapland for some time before post-Ice-Age climate change wiped them out. The FU people migrating here *of course* came up with a word for them, “mursu” (which is now borrowed into a lot of IE languages) (or possibly borrowed a word from some non-IE and non-FU people that are now extinct, but the point is that people perfectly happily come up with new words). It’s as “original Finnish” or “original Saami” (I’m not sure if the word is so old that Finnic and Saami hadn’t yet separated) as possible, even though it didn’t exist in proto-FU and doesn’t exist in most FU languages.

The simple point is that people come up with new words and old ones get forgotten: there are thousands of Finnish words which are neither common FU or IE in origin, because they’ve been made up long after the Finno-Ugric languages separated. We’ve been separate from the most distant relatives for at least 6000 years – anyone would come up with quite a bit of words in that time, don’t you think? That there are only a handful of identifiable proto-FU words is a *truism*, because naturally every language family is traced down to the most distant relatives, those with only a handful of surviving words of common origin. *All* languages that have enough surviving relatives to permit deduction of relationship down to the limits of linguistics have only a handful of surviving proto-family words, *by construction*. It says *nothing whatsoever* about the number of loanwords in the language. Even if the FU peoples had ended up in total isolation and hadn’t borrowed a single word from any other language, there still would be only a handful of correspondencies left.

I don’t think it’s racist to admit that people from the same culture like to cling together when moving to a new country. It has nothing to do with race, even Finns did that in the 70′s when moving to Sweden.
And if that group doesn’t integrate that well then there will be slumming, and it is a problem. Just like what happened with Finns in the 70′s when moving to Sweden.

So at the risk of sounding racist, new immigrants shouldn’t be allowed to move where ever they want, not initially atleast. I also think the immigrants adapt better if they have to interact with the locals.

Anonyymi wrote:

Well, I think Finland handles immigration perfectly. We should not take any more people in, who cant finance themselves. Lets just wait for the first bomb to explode in Finland..

The illusion of power is a tempting one. Finnish immigration regulations are quite normal, EU citizens can move freely and third country nationals basically need to have money. Asylum seekers form their own category naturally. Anonyymi is talking about unwanted immigrants in economic terms (“who can’t finance themselves”), but I suspect what is also assumed is that these unwanted immigrants are a problem for the society as a whole, in terms of social cohesion, culture and especially security. Security and migration have become increasingly linked recently. There is a very good article by Jef Huysmans on the securitisation of migration in Europe in the Journal of Common Market Studies, uhmmh, summer of 2001 perhaps? I can’t remember now, but it can be easily checked if required. In any case, I think Anonyymi is not trying to say we should limit the number of Japanese bankers living in Finland.

No western liberal democratic country can control immigration absolutely. This is even more true of EU member states, who have surrendered a part of their sovereignty to supranational legislation. The movement of people is problematic precisely because people have rights; EU member states face constitutional/legal (constitutional as in domestic courts and other legal as in the European Court of Justice) and other (international treaties, parliament, public opinion, structure of the economy etc) restrictions when “controlling” immigration.

Finland is not a particularly tempting country to migrate to, and there are really no established migration routes or patterns to speak of (compared to the UK or France or Germany etc). This is probably why it can be said that Finland handles immigration well. There’s not that much to handle, and many of the handling procedures have been decided elsewhere. Someone like Sassen would speak of how immigrants, especially illegal ones, are the greatest concrete challenge to (nation state) sovereignty (not that it is necessarily a bad thing in her analysis), someone like Soysal would speak of changing patterns and conceptions of nationalism, nationality, inclusion and exclusion.

The reality of the thing is that we cannot “handle immigration perfectly”, whatever that means. States can at best adapt to the reality of immigration and try to make the most of it.

I don’t think it is as much color/nationality issue rather that culture distance issue. Usually people from a similar cultural background/values can “fit in” whereas those people from a distant cultural background cannot face the society and want to turn back to living however they did back home. Its not got anything to do with race or creed or color. Now the question is, do we as a liberal, advanced, equality-based democratic western society wish to cater to some conservative, backwards, patriarchal, dictatorial non-western societies’ models? Can we allow these people to live here like “at home” if they come to seek asylum from us because of how life is “at home”? So if life “at home” is not good, why do they wish to make our society like “at home”? That is the question. Not the language.

In other words, you cannot come in and pick the cherries off the cake and lick the icing, you need to eat the dry part too.

