Tuomioja turns a quick profit
@ 4:40 am The toady socialist, Erkki Tuomioja, Finland’s foreign minister, has decided to sell his shares in UPM, ostensibly to protest the massive job cuts there. What makes The Toad of Finland such a hypocrite is that he bought the stocks just a month ago, right after UPM warned about job cuts.
According to a declaration of financial interests made by Mr Tuomioja in mid-February, the minister owns more than 6,500 shares in UPM-Kymmene. The shares were worth about 128,000 euros on Monday, some 10,000 euros more than before the job cut news broke last week.
Mr Tuomioja had substantially increased his UPM holding in early February. Jussi Pesonen, the chief executive of UPM, warned about mill closures and job cuts already in late January.
http://virtual.finland.fi/stt/showarticle.asp?intNWSAID=12034&group=Politics
So is The Toad really protesting? Or is that just for public consumption: a cover for the real reason, which is that he’s profiteering from the layoffs? Furthermore, as a government official, was he in a better position to understand that UPM was not just warning about job cuts, but actually planning to do so? In that case, Tuomioja engaged in insider trading.
Now, I don’t have any problems with profiteering, but when an avowed socialist like Tuomioja does it, and then blames the corporation that made it possible for him to make his profit, then that is simply hypocrisy. But when it comes to insider trading, in America at least, even the suggestion of such actions by a government official would end a political career, not to mention bring about severe criminal indictments.
If Tuomioja is really protesting against UPM, then the least he should do is donate the profits from his stock sale to charity. So far, I haven’t seen any news regarding that, at least not on Tuomioja’s own website.
http://www.tuomioja.org/index.php?mainAction=showPage&id=1
The fact that Finns tolerate this kind of behavior either points to Finnish naivete, or – simply – that Finns are totally comfortable with elitist corruption. Perhaps that’s why Finns score so high in those corruption-perception polls. When you don’t see it, it simply isn’t happening.
Stop the press, a Finnish poltician made 10 000 euros! The strait shooting Dick aka Hulliburton Kid, makes more in a war against the WOMDs every day before getting up.
Comment by Petteri — Wed, Mar 15th, 2006 @ 6:41 am
When, Phil, will the UPM share drop to the same level it was before so that Tuomioja could sell the shares as a protest without a profit? Or is it the idea that you don’t know but Tuomioja must know because he’s an insider? Now you just have to prove that he relly is an insider, that he has recieved illeagal information from the UPM board and that the board knows how the share price will develop. Good luck! I’m afraid it’s you who’s being naive.
In fact, it was a nice gesture on Tuomioja’s part, reflecting his political views – and perhaps even setting an example for others.
There are at least two corruption indexes, by the way, one measuring the opinion of the citizens another of the foreigners, mostly business men. Finland is the leading country – or close – in both indexes. Naivete ragarding Finland has spread widely!
Comment by TomiA — Wed, Mar 15th, 2006 @ 6:51 am
Seeing the first two comments I suppose it is finnish naivete why Finns tolerate this kind of behaviour.
Comment by Duckstar — Wed, Mar 15th, 2006 @ 7:28 am
paying for more shares = more money to company and less lost jobs.
Comment by dude — Wed, Mar 15th, 2006 @ 7:52 am
If Tuomioja is really protesting against UPM, then the least he should do is donate the profits from his stock sale to charity.
Yes, absolutely. Cause he’s not protesting ANYTHING right now, he’s just profiting.
The fact that Finns tolerate this kind of behavior either points to Finnish naivete, or – simply – that Finns are totally comfortable with elitist corruption
The first one. The welfare state is a religion. It reminds me of the child abuse in the Catholic Church, Catholics refused to believe their priests were doing such things, even though it was obvious.
Perhaps that’s why Finns score so high in those corruption-perception polls. When you don’t see it, it simply isn’t happening.
Yah, I think so too.
Comment by Phil — Wed, Mar 15th, 2006 @ 8:02 am
STOP THE PRESS!!!
“What makes The Toad of Finland such a hypocrite is that he bought the stocks just a month ago, right after UPM warned about job cuts.”
Phil this is outright factually wrong. Please check this immediately.
Comment by Jukka — Wed, Mar 15th, 2006 @ 8:21 am
I don’t understand how people can act sooo suprised everytime there are layoffs in factory jobs like this. Here’s a newsflash; it’s going to happen again! If you work in a low wage job that requires simple repetition, your job is probably going to be moved to China soon.
