Advancements in quality and service are paramount. Government-funded endeavors can succeed, but perhaps only in narrow realms. Even the Soviets had some impressive accomplishments—it just didn’t have a broad range of them like the US. We need to change our narrow picture here in Europe to move forward.

We need people who are willing to speculate financially to fund research, etc. with hope of being rewarded. It takes private capital. In the end, everyone benefits from it. Our high-tax European economies (especially Finland) with correspondingly low GDP’s isn’t the way to encourage a broad range of advancement.

Well it’s a well known fact that assholes, psychopaths, brown-noses and narcists rise to the top in politics and economics even though they don’t know shit about nothing (it’s just their charming personality and the stupidity of their bosses that carries them to the top)

I just broke my month-long alcohol fast with a G+T made from Bombay Sapphire. Turns out the stuff costs pretty much exactly the same in Alko as it does in the UK. So I don’t really know where your ideal tax heaven is located. Somalia, perhaps?

I believe that Thomas’ point was merely that Nokia’s success story would have never happened if it wasn’t for Finland’s evil system. I must concur.

I work for a small company, and boy is our boss not struggling to make ends meet. One factor in this is definitely the ridiculously low salaries we’re supposed to live on. Now, the system (including them evil taxes) may have something to do with that state of affairs.

I’d hate to be your boss. You know everything, but your not getting anywhere because you are getting screwed by everybody that’s “dumber” than you. Your perception of the world, and the actual reality of the world are on two different trains heading the opposite direction.

“Nokia was an established (partly state-owned) enterprise when it started the telecom business in the 1960’s, therefore it’s not relevant to David J. Cord’s argument.”

To be honest I don’t know what companies might be relevant in the case against your arguments. One reason being the fact, that you don’t provide ANY facts to support your OPINIONS.

IMHO, Nokia represents a SMALL company (a company that might leave the country unless its orders are not followed by the government, which was the category of companues you adressed), at the point it started its mobile phone business. At that point it wasn’t global, it was virtually bankrupt. What else do you need?

“Sounds like you have a low opinion of cleaning women.”

No. Can’t you read, or is this just a reading comprehension problem.

1) I haven’t said anything about cleaning womEn.
2) You were the one making points about intelligence based on peoples position in organisations. You said :”Also, I wouldn’t call him dumb. According to Phil, he’s “Managing Director of the Investment Services division of Fundior AB.””. So being the managing director of FUNDIOR (whatever that is) makes the guy non-dumb?

“I think Nokias mobile phone successs is RELEVANT…”

Nokia was an established (partly state-owned) enterprise when it started the telecom business in the 1960’s, therefore it’s not relevant to David J. Cord’s argument.

However, David’s advice to lower overall taxes makes perfect sense, because it would enable many startup businesses to stay in Finland—rather than move to places like Estonia, like they do now.

“I’ve seen managing directors that are more stupid than [...] the out-sourced cleaning woman.”

Sounds like you have a low opinion of cleaning women.

“I’ve seen managing directors that are more stupid than [...] the out-sourced cleaning woman.”

Sounds like you have a low opinion of cleaning women.

“Thomas,
you wrote 3 long and irrelevant posts about Nokia. Been drinking overpriced liquor from Alko again?”

I can’t remember my last visit to Alko. and that’s not because I was drunlk the last time I visited ;-).

But in what sense were my post irrelevant? I think that I - contrary to you and most other “liber-ecomomicians” - addressed the themes of the postings in great detail. I think Nokias mobile phone successs is RELEVANT if you talk about business in Finland. Reason: they more or less CREATED a global market. That is (and should be) the aim for ALL small starting technology businesses. Those that aim only for the domestic markets, couldn’t move their business elsewhere, which was one of the corner-stones in YOUR argument.

“Also, I wouldn’t call him dumb. According to Phil, he’s “Managing Director of the Investment Services division of Fundior AB.””

You have to grow up. If you haven’t seen/met any DUMD managing directors, your traveling/employment history shows signs of being too monotonic. I can tell you that I’ve seen managing directors that are more stupid than all their employees, including the out-sourced cleaning woman.

I can’t say for sure, but I don’t think David J. Cord is a Libertarian.

Also, I wouldn’t call him dumb. According to Phil, he’s “Managing Director of the Investment Services division of Fundior AB.”

All things that damage the Finnish economy.

Thomas,
you wrote 3 long and irrelevant posts about Nokia. Been drinking overpriced liquor from Alko again?

“Thomas doesn’t understand the argument, so he invents his own.”

The mr./ms. Anonymous might perhaps explain this ARGUMENT, so that even stupid Thomas understands it.

Fact is, Nokia made rubber-boots in the 70s. They made NO mobile phones. They were NOT multi-national. They basically started a new industry from scratch. I’m pretty sure they didn’t put 10000 engineers to work on that at that time. Nokia was even close to bankrupcy back in those days.

When one talks about SMALL companies, it is a fairly vague term. OK, there are some categorisations, that base themselves on the number of employees. But I’m pretty sure that any CEO of a small company would love to see his/her company grow to become a multi-national corporation. Companies are “organisms”, that develop over time.

If you talk about “small companies” in the sense of companies that will never grow, never develope, only work in some niche market forever, then OK. But even for such companies, income-taxes (or employer fees) are not the relevant issue. The only relevant issue is the TOTAL cost of employing a person. That’s why I do not want to listen to these arguments that base themselves on totally irrelevant issues, like income-taxes.

If income-taxes are high, but the population feels they get enough in return in terms of services, they might accept employment at lower gross-salaries. The income-tax level is then, totally irrelevant from both the employers and the employees point of view. If we look at Finland, and say the bussiness providing nurses to hospitals or like, they are probably able to hire people much cheaper than in e.g. the U.S. simply due to the fact that the salaries in the public sector are so low. Why would a health care sector private business “go elsewhere” due to the “high income tax rate” in Finland? Most of the so called service sector jobs, that many say are the main provider of jobs in the future due to increased automation, don’t even need any capital investments. If there is a market for a company in this kind of an environment, why would it have to go elsewhere, since it doesn’t have to tie up any investment capital in the first place?

I simply don’t understand Kristians ramblings at all. Maybe I’m stupid, but you or Kristian have not really contributed ANYTHING to enlighten me (or anyone else) regarding the theme under discussion.