Heh, I remember some people pounding their chest in the 80′s, that one good reason living in Finland (along the absence of the poisonous snakes) is that we don’t have this incomprehensible racism and apartheid thing, like they do in South-Africa. Haven’t heard that, since the first somalis set their foot on the platform at Helsinki railway station. Obviously it was just lack of stimulus.

If these questions had been discussed honestly and with a slightest dash of reason then, we would be much better off today. But noo…Anything short of “Come here and dance on my table” was vile racism for the flowerhat auntie side and even suggesting the concept of decent foreigner was practically a high treason for the…well, the other side.

after a long and painfull life, i have decided that everything i have ever said is wrong. i apologize to anyone i have ever slandered. i now confess: i am a pinko. i am a commie. i am proud of it. i was so agressive due to my life in the closet as a super left wing activist. i love finland. i love social democracy. i believe in the welfare state. i wish i lived in finland where the government would have picked up the tab for me recent surgeries which set me back thousands out of my own pocket. i apologize to anyone i ever slandered as a finnish kommie klutz kid. allahu akbar! i love islam. there is no god but allah! check out my website, i am a changed man. i will never again slander the left for that is what i am. praise jesus!

this is for real! from now on i will only mock Kapitalist Klutz Kids! i renounce my former live as a child porn addict! i will never again travel to 3rd world countries to diddle children as i did while excercising the priviledges i held under my former masters. from here on out i promise to help people.

http://tundratabloid.blogspot.com/2006/02/taqiyya-deception.html

Anna, you wrote that Finland is not a particularly tempting country to migrate to. Do you happen to know that there is an international study trying to compare how “tempting” different countries are to the professionals. I’m talking about Richard Florida’s “The Flight of the Creative Class”. Now, this is going to sound unrealistic but he ranks Finland the second most tempting country in the whole world right after Sweden (well, he’s not using the word “tempting” but that is, I suppose, what he’s talking about). Now, there surely must be something wrong with Florida’s method, nobody in Finland believes that things could be that well, I suppose, but then again it’d be hard to believe that he got it all wrong. Most likely the “creative class” is not going to queue on our borders just waiting to get in, but there might be surprisingly many who will give Finland at least a try.

As for the “non-creative class”, well, Finland is already the 3rd or 4th wealthiest country within the EU with quite good social security and rather well-paid jobs (for that “class”). That kind of economical advantages have always been tempting in the eys of the potential emmigrants.

TomiA wrote:

Anna, you wrote that Finland is not a particularly tempting country to migrate to. Do you happen to know that there is an international study trying to compare how “tempting” different countries are to the professionals. I’m talking about Richard Florida’s “The Flight of the Creative Class”. Now, this is going to sound unrealistic but he ranks Finland the second most tempting country in the whole world right after Sweden

Ah yes, the Heinz professor. Very popular book, I understand. Afaik it was written with US politicians in mind, to stir some some sort of reform in oder to attract more professionals to the US. In that context, it can be handy to point out that look, Nokia mobile phones are made in this little village close to the arctic circle. Not my primary field of interest in immigration and asylum, I have to say.

Finland can’t really be compared to the US, because of the EU. As in, EU nationals can move freely and work freely in any EU country. (There system is actually a bit complicated because EU has jurisdiction over EU nationals but jurisdiction over third country nationals is still in the hands of the member states, which leaves third country nationals in a very unprotected situation in some cases.)

The need to attract professionals is of course regocnised as vital (they will tell us to sell our grandmothers in order to stay in the competition next). Although I’m not too sure to what extent this is true in Finland, where I thought the quality of education and the domestic stock of professionals are considered as factors getting Finland ahead in the competition. However, as most EU countries are facing a demographic crisis (I think it was in the news just a few days ago, Finland’s population is ageing fastest in Europe, but all EU countries are facing the same problem, I think the population of Italy is expected to drop by several millions in the next 10-15 years) the EU basically needs to complement it with a substantial foreign work force in very basic jobs as well if preserving welfare structures is to be a goal.

Now, let’s see then. In 1999, the inflow of foreigners to Finland was 7900. Compared to France 104 400, Germany 673 900, Italy 268 000, the UK 276 900. Or you might compare that to delightfully small countries, such as Belgium 57 800 or Norway 32 200. The stock of foreign population in Finland is 1.7% of the total population. Compared to Austria 9,2%, Belgium 8,8%, France 5,6%, Germany 8,9%. In fact, the OECD statistics where these figures are from, show that the percentage is smaller only in Hungary and the Slovak Republic. And since the figures are from 1999, I’m sure that’s changed.