Other than that, I think Tuomioja is a schumck, but I don’t think he did anything wrong here.
Comment by Anton — Wed, Mar 15th, 2006 @ 8:32 am
If welfare state is a religion, so is libertarianism. Plus it’s a utopia.
Comment by M — Wed, Mar 15th, 2006 @ 8:50 am
I think Jukka (6.)is right, Tuomioja inherited his shares.
Comment by M — Wed, Mar 15th, 2006 @ 9:00 am
Phil this is outright factually wrong. Please check this immediately.
It’s not my article, talk with Mr. FinnPundit.
Comment by Phil — Wed, Mar 15th, 2006 @ 9:55 am
Nobody’s talking about UPM’s executive Jussi Pesonen who had a 52 % raise. The company really must be in a bad situation when the CEO has such a raise. I wonder why Phil isn’t saying anything about that.
If you understand finnish then be sure to watch “A-talk” today on YLE1 at 9:10pm. It’s all about this UPM scandal and I think they’re also talking about the huge amounts of dough Pesonen is making.
Comment by Åboy — Wed, Mar 15th, 2006 @ 9:55 am
Finnpundit, do you think politicians shouldn’t be allowed to own stocks? Because it seems that they shouldn’t be allowed to profit from them, which is the whole idea of owning stocks in my opinion.
Comment by lauri — Wed, Mar 15th, 2006 @ 9:57 am
Because it seems that they shouldn’t be allowed to profit from them, which is the whole idea of owning stocks in my opinion.
I don’t think FinnPundit is concerned about the profits…
Now, I don’t have any problems with profiteering, but when an avowed socialist like Tuomioja does it, and then blames the corporation that made it possible for him to make his profit, then that is simply hypocrisy
…it’s the hyprocrisy that’s the issue here.
Comment by Phil — Wed, Mar 15th, 2006 @ 10:32 am
And hey, Tarja is taking a nice big fat raise and there’s all this shit going on in the country at the comment – poverty is growing, gap between rich and poor is increasing etc…
Comment by Phil — Wed, Mar 15th, 2006 @ 10:34 am
I’m practically never wrong (well, once I thought that I was but then it turned out that I was mistaken) so it was a bit embarrasing when I found out these facts about Tuomioja and UPM:
1.2. (for the American readers 2.1.) Tuomioja owned 3279 UPM shares according to his own testimony
http://www.eduskunta.fi/triphome/bin/utahref.scr?%7BKEY%7D=VN+1/2006
but two weeks later (16.2.) 6558
http://www.eduskunta.fi/triphome/bin/utahref.scr?%7BKEY%7D=VN+2/2006
That, of course, doesn’t mean that he had insider information; anybody interested had access to the same information. But it, indeed, looks like a clever move in order to make a quick profit. Hell, it even looks like he tried to cover his traces by talking about a protest.
Let’s see how he explains this.
Comment by TomiA — Wed, Mar 15th, 2006 @ 10:37 am
Seconding #6: Ilta-Sanomat reported February 14th that according to Arvopaperikeskus Tuomioja had owned 6558 UPM shares since spring 2003. So, if he now sells “more than” 6500 shares” as Virtual Finland says, there is no way he could have “substantially increased his holding in early February”.
Comment by Drakon — Wed, Mar 15th, 2006 @ 10:42 am
The point of Phil and FinnPundit about hypocrisy is that it is not wrong for a politician to profit on anything, if that politician has said nothing bad about the company who is making him or her rich.
So if Dick Cheney never said a bad word about Halliburton (I’ve never heard him criticize Halliburton), there’s nothing hypocritical about him getting rich with Halliburton stocks. If John Kerry who is very critical of Halliburton would own significant amounts of their stock, he would immediately be accused of being a hypocrite by Mr. FinnPundit.
The point of Phil and FinnPundit (if I misrepresent them, blame me) is that a politician who owns a stock of a certain company should shut up about that particular company or sell all of their stock before being critical of that company’s actions. Did I get either of you guys right this time?
Comment by Helsinkian — Wed, Mar 15th, 2006 @ 10:44 am
Now, Tuomioja of course sold all of his UPM stock before his criticism of them. I obviously got FinnPundit wrong there. FinnPundit would have preferred Tuomioja to keep that stock (and possibly get even richer in the future). FinnPundit of course has a point if Tuomioja bought his stock only in February. Jukka said that is untrue and Drakon seems to have the numbers to that regard. If Drakon is right, it is FinnPundit’s source that got the facts wrong, not FinnPundit himself. Sorry Phil and FinnPundit about misrepresenting your views, it took me a while to figure out where the problem was.
Comment by Helsinkian — Wed, Mar 15th, 2006 @ 10:57 am
Well, I guess we all know why Tuomioja is such a hate figure on the right: an intellectual liberal who comes from a priviledged background. This makes him automatically a hypocrite because people with priviledged backgrounds are only non-hypocritical if they are populist conservatives clinging to their prescious property like maniacs. Though I must say I don’t much understand where this reputation for “radicalism” comes: he is a key member of an archetypal Finnish consensus government, that would not be much different if Kokoomus was in it. The only thing why I particularly like him as opposed to all the other clones is that I have read a couple of books by him which show that he is capable of structural analysis of politics. Something which is no doubt completely superfluous to a politician but very refreshing. Finnpundit’s shrillness and utter shallowness is the normal order in the current political discourse: this völkischer beobachter or pravda style of debate is quite unpleasant indeed.
Comment by mjr — Wed, Mar 15th, 2006 @ 11:04 am
Nah, I think Erkki can buy and sell his shares as he pleases. And he has a point in the national ownership also as some ideology blinded idiots were planning to sell Fortum to Russians.
It is somewhat ironic though, that if it was 1918 again, the reds would probably shoot him and the people’s delegate would confiscate his mansion.
What comes to those workers at Voikkaa, many of them are probably better paid than some bloody engineer here so I think they’ll do fine without charity. City of Kuusankoski may be in bigger troubles, when this community disappears after 110 years. Just like taking railway out of Kouvola and see what happens.
Comment by antti (the redneck one) — Wed, Mar 15th, 2006 @ 11:08 am
mjr: John Kerry was of course all along called a hypocrite because he is a rich Democrat, regardless of which companies and policies he criticised.
A rich politician who supports tax cuts for the rich can’t be hypocritical but if it is the other way around they’re accused of being class traitors.
Still, FinnPundit would have had a point in this Tuomioja case if his facts would have been accurate. But if Tuomioja did not increase his holdings by a significant amount in February, the Finnish FM has done everything in his power in this particular case not to appear a hypocrite…
Comment by Helsinkian — Wed, Mar 15th, 2006 @ 11:10 am
…So now we have a bimbo and a toad in our gallery. What happens if bimbo kisses the toad.
Comment by antti (the redneck one) — Wed, Mar 15th, 2006 @ 11:15 am
Another interesting feature of Phil’s WordXpress is that some messages come and go, show and don’t show. So I’ll try again:
1.2. (for the American readers 2.1.) Tuomioja owned 3279 UPM shares according to his own testimony
http://www.eduskunta.fi/triphome/bin/utahref.scr?%7BKEY%7D=VN+1/2006
but two weeks later (16.2.) 6558
http://www.eduskunta.fi/triphome/bin/utahref.scr?%7BKEY%7D=VN+2/2006
Comment by TomiA — Wed, Mar 15th, 2006 @ 11:16 am
Yeah, you don’t have to spell Massachusetts to get the picture… I confess that I did not entertain for a moment that Finnpundit’s facts would have been correct. There is a first for everything no doubt, but all we know of Tuomioja (even the mere fact that he is a politician) would argue against him knowingly speculating on UPM layoffs. He doesn’t need the money, and as for his career, he could just as well hand in his resignation. So there you go. He is just a convenient symbol for this famed liberal “hypocricy” – though of course I have not understood that he would advocate the dictatorship of the proletariat and the forced socialization of all private property. Well, no matter, if only he would have the ethics and business relationships of Dick Cheney.
Comment by mjr — Wed, Mar 15th, 2006 @ 11:18 am
Now both of my messages have disappeared. Soon they will probably be back. This must be a bug in the program?
Comment by TomiA — Wed, Mar 15th, 2006 @ 11:25 am
If Tuomioja got the information about personnel cuts from public sources in January, it was within his legal rights to buy the stocks in February and sell them in March. It’s just his declaration “to protest” that echoes more like “to profit” in my ears.