Finland has traditionally been a country of emigration, not a country of immigration. The situation was the same in Eastern and Southern Europe for a long time, but the EU changed that; e.g. Italy was formerly just a route to Germany or France, but has now become a destination itself. The same is happening in countries like Hungary and the Czech Republic. Logically, Finland might be a route country from Russia, but it’s really not. Finland is not in a convenient place, the structure of the economy doesn’t really allow for illegal immigration (compare to say Greece where the informal sector is definetely big enough), border control is actually efficient, and getting to stay is dependent on having a job, which is not that simple in Finland. All in all, no, considering the populations that do immigrate globally, Finland is not a particularly attractive place.

I have started to understand Finnish reality much better when I finally accepted two facts about it: that Finnish culture is more eastern than what we admit it to be, and our living standard is lower than what we like to think it is.

By “eastern” culture I mean a culture that is communal and hierarchical (rewarding tribal sharing and follow-a-strong-leader behavior), coupled with a world view that places most emphasis on factors outside one’s own circle of influence when explaining an individual’s life events. By “western” culture I mean the opposite: a culture where individual, equalitarian, self-deterministic values and life event explanations are prevalent.

This eastern culture shows up in many small ways: the tendency of people to speak in passive: “foreigners should not be allowed to gather to live in ghettos” or “everybody should eat a hot lunch”. As if there were some big, monolithic collective, which could determine where people should want to live or what they should want to eat. Easterness shows up also in the immediate gut level anger against somebody, who plainly states what he or she wants and goes for it. Or shows joy for having attained the goal. Rather, the etiquette requires that you hide your goals and only proceed if “others” asked, almost demanded you to, and you then hesitantly and burdened by the task, accept it.

The other myth, a myth about “Finland as a rich Nordic country” is clarified by a study by Frederik Bergström and Robert Gidehag, “EU versus USA” http://www.timbro.se/bokhandel/pdf/9175665646.pdf

The report shows, among other things, recent statistics about the PPP (purchasing power parity)-adjusted GDP (gross domestic product) of several EU15 countries and contrasts them with individual states of USA.

The PPP-adjusted GDP of Finns is about average among the EU countries. Compared to the US, Finland would rank between Arkansas (4th poorest US state) and Oklahoma (5th poorest US state), well below the USA average.

Because Finland has a very narrow income distribution, high taxes, and a large public sector, this means that the standard of living of professionally educated people is relatively lower than the statewide average statistics indicate. So even among EU countries, Finland really isn’t that attractive for the kind of people Finland so much would like to attract (and whom Florida is talking about), i.e. the creative, entrepreneurial, professional, middleclass people.

I know that listing these facts rises the inevitable counter argument about excellent public services. But I’m not so sure that the public services are really that much worse elsewhere. Quite frankly, I personally do not expect to use public health care that much, only to pay for it twice, once through taxes and then another time to the private care provider, if I need some services that I’m not able to get through employer provided services. And I do not think I differ (in this respect!) so much from those people that Finland’s economy most needs.

If people do not have any personal reasons to immigrate to Finland, is it any wonder Finland is not listed among the top immigration target countries in actual immigration statistics (never mind the beauty contest list a la Florida)?

Few thoughts:

Finland wants to be allways the “best pupil” of EU.

Unfortunately, no matter how hard this goverment will try it will never succeed.
After all, how can you expect any governments immigration program to succeed when we hate even our own Finnish, filthy rich capitalist bast…errr…neightbours ?
(And they equally or even more hate us, the working class that make those pigs rich!)
Does anybody REALLY think that we (the working class…not those rich, sons of bitches!) welcomes arms open and kissing masses of immigrants when we have enough problems with our own lives ???
Phil, I tell you this.
It’s HELL to live in the most capitalistic EU country !
It’s HELL to live in the country where an average political person IQ is equal to shrimp.
Just look what kind of persons we have…You will find ex-miss, singer, runner, etc…all that kind of folk.
Are they looking for ways to have more money for themselves? More than is reasonable for they job ? Yes!
Are they professional, experts or otherwise talented for their current jobs ? You must be kidding..!
Are they looking for ways to improve common mans life ? Yeah, right…Keep on dreaming!

Another thing:
I have never, NEVER , had an answer to why this goverment must allways search as far away as possible third world country for its helping programs.
Doesn’t we have enough poor and starving people closer to us ?
How about that we first start from our own citizens first and THEN worry about other people ?
If you do that backway around you can be sure as hell that some of us (especially the younger ones) will turn to pure, full of hate racists!

These are my thoughts, by the fine tradition of western democracy and freedom of speech.

P.S:
And Phil, if you sensorhip my rant you will burn in hell for all eternity!
I mean it.
But seriously, I still like your blog …

Phil,

The sender’s name /mail /website still doesn’t work.

Mara wrote:

The other myth, a myth about “Finland as a rich Nordic country” is clarified by a study by Frederik Bergström and Robert Gidehag, “EU versus USA”

I try not to get too deep into conversations with libertarians, since I have noted it almost inevitably leads to absurdity (like debating whether everyone who wants to should really be allowed to keep cruise missiles in their garage or not). Libertarians tend to be very selective with their data and quite normative with their research. Now this is probably true of me as well, but I can’t really critisise my own views now can I By the look of that, the two gentlemen responsible for the study would I guess be of the Risto E J Penttilä calibre. The preface is quite revealing there actually, European economies need to be liberated (no doubt from the social democratic model), there needs to be reform (no doubt they mean tax cuts), people want always a new mercedes, the EU has let us down (it’s not really news that libertarians are bitter about the fact the EU has not developed into an all powerful supranational structure that would rule over its member states in economic matters as it was a self conscious entity of some sort; it is rather funny since the extreme left wing would be bitter about the fact that in their view the EU has developed just into that). So yeah, I’d say that study is a highly politically motivated one, but hey, if you have the same premises, then there’s no problem.

I know that listing these facts rises the inevitable counter argument about excellent public services. But I’m not so sure that the public services are really that much worse elsewhere.

Well, actually…ok, I’ve lived in the UK way too long now, and I’ve mostly had it with this country (I want to go somewhere warm next, maybe Italy). But in terms of services Finland does work better than this chaotic overly bureaucratic badly organised sad excuse for a public sector they have here. It’s all thanks to the indeciveness of course, let’s privatise the railways, let’s not, well, maybe just a bit, oops it’s not working, let’s pump some money into those firms so they won’t go bankrupt. And the railways are just the famous example.

I find it immensely funny that Labour is introducing legislation on ID cards as an anti-terrorist act. And of course most people are just appalled, how is it the government’s business to know who they are. I would find this all even more funny if I had never paid a £800 bill by sweeping my card without having to show any kind of identification to anyone.

I would say the standard of living is lower here. Yes, people have new shiny cars, but they live in absolute dumps by Finnish standards. You know you’ve spent too much time in Britain when you start thinking that having to adjust the temperature and pressure of your shower for ten minutes every morning is the way it should be.

finnpundit

I need to come clean.

First is was all about the oil, and I will now work every day to suck more and more out of Iraq.

Second, the USA is NOT the leader of the free world. rather we are the only folks out there with no real army and can’t even take over Iraq in good time (30 days was way to long folks).

Third, the USA caused Global Warming all by itself, and I pledge to send our old VP (Al Gore) out to say “He told you so”.

and the big one (5) fith – the USA economy sucks, and all those folks from China to UAE who are buying into the USA, I will pledge to quit growing our GDP at over 3% rates.

I have started to understand Finnish reality much better when I finally accepted two facts about it: that Finnish culture is more eastern than what we admit it to be, and our living standard is lower than what we like to think it is.

Placing cultures geographically the way you do is pretty pointless but let’s say it’s worth while. In my opinion Finnish culture is first of all western. We have this “Scandinavian” idea of trusting the state to do what’s in our common interest, furthermore we have a strong “third sector”(that all is what you call “communal” perhaps). Sweden is, I suppose, the best example of such a mentality. Then we have this “eastern” tendency of not trusting “herroja” (it means masters or something like it) be they in Helsinki or Brussels (“individual culture” as you call it). And how else could it be in a national state that during most of its history has been ruled by “foreigners”. Then again, as I wrote, this is pretty pointless. In a established democracy things don’t just happen because of this or that arbitrary reason, let alone obscure “cultural trait”.