I’d prefer a leader to say what he means and to mean what he says. But then, maybe that would be too much to ask for anywhere in the world, and especially in Finland.
Maybe we Finns are not blind nor naive in our expressed beliefs. We could just be so used to choose the double talk that our words have lost their ability to refer to something real in the world. It’s very common that when some “ordinary person” complains about injustices he has encountered, his peers simply comment that everybody is treated equally unfairly (with the expectation that stating such a fact should close the discussion).
For instance, if a leader seems to lie, it’s OK because he lies to everybody. There is going to be some venting and snickering on the net discussions, but come next elections, he is voted in with some admiration for his proven strength in financial matters.
I see the problematic Finnish dogma in our willingness to offer truth for “constructive consensus”, which has gotten a new task to hide whatever shames us in reality and in so doing to best promote the wellbeing of our very private number one.
In the “official” public discussion we seem to be willing to give up intelligent communication in order to have sentences that we we can all agree on. By agreeing on the sentences we keep up the appearance of a unified, uncorrupted, productive and all around virtuaous nation that respects the value and rights of its individual members. Whenever the language referring to reality threatens to clash with the appearance, we give up the language.
Depending on the wished-for spin,we could call this empty language “postmodernism”, “finlandisierung”, or “being practical”.
Comment by Mara — Wed, Mar 15th, 2006 @ 11:32 am
Helsinkian,
It seems that the mistake in the Virtual Finland piece (by STT) is actually Tuomioja’s fault: early February was the time when the FM’s full stock holdings were revealed to be bigger than he had reported to the parliament. This was the gist of the Ilta-Sanomat piece (14.2.), which critized Tuomioja for the failure to report his ownings fully for three years. If the writer of the Virtual Finland piece did not know this but only used official records, it could certainly seem that Tuomioja had purchased more stock when he had already owned it for some time.
The whole thing was apparently an oversight by Tuomioja: in UPM’s spring 2003 bonus issue the owners of old stock received the same amount of new stock for free (from UPM website): “Rahastoanti 2003
Yhtiön osakepääoma korotettiin rahastoannilla. Rahastoannissa yhdellä vanhalla osakkeella sai vastikkeetta yhden uuden osakkeen. Täsmäytyspäivä oli 24.3.2003″. This is what Tuomioja apparently failed to notice, and simsalabim, his previous UPM stock had doubled from 3279 to 6558. So Tuomioja had indeed owned all his stock already before 2003, as someone seemed to suggest.
Comment by Drakon — Wed, Mar 15th, 2006 @ 11:33 am
Yep, there is a sort of a bug: a comment of mine disappeared a while ago, and sometimes there is a longish delay before they show and the order might be changed.
I suppose this being evil little Finland, we would have his total property as public knowledge. I wonder how wealthy he actually is – I would somehow think that it does not amount to any exceptional holdings. It has in any case always been more interesting that Hella Wuolijoki is his grandmother (?). KGB regarded her as an agent, so there you go with the “Toad” as well (so, this is that what we call the enemy of the people this week – Finnpundit brings to mind the 1930’s Pravda rhetoric, so nice).
Comment by mjr — Wed, Mar 15th, 2006 @ 11:33 am
Thanks Drakon for the clarifications. That explains everything.
Comment by Helsinkian — Wed, Mar 15th, 2006 @ 11:40 am
Hopefully my comments will disappear for good now that Drakon gave a plausible explanation why the number of shares doubled.
The Libertarian dicourse (and FinnPundit’s strange mantal map) assumes that everything revolves around money, economical considerations (well, there are another versions of Libertarianism but they are even more utopian – and marginal). That, of course, is a naive world view but somehow it seems to become more and more common, at first in the USA with its somewhat more market-orientated economy, but the number of Finns who believe in the idea seems to be increasing, too. For a moment I, too, considered against my better judgement that Tuomioja could have made such a stupid move just to earn two month’s salary, or so.
Comment by TomiA — Wed, Mar 15th, 2006 @ 11:59 am
What I really here like is the suggestion that being a total a-hole is just fine and dandy, but failure to fit FP & Phil’s dim-bulb bourgeois view of ‘idealism’ (‘he should give it to charity’) is hypocritical.
Failure to live up to your own ideals is hypocritical, failure to follow the stupid ideas of others is not.