As for the myth – as you call it – of Finland being a rich country, well, Finland is a rich country but not among the very richest. Countries like Ireland, Norway, Denmark and the US are celearly richer. But perhaps Finland should not be compared to this top five or so but to what Finland used to be? Should we compare the third world Finland some 50 years ago to modern Finland which after all is among the 20 richest countries in the world? How did that happen? And how come the economy has been growin faster than the average for the past 50 years or so?

And yes, talking to libertarins, or any utopians, is frustrating.

RE: post nr 61

Anna, for a person who tries to avoid conversations with libertarians you are surprisingly active on this blog site, which I would classify as one with a libertarian bend. Don’t get me wrong, I do appreciate your overcoming your distaste and continuing the communication. I enjoy reading your posts even if I disagree with you. ☺

And pardon the labeling, but you sound like a postmodern-era professional nomad, so I gather you are renting your dwelling in the UK. If you owned it, you probably would be interested to use some part of your higher-than-Finnish-average-purchasing-power to invest in a plumbing renovation job and some window insulation (the two traditional gripes that I know of British rental housing). If you have to pay for water and heat separately, it might be worth your while to see what insulation you can do on your own expense, even to a rental unit. Besides, your landlord would probably write a glowing reference for your next landlord in Italy.

About libertarians and their cruise missiles in garage:

I wouldn’t describe libertarians as “persons wanting the right to keep cruise missiles in their garage”. To my understanding, libertarians often support the “night watchman” role for the state. A state with tasks limited to those that clearly benefit everybody, but cannot be taken care of by a dispersed decision process. Tasks like providing state security (including administering cruise missiles), or enforcing the legal system by a state monopoly of violence. Libertarians, to my understanding, clearly support regulation of those necessary state monopolies. And if it so happened that the state could not efficiently regulate the state monopolies, libertarians would vouch for power balancing rights to the citizens to protect themselves against the out-of-control state monopoly.

For instance, the US constitution granted its citizens the right to bear arms because there was a clear understanding that the state (the former British one and the upcoming American one) could exercise “taxation without representation”, i.e. extortion. Since the new state could not provide protection against this threat, the next best alternative was to write a constitution that gave the citizens the right to provide that security for themselves. Later on, the interest groups — like all interest groups in all democracies — found it worthwhile to lobby for the continuation of that right, and have succeeded so far.

The libertarian “list of optimal state tasks” depends on the available technology, and naturally changes through time. In present day politics, I would not expect to find many libertarians to support the idea that the state could detain a person in prison for an undetermined time without charge, but at the same time I would not expect most libertarians to support pure anarchism. Your ideas of libertarians are obviously different.

About data bias and the impact of lower standard of living on immigration:

The statistics in the Swedish study are official state statistics of PPP-adjusted GDP. It didn’t occur to me to suspect that info. But of course states could lie to their citizens about national productivity. Soviet Union did, and China might be doing it right now, so why not Sweden, Finland and USA? ☺

The point about the statistics was that the current Finnish standard of living is lower than what we like to believe it is. Whether one believes that the way up from there is through high taxation and transfers or rewarding individual effort, is a bit beside the point. As is the association of Risto E. J. Penttilä with the study and then refuting the statistics based on your dislike of Penttilä’s political views.

I still maintain that the standard of living -statistics gives a good explanation to the disparity between the mental image of Finland as an attractive country for immigration, and the stark immigration statistics, which you yourself so eloquently cited. People quite often prefer a higher standard of living to a lower one, whether “people want always a new mercedes” or not. But since you mentioned cars, Finns do drive the oldest cars of all EU15 countries.

As also TomiA noted, the attractiveness of Finland for “non-creative class” is fairly good, about the EU15 average in terms of purchasing power. The problem for this group of people is that a sizable part of their jobs is on exodus to countries outside EU15. Those jobs include both industrial jobs and services, to the extent service outputs can be digitalized.

The ones that are to survive here are those that are more productive than the current average. So Finland’s hope rests even more squarely on attracting jobs that the state taxes so moderately, that it doesn’t kill them or drive them out of the country. And as part of the effort, yes, I do see tax reductions necessary.

Because otherwise we’ll be paying even more all kinds of employment subsidies and distorting the labor market even further. Wouldn’t most people prefer to work in a job, that they know is paying a regular market wage, rather than work in a subsidized, low-status, temporary project job (that ends the moment the subsidy ends)? I find it disturbing that people with professional or university degrees have to work in increasing numbers in these “support jobs”.