Some of us really do not believe in charity. Taxation works. Charity is for losers and frauds.
Comment by prince of dorkness — Wed, Mar 15th, 2006 @ 12:04 pm
Ummm…what’s wrong with the idea of the welfare state now?
Comment by Anna — Wed, Mar 15th, 2006 @ 2:04 pm
An article I read about this thing said that UPM’s official reason for those lay-offs was the will of the owners. Tuomioja as an owner didn’t identify himself with that and thus he sold his stocks. I don’t think that’s very hyporcritical. Holding on to the stocks at that point would’ve been hypocritical.
Obivously the will of the owners is always to make profit but in this case the way that the profit was/would be made wasn’t morally acceptable (in this case in Tuomioja’s opinion)… especially when at the same time the CEO increases his salary as was pointed out.
Comment by Innocent bystander — Wed, Mar 15th, 2006 @ 2:37 pm
I’d prefer a leader to say what he means and to mean what he says.
The Finnish left: Do as we say, not as we do.
Comment by Phil — Wed, Mar 15th, 2006 @ 2:45 pm
The American libertarianism: no reading comprehension.
Comment by mjr — Wed, Mar 15th, 2006 @ 2:51 pm
Charity is for losers and frauds.
Comment by Phil — Wed, Mar 15th, 2006 @ 2:52 pm
The American libertarianism: no reading comprehension.
Hey, I can read, just not write.
Comment by Phil — Wed, Mar 15th, 2006 @ 3:12 pm
Phil do you even read the comments here or are you just going to stick with your dogmatic belief of liberalism and close your eyes
World isn’t just black and white
Comment by Blah — Wed, Mar 15th, 2006 @ 3:24 pm
“The first one. The welfare state is a religion.”
No, Phil. It’s not. But your blind bashing of it is nothing more than religious fundamentalism. I’ve seen my own eyes who little kids get brainwashed with both religion and ideas that you’re blabbering all day long on your blog. If you could see yourself from outside, you’d see that there’s no difference between you and ex-soviet communists, DDR, China, North-Korea etc.
Comment by Anonymous — Wed, Mar 15th, 2006 @ 3:44 pm
“Seeing the first two comments I suppose it is finnish naivete why Finns tolerate this kind of behaviour.”
Lets talk about your naivety, Ducstar. Finland’s corruption index results are coming from foreigners, not Finns. And the Index is currently 9.7 or so, it’s not full 10, but it’s the highest in the world.
Comment by Anonymous — Wed, Mar 15th, 2006 @ 3:48 pm
27. Thanks, Drakon, for clarifying the issue of the stock split. It just goes to show that the blogosphere excels were STT’s – major media’s – factcheckers do not.
However, Tuomioja sold his shares at a profit when the cause of the spike in share price are the layoffs. He raked in a nice profit from that, and if he truly was protesting, he should refuse the profit, by either giving it away to charities (though, of course, he wouldn’t do that, charity being a competitor to the state’s welfare monopoly), or by just giving it back to UPM.
And it’s useless to compare this incident to Cheney, who has quite wisely – as have other American politicians, including John Kerry – put his holdings in blind trusts for the duration of his term.
So if Dick Cheney never said a bad word about Halliburton (I’ve never heard him criticize Halliburton), there’s nothing hypocritical about him getting rich with Halliburton stocks.
Of course he’s not going to comment on Halliburton. He knows better than that. (He also wouldn’t even know if he has any Halliburton stock left, given the blind trust, though I doubt that). For a politician to comment on the price of one particular stock already sets the stage for price-manipulation. There’s money to be made from a decline in stock prices, so a public officials words have to be chosen carefully.
This is not the case with Tuomioja, of course, who quite willingly uses his office to engage in price manipulation. That is an abuse of power, but Finns still don’t seem to understand the concept, or are too comfortable with that notion of corruption to care.
Comment by Finnpundit — Wed, Mar 15th, 2006 @ 3:54 pm
Bravo Erkki! There is a man with a character.10 points!
Comment by kjr — Wed, Mar 15th, 2006 @ 3:56 pm
“Ummm…what’s wrong with the idea of the welfare state now?”
The problem is that people like Phil and Finnpundit feel inferior
as they are incapable to achieve anything in their lives. They live
mediocre lifes, they have mediocre profession, low education.
They’ve not built the most competitive economy and education system. And they can’t stand the fact that a wise, experienced and liked
woman is a president, when their own achievements in life are
close to zero. And they can’t stand the fact that there are people
who aren’t short sighted enough to go with the instant gratification
flow, but are willing to build a country where nobody is left
behind.
That psychological phenomena is called cultural vandalism.
If you can’t make a mark on society by yourself, find someone else’s achievement and spray paint your name and your diatribes garishly across it for regocnition and sense of importance.
Educated people with brains (even in the US) have a bit different
views:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5456853/site/newsweek/print/1/displaymode/1098/
Comment by Anonymous — Wed, Mar 15th, 2006 @ 3:57 pm
The problem is that people like Phil and Finnpundit feel inferior
as they are incapable to achieve anything in their lives.
Hey hey, if you want to resort to these kind of mindless insults, that’s cool – just pick a username and stick with it, hiding behind anonymity is weak.
Comment by Phil — Wed, Mar 15th, 2006 @ 4:03 pm
“The problem is that people like Phil and Finnpundit feel inferior
as they are incapable to achieve anything in their lives.”
I wish people would stop writing shite like that. Phil has a blog that lots of people keep coming to, even if it is just to get riled!
What’s your contribution Mr. Anonymous?
Finnpundit occassionally goes for the personal insults himself as away of avoiding an argument – but ignoring his arguments and calling him names clearly isn’t going to make him go away.
Comment by Toby — Wed, Mar 15th, 2006 @ 4:52 pm
yes it does work see, finnpundit you are a big poopy head oh no now I made him cry
Comment by Blah — Wed, Mar 15th, 2006 @ 5:56 pm
Anonymous,
I don’t know Phil or Finnpundit. I just occasionally comment here because I’m bored and trying avois actual work I should be doing, and because I appreciate the news/videos from Finland. I’m therefore not going to get into a discussion that is purely insulting two persons I don’t know.
However, I was interested in how they conceptualise the Finnish welfare state, as well as what exactly is wrong with it. I fail to see it as “a religion” or some sort of a mindless machinery with a mind of its own and a clear plan of messing up people’s lives. It is just a system in a democratic state founded on very different ideals than the governing method and the role of the state in the US. It is not (cannot be) inherently evil, but it can of course fail (also relatively) in the goals set for it.
In addition, in my opinion it is also largely a cultural construction. On a personal level, I think it is immensely better than the arsehole of a society they have in the UK, which is perhaps the closest relative to the American model in Europe. But I do recognise that much of this is due to me being Finnish. Nevertheless, the welfare state is reason #1 for moving back to Finland. This is because I am not interested in the working hours they have in this land of personal freedom, or the ridiculously short holidays, or the expensive daycare for children, or the culture where I need to constantly worry about having a job next year as well. etc.
Comment by Anna — Wed, Mar 15th, 2006 @ 7:47 pm
Well Mr. Anonymous: You’re a putrescent mass, a walking vomit. You are a spineless little worm deserving nothing but the profoundest contempt. You are a jerk, a cad, a weasel. Your life is a monument to stupidity. You are a stench, a revulsion, a big suck on a sour lemon.
You are a bleating foal, a curdled staggering mutant dwarf smeared richly with the effluvia and offal accompanying your alleged birth into this world. An insensate, blinking calf, meaningful to nobody, abandoned by the puke-drooling, giggling beasts who sired you and then killed themselves in recognition of what they had done.
I will never get over the embarrassment of belonging to the same species as you. You are a monster, an ogre, a malformation. I barf at the very thought of you. You have all the appeal of a paper cut. Lepers avoid you. You are vile, worthless, less than nothing. You are a weed, a fungus, the dregs of this earth. And did I mention you smell?
Comment by Other Mr. Anonymous — Wed, Mar 15th, 2006 @ 10:13 pm
Gentlemen, here are some more for your disposal…
http://lightning.prohosting.com/~kontekst/konteksti9802/haddock.html
Comment by Antti (the redneck one) — Wed, Mar 15th, 2006 @ 10:28 pm
“Nevertheless, the welfare state is reason #1 for moving back to Finland.”
That’s funny. To many it’s the #1 reason for moving the hell out of here. You know, people who are getting robbed by the government but aren’t getting much in return for their stolen money.
And btw, the UK happens to be the richest country in Europe. So maybe their economic model isn’t so bad compared to the Finnish one.