About Finnish public service experiences:

Maybe you have been away from Finland for so long that you have not experienced the current reality of Finnish public services. On the health care front, the state declared that the municipalities have to provide a “guaranteed access to care” within 6 months of first patient contact. In a caricature of implementation the guaranteed response turned out to be a phone call between the health provider and the patient within 6 months from the moment of contact. The outcome of the call was that the system now recognizes the patient’s need for care, and the patient will hear from them later on.

Some municipalities have transferred people in queues for hip or knee operations into physiotherapy, explaining that the better muscular condition will help them to recuperate after the operation. But after a while the patient finds out that his health has been officially re-evaluated to require the operation, but not immediately. And so the patient is back to square one in the queue for the operation. All the time everybody agrees that the patient clearly needs the operation, but the system can postpone it by few years, while the patient lives a very limited life. This “queue shuffle” with its variants seems to be a smash hit among the public admins. And private hospitals, which have no shortage of patients.

As for the railways, the Finnish newspapers are frequently reporting delays in rail service and the state railway company is giving explanations like “the temperature was -15 C, brakes could not handle that cold, could not run the trains”, “it was snowing, the track transmission could not handle snow, could not run the trains”, or in the summer: “weather was hot, the air con could not handle it, could not run the trains”. At the same time the state is pouring subsidies into the system (track admin, operator, and supplier of rolling stock) by hundreds of millions of euros every year.

But unlike in the UK, people in FI believe — against their own experience and published data, but along with the politically correct dogma — that trains are a reliable and economical way to travel. My personal bet is, that were the exact same service provided by a private provider and the same subsidies consumed by it, the public sentiment would be described as “outrage”.

Mara, thank you for your thoughtful and well-written post. It’s refreshing to see one from a libertarian-minded person, as they usually tend to only regurgitate bumper sticker mantras, making any kind of dialogue seem rather pointless.

There are several parts of your post that warrant comments, but as I’m supposed to be adding to the GDP right now, I’ll just have to skip them and concentrate on the railway issue.

As for the railways, the Finnish newspapers are frequently reporting delays in rail service

Based on my recent experience of the UK rail service, I can say that trains not running on time is newsworthy in Finland. In the UK, quite the opposite is true. (As a matter of fact, on the London underground, they take the time to inform you of the exceptional situation of good service on all lines…)

We decided to pay a little visit to London a little while ago, and being a poor sod, I opted for Ryanair. Now, Ryanair (as well as the other cheap airlines I’ve tried) offers very good value for money, so here we have an example of the free market working like a charm.

The only problem is that it lands on Stansted at the other end. Oh well, one only needs to dig deep into ones pockets and fork out a modest 25£ per person for a return ticket on the Stansted “Express”. At this price, I envisioned an ultra-modern “bullet train” that would whisk us to central London in no time at 200 km/h.

The beat-up POS that was the Stansted “Express” certainly made the old Soviet-style Sm2 VR local trains look like ultra-modern bullet trains. I’m not even mentioning the newer Sm4 trains. Pictures here (PDF). The trip to London went fine, if we don’t take into account waiting for a wonderful free-market cab that didn’t accept credit cards in rather chilly weather for about an hour. (Getting a regulated cab that always takes plastic – often a Mercedes – for half the price in Helsinki on a Saturday night around midnight would take about 10 minutes and frequently you get one immediately)

Now, the return trip was something different altogether. For some reason, the Stansted “Express” decided to stop on just about every stop along the way, picking up more and more passengers. On every stop, the loudspeakers would inform us that the train only stopped on Stansted airport. Go figure. Perhaps the driver was a libertarian.

As it happens, the “Express” was about 20 minutes late. This cost us our tax-free shopping (which should grieve libertarians) and we were quite close to missing the flight altogether, which is a no-no when flying cheap airlines. I think I won’t take the Stansted “Express” another time.

The London-Stansted trip is almost exactly equal to the trip between Helsinki and Hyvinkää. The price of a single one-way ticket on the “Express” is £15, whereas a one-way ticket to Hyvinkää is €8.90 (£6.10). Furthermore, while trains might indeed occasionally be late in Finland, I’ve yet to encounter a driver mistaking an R train for a P train. After this experience, I no longer wonder about the life-threatening nature of travelling on UK trains. Cheers, Maggie.