Comment by Nirva — Thu, Mar 16th, 2006 @ 12:20 am
And btw, the UK happens to be the richest country in Europe.
Eh? The UK was the richest country about 100 years ago. Finland was richer already by the 80s. Furthermore, the UK has the typical “Anglo-American” problems: poverty and little social mobility. It’s a nice country to visit, though.
Comment by TomiA — Thu, Mar 16th, 2006 @ 7:17 am
Mr. Tuomioja´s personal parliament assistant mention to my friend that Mr. Tuomioja will sell those stock`s to labour union. The price what hi will sell those stock´s is a january`s middle price.
Comment by mr luoto — Thu, Mar 16th, 2006 @ 7:50 am
Tuomioja says in today’s Ilta-Sanomat or Iltalehti that
i) he has not bought any shares this year, and that
ii) he sells the shares in question to a “suomalainen yhteisö” (perhaps a labour union) at the price that the shares had in January, like Mr Luoto says.
If he’s telling the truth looks like this is much ado about nothing. And personally I believe Tuomioja is not lying, because he’s not as stupid as to profiteer in a situation like this.
Comment by Turjake — Thu, Mar 16th, 2006 @ 11:39 am
Tomi – Eh? The UK was the richest country about 100 years ago. Finland was richer already by the 80s. Furthermore, the UK has the typical “Anglo-American†problems: poverty and little social mobility. It’s a nice country to visit, though.
There are many many problems with the UK, but the above isn’t true I don’t think. Eurostat’s figure say that GDP per capita in the UK is higher than Finland: http://tinyurl.com/8z6g8
UK wealth and income distribution is more extreme than Finland – as anyone visiting central London would see. The idea that there are “Anglo-American” problem is just silly. The Blair government since 1997 has redistributed more money from rich to poor than any Govt. since the immediate post WWII Labour govt. that founded the NHS.
Comment by Toby — Thu, Mar 16th, 2006 @ 12:33 pm
The whole idea of the UK being richer (and therefore better) is just weird for me. Possibly what was meant was that the rich people here are more rich than rich people in Finland?
Anyway, I don’t really desire to be rich. It’s not that important, especially if it means I need to work 9-10 hours a day with no holidays and no extra for overtime. I merely need to get by without being poor, and that I can do without giving myself a heart attack by the age of 40 or having to stress about getting the sack 8 times a year. And no, I don’t consider paying taxes as being robbed by the government. And yes, I think most people do get more than enough back. That is just a stupid argument made up for those who haven’t traveled that much and don’t really understand how income transfers work.
Comment by Anna — Thu, Mar 16th, 2006 @ 2:58 pm
I’m not sure how long you worked in the UK, and what you were doing, but personally I don’t think there is so much difference between the UK and Finland. You mention getting “sacked 8 times a year”, but at least that suggests you can find another job – unlike many of my Finnish university educated friends who can’t find jobs at all or go from one temporary contract to another (none of my British uni friends are unemployed). Payroll taxes feel big here (Fin) but you don’t have to pay community charge after your pay-roll taxes as you do in the UK. Finland gets more public holidays than the UK, but if they fall on the weekend (as many seem to have this last year) they aren’t moved to next monday as they are in the UK). Prices for many consumer goods are lower in the UK and choice is much better (particularly on food), but there isn’t state subsidisation on things like childcare to the extent that there is here. You don’t pay to see a doctor or spend time in hospital in the UK like you do here, but other parts of the Finnish health care system work better. Public transport is much better in Finland, but cars are expensive to buy so it sort of has to be.
Etc etc. Swings and roundabouts.
Comment by Toby — Thu, Mar 16th, 2006 @ 3:42 pm
Mr. Tuomioja´s personal parliament assistant mention to my friend that Mr. Tuomioja will sell those stock`s to labour union. The price what hi will sell those stock´s is a january`s middle price.
Well it looks like Finland For Thought gets results!
Thank you, Phil, for a great blogsite.
Comment by Finnpundit — Thu, Mar 16th, 2006 @ 5:32 pm
I wonder if all these blogs, newspapers, TV and radio shows hadn’t heavy criticized Erkki’s profits…would he have returned the profits like this? My guess is no – because on day one he would have said, “I’m protesting the layoffs by selling my stocks BACK TO THE UNION WITHOUT TAKING A PROFIT”
Comment by Phil — Thu, Mar 16th, 2006 @ 9:38 pm
Indeed, the first time he announced his “protest” on his website, there was no mention of what he was going to do with the profit.