To sum it up, I’m not ecstatic about the privatisation of railways.

Mara wrote (among other things):

Anna, for a person who tries to avoid conversations with libertarians you are surprisingly active on this blog site, which I would classify as one with a libertarian bend.

I have masochistic tendencies. Also, I’m trying to avoid doing any real work.

More to the point, I wasn’t actually sure whether this blog was libertarian or liberal (in the Finnish sense, not in the American leftie sense), so thanks for clearing that up.

I gather you are renting your dwelling in the UK. If you owned it, you probably would be interested to use some part of your higher-than-Finnish-average-purchasing-power to invest in a plumbing renovation job and some window insulation

Yes, that would be the plan. As soon as I’ve got rid of the mouse living in the basement.

I thought you meant overall standard of living, not standard of living for those who have the money.

The point about the statistics was that the current Finnish standard of living is lower than what we like to believe it is.

I think we had a misunderstanding there. I didn’t realise you meant the standard of living of the rich.

Whether one believes that the way up from there is through high taxation and transfers or rewarding individual effort, is a bit beside the point. As is the association of Risto E. J. Penttilä with the study and then refuting the statistics based on your dislike of Penttilä’s political views.

I was referring to the preface of the study when I made the association to the Penttilä category. As I said, it was highly revealing. The preface did state the necessity of liberating economies, tax reform (cuts) etc., so I did not just come up with it.

Finns do drive the oldest cars of all EU15 countries

Now there Finland does have a taxation problem.

Wouldn’t most people prefer to work in a job, that they know is paying a regular market wage, rather than work in a subsidized, low-status, temporary project job (that ends the moment the subsidy ends)?

Ah, this one. No, I don’t think people would like work in a job paying a regular market wage, if that means that the wage is lower than they otherwise would have (or did you assume legislation on a minimum wage?). What people then should do of course is another thing, but almost all political theories would prefer them to agree.

On the health care front, the state declared that the municipalities have to provide a “guaranteed access to care” within 6 months of first patient contact.

As you mention in your comment, how health care is actually organised and provided depends slightly on the municipality. There are regions in Finland where the population is ageing faster than national average, and where the health sector is just not equipped to handle the growing demand for specialist treatment.

Also there is a grave distortion in the financing of it (unless it’s been changed now but I doubt it), as special care (erikoissairaanhoito, I’m having difficulties translating that) financing comes from municipal (flat) tax, and not state (progressive) tax, to put it simply. The financing of it is mostly a jungle as anyone who has ever been involved would know.

As for private hospitals, it is my understanding that some of the problems HUS is facing in Helsinki nowadays come in the form of patients requiring expensive operations sent to them from the private sector, as the care they require is unprofitable to offer.

As for the railways…have you been to the UK? Took a train? It’s quite normal for a train to be appallingly late here of course, no-one has the energy to make a fuss about it. Of course it’s also horribly expensive, even if you should happen to get a discount (you actually have to pay for the discount railcard). So, also, you take a train after work from London, intending to go home to, say, Wolsey, and the train stops at the station but the doors won’t open. So yeah, you end up in Oxford. No biggie, won’t make the headlines. And my all time favourite, the disappearing trains. You’re in Birmingham, waiting for a train from Edinburgh (would have had to depart hours before) and first they inform you it’s delayed by ten minutes, ten minutes later it’s delayed by twenty, and after half an hour they let you know the service has been cancelled. And this is not something that happens only every couple of months.

So, uhmm, yes, trains in Finland are occasionally late. At times it is indeed because of the weather. More often it is (I’ve heard) because there are talks going on between the employer and the employees, so the employees “do things by the book”.

And yes, the state subsidises VR, but the problem with not subsidising would mainly be the fact that only 2-3 routes in Finland are actually profitable. (Commuter trains in the Helsinki area, Helsinki-Turku and Helsinki-Oulu.)

Oo, update, I now have a dead mouse in the basement. Better go take care of it.

Anna: “I wasn’t sure whether this blog was libertarian or liberal”

But Phil actually uses both: libertarian in the American sense and liberal in the Finnish sense. I’ve understood he’s quite a liberal sort of a libertarian (not e.g. anarcho-capitalist). Liberal has so many senses in Finland and not even all people in the tiny Liberal Party stand for the same ideology (just like libertarian in America stands for many things).

I find it amusing that Phil makes a “colorblind” statement and noone mentions affirmative action. Amusing and encouraging.

On the general EuropeMuslim theme, a couple of things I thought appropriate to share here:
Iranian newspaper calls for Holocaust cartoons
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11216508/

Jewish site also calls for anti-semetic cartoons, made by Jews:
http://www.boomka.org/

Gotta love this world. ^_^

-BM

Well, this is off-topic if ever something was…

Mara:

“But unlike in the UK, people in FI believe — against their own experience and published data, but along with the politically correct dogma — that trains are a reliable and economical way to travel. My personal bet is, that were the exact same service provided by a private provider and the same subsidies consumed by it, the public sentiment would be described as “outrage”.”

The thing about railways is that they are actually not a very profitable business anyway. In fact, in themselves they are a losing concern. A national railway grid is a big, cumbersome and necessarily integrated transport system. It ties down a lot of capital in railtracks, real estate, equiptment etc. etc., and you just can’t break it down to smaller components and expect them ALL to be profitable: even when the more profitable parts are used to support the system, it may need to be subsidized to stay financially afloat. In my opinion, in today’s world the railways should not be seen as a “business”, but as a organisation that supports the workings of the larger society and it’s economy.

If different lines, now, are run by different companies, most economies of scale and other benefits of the integrated system are lost and problems abound: to work in a reasonable manner, a railway system needs a central planning authority and mutually compatible systems like for example a standardized rolling stock. This is a natural monopoly if there really is such a thing.

This all has been common knowledge for, what, more than a century now. You would think that the private sector would be happy to let nationalized monopoly companies to run this kind of system that promises very little rewards for your troubles in itself, but is eminently usable for the larger economy for transporting goods in large quantities and mostly on time (if everything is done right).

The moves to privatize railways should be seen as what they are: ideological offensives by people why can not or will not accept the fact that some things CAN be run by the public sector for greater overall benefit (or at least for lesser problems) for the society. The privatization of British Rail is of course the prime example of how – God forbid! – in some cases the market liberal orthodoxy can also be wrong.

That Finland accepts too many immigrants is true: zillions of refugees whose skin color guarantees that they will experience exclusion and become a socio-economic burden. I’m not judging the poor Somalians who will experience this, I instead blame the blind boyscoutishness of some members of the Finnish Parliament that decided to bring them here to silence the complaints of neighboring countries that finland does not take its share of refugees.

Meanwhile, mulilingual westerners who mean well and thought they should follow Richard Florida’s statement about Finland end up experiencing relentless harassment by average citizens and bureaucrats alike because they pocket more than the average Finn does. The language issue is a moot point, as Fred Fry said. Come to this Anglophile country and miss the job because you don’t speak Finnish. Learn Finnish and be told that you also need Swedish. Prata pÃ¥ svenska and you’ll become a national embarassment to every Finn who nearly flunked pakkoruotsi. Basically, no matter how positive and pro-active someone can be, the average Finn’s low self-esteem and interpretation of equality as meaning “sibling in misery” – to the point of sabotaging the success of others – is what eventually pisses every foreigner off to the point of swearing that the Soviets ought to have invaded these petty peasants when they had a chance.

That’s why Finland will NEVER change. The few foreigners that do make the mistake of coming here go home pretty quickly, most within 2 to 3 years.

Just found this blog, and I assume I arrived to this post a year late. I lived in pääkaupunkiseutu for six years, will marry a Finn this summer, have plenty of Finnish friends and speak Finnish fluently at home (with the odd partitive instead of accusative mistake, heh). I also studied engineering in Finland and pretty much became an adult there, having adapted to and adopted parts of the culture, for which I’m grateful.

However, compared with my current stay in Brussels, I noticed that the society in general hadn’t truly accepted me. Whereas those closest to me treat me like “one of them”, as soon as I was on my own people would be suspicious, or even downright hostile. Why? I guess because I look different. I have brown skin and dark eyes and hair, and my features are very non-descript (people usually can’t guess that I was born in Mexico, at times I’ve been told I’m Spanish, Portuguese, Arab, Turkish and even half-Finnish half-Thai).

Even though I’m currently abroad, I plan to eventually come back to Finland to raise our children there, and in time I would like to apply for citizenship out of gratitude. However, I sometimes have my doubts about whether all the effort to integrate is worth it, since I’m afraid I’ll always find somebody shouting at me “Vittun turkkilaien, mene kotiin!”

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