Comment by Finnpundit — Thu, Mar 16th, 2006 @ 10:35 pm
Nothing seems to satisfy phil and like minded sheeps.
Because everybody knows like phil that socialist are evil baby-eaters who are planing total world domination on the expence of the working-american consumer
Comment by Blah — Thu, Mar 16th, 2006 @ 10:36 pm
to Phil @ 58.
My guess is yes. Or maybe.
It’s like some religious fundamentalists find Satan in Lordi’s music and when explained there’s no reference to Satan, they say “Satan hides himself to grab more souls…”
Fundamentalist, gotta love ‘em.
Comment by M — Fri, Mar 17th, 2006 @ 10:38 am
where did my immature post go?
Comment by Blah — Fri, Mar 17th, 2006 @ 10:43 am
I wonder if all these blogs, newspapers, TV and radio shows hadn’t heavy criticized Erkki’s profits…would he have returned the profits like this? My guess is no – because on day one he would have said, “I’m protesting the layoffs by selling my stocks BACK TO THE UNION WITHOUT TAKING A PROFITâ€Â
Huh, where did these “selling back” and “returning profits” come from. Phil you gotta increase your medication – sauna alone doesn’t help – or learn Finnish.
Anyway, even if Tuomioja had planned all this it could not have gone much better. The main point Tuomioja had in mind – which of course wasn’t profits but a protest – got a lot of covarage, and all kind of hateful right-wingers had to eat humble pie, exposing how naive and malevolent ideas their narrow-minded world view produces. I give Tuomioja 10 points.
Comment by TomiA — Fri, Mar 17th, 2006 @ 11:28 am
Tuomioja’s “protest” most likely validated the fact that UPM did the right move, and caused more people to buy the stock. The stock price certainly did not suffer from the ham-fisted “protest”, and probably convinced more boards of directors in more corporations that the political ramifications of layoffs are going to be negligible, if not profitable.
Comment by Finnpundit — Fri, Mar 17th, 2006 @ 2:07 pm
Tuomioja’s “protest†most likely validated the fact that UPM did the right move, and caused more people to buy the stock. The stock price certainly did not suffer from the ham-fisted “protestâ€Â
You should decide whether his protest affected the price or not, you can’t have it both ways. As a matter of fact, you should take some basic economics lessons before you pretend to know about the economical issues in general … like the hilarious idea that the US trade deficit would mean that massive amounts of wealth are transferred from the American consumer-comrade to the rest of the world, when it in fact means the opposite.
No no need to thank for the advice
Comment by TomiA — Fri, Mar 17th, 2006 @ 3:00 pm
That’s the spirit TomiA. You hit the nail on the head. Finnpundit seems to be all over the shop with this one. Did Tuomioja with his mega-massive-super-dooper-huge holding of UPM-Kymmene, manipulate the stock price or not?
Someody give TomiA a cigar! If I wasn’t on ther otherside of the continent TomiA, I’d buy you a drink.
Comment by JukkaV — Fri, Mar 17th, 2006 @ 3:31 pm
Erkki Tuomioja sold his stocks by the price of JANUARY….So way before the price went up by the lay offs.. SO HE DID NOT BENEFIT FROM THE LAY OFFS…. Follow the news people
HELSINGIN SANOMAT “Tuomioja itse omistaa runsaat 6 500 UPM:n osaketta. Hän on ilmoittanut myyvänsä ne tammikuun alun pörssikurssilla.”
Comment by Drakon — Fri, Mar 17th, 2006 @ 4:26 pm
You should decide whether his protest affected the price or not, you can’t have it both ways.
Actually, you’ve missed the point. Tuomioja’s “protest” could have affected the price in any which way, and the hoopla from it might not necessarily have the effect he wanted it to have.
The lesson here is that public, elected officials have to refrain from making comments on individual stocks. It is a political minefield, and an ethical dilemma, if you want a level playing field in the marketplace.
Comment by Finnpundit — Fri, Mar 17th, 2006 @ 8:31 pm
The panda checjet foundation is more expensive, that me
http://www.pxcheck.info/5586900.html
Comment by Jeremy — Fri, Feb 9th, 2007 @ 8:46 am