I really don’t know what you are talking about.

As you said yourself, every Finn is free to import a van full of booze every time they want from Estonia, if that is their wont.

Let’s see.

Rent of van: 50-80€
Ferry ticket: 70-100€

So the fixed cost would be, on average, around 150€ for each vanful. I think that’ll take care of several years of consumption for the average person, even if they only import that lovely jug wine.

“It might not always be about protecting domestic supplier industries per se. Instead, retailers will protect their own high prices using the geographic barrier effect (which limits Finns’ travel mobility).”

“geographic barrier effect”, that’s a new one, haven’t heard that before? Wtf. does it mean? And how does it “limit Finns’ travel mobility”? And what does that mean?

First off, that is NOT protectionism (as that is government-driven). That is simply greed. I don’t think Lidl (whether or not it has been treated in any sense badly upon entrance) has provided much of an lesser amount of greed, since it’s prices do not seem much cheaper than those of its competitors. Especially if you’re looking for something else than the “bulk stuff” (which they do not even provide). What hinders them from providing the “german heavenly price level” you keep implying there is? Lidl, afaik, is as centralised as can be. Are you saying, that Lidl can’t be trusted to provide similar prices to finns, as germans, unless there are competitors providing similar prices. What does this tell us of Lidl. What does this tell us of “markets”. Most markets consist of the number of players we have in the “food market” today.

But you, who seem to think that a retailer (no, I’m not defending ANY surplus retailer profits) covering Finland with a FULL supply, has no added cost’s as compared to a retailer that covers a country of 20 times more consumers, spread out on an area double the size of Finland, has no NATURAL advantage in terms of pricing? This seems to have been your message week in, week out. Is this really what you believe?

And you call ME insane? Wake up.

Btw. Could you please provide YOUR examples of protectionism, since you implied Finland somehow exceeds in this, and I don’t think I saw any SENSIBLE explanations for your opinion, as of yet.

Oh, you mean ALL residents of Finland want to spend a few-thousand €uro on alcohol each year? Nobody in Finland wants to save money?

You bleeding-heart concern for the poor alcoholics is heart-warming indeed. Now, after applying some Nessu/Kleenex, we might remember that to be blessed with cheap piss-wine at 50c/litre, an alcoholic need only to stroll to the nearest store selling wine-making supplies. After half and our of work and a wait of about a month, they have a cellar full of that wonderful jug-wine that gets you pissed at no cost. If we further consider that this is legal while operating your own still is NOT, it might be argued that the alcoholics are indeed steered toward wine instead of hard liquor. But you’ve demonstrated an unwillingness to pay any attention to rational arguments in this matter, so I’ll leave it at that.

Dario:
Have you ever been in France or Italy? Typically in supermarkets of medium size you find hundreds of wines, mainly of the same nationality, but of all qualities.

In France and Italy there is a strong consumer demand for wines of all qualities. In Finland there is not.

I agree that in Alko you have a choice of wines from all the world, but there are wine cellars for that in Europe as well.

Excuse me if I don’t cheer the prospect of having to fly to “Europe” every time I want to buy a decent bottle of wine.

local Alko?!? There are only 300 Alko points in the WHOLE Finland and you think you can say it is a “local” shop?

In comparison, there are, I believe, 7 Stockmanns in Finland.

Welcome to the wonderful world of pätkätyö…

Most tunttiopettajat are qualified teachers who are conveniently not given enough hours to have a full-time job, saving the state a lot of money…

Those that don’t have qualifications are in large part under agreements with the institution to become qualified in a certain period of time…

Polytechnic teachers need to have a master’s degree (at least), and in order to sign a contract for over 6 months, they must be qualified teachers…

As for day care, I have heard qualification is lacking, but I don’t know much about it…

Produce is an anomaly; retailers can use ‘buyer psychology’:

1). Nationalism—buyers know that domestic produce supports a Finnish family directly;

2). Subsidies—buyers subsidize produce with tax money, so they expect a return on their ‘investment’ despite the higher prices;

3). Health—buyers might have rational/irrational fears about pesticides and chemicals used for preservatives to transport produce from abroad.

Supermarkets can use this ‘buyer psychology’ to their advantage for produce and a few other ‘national favorites.’ But, those are anomalies.

For many other things that are imported ( but not always) —e.g.-frozen pizza, prepared and semi-prepared food, jarred and boxed products, cheeses, pastries, etc.—you can add 30%-to-50% to the normal European market price. Add about double for many prepared foods.

Meat is expensive too, despite subsidies and Finland being a land with ample production resources. And what about the high price of fish?!

It might not always be about protecting domestic supplier industries per se. Instead, retailers will protect their own high prices using the geographic barrier effect (which limits Finns’ travel mobility).

Plus, they use a government that keeps-out competition (as Mikko mentioned in #24) and the Tax Wedge effect to their favor.

Not every single product they offer is severely overpriced. But there is enough overpricing to add a few-thousand € to the yearly shopping totals of individual and families.

You are right, that is more difficult to prove. All states are protectionists to some extent, but I would say on a different level than in Finland. Two examples I can give:

1) Acquisition of the French energy company “Compagnie de Suez” by the Italian ENEL energy company. The French blocked the acquisition as Energy is seen as strategic area of economy. What they did is amazing: the state French company Gaz de France bought Compagnie de Suez. They did not have the money to do that as the participation of the state in the company was only 30% or something like that, anyway there was a law specifying a limit on the maximum allowed participation of the state in a private company.

The French government CHANGED the law in one week to allow a bigger participation of the state (!) so that Gaz de France could buy Compagnie de Suez.

2) for fairness, I give an example about Italy. Few weeks ago, the main telecommunications Italian company “Telecom” was on the market. The american AT&T made an offer, but the Italian government hampered the acquisition and convinced several Italian banks to raise up the money and buy Telecom.

All this for the same reason that strategic areas of economy “should” not fall on foreign hands. US is even more strict in respect of this policy, extremely protectionist on regards of anything connected with military and strategic defense.

On the other hand, this kind of protectionism is at much “higher level” than the one in Finland, where instead the effect of protectionism is much more visible to the Finnish consumer in terms of price impact (food, cars, etc).

Like the French, who can drive to Germany and buy their electricity from there?

Protectionism is difficult in most other countries. That’s because people can simply drive across their respective borders and buy whatever they want. Retailers wouldn’t gain by protecting their home industries. Instead, they’d lose sales.

Switzerland is a great example; one can use the immense purchasing power of the Franc to buy goods in the ultra-cheap EU. It forces Swiss retailers to keep their own prices down.

Finns can cross the border too, but it costs about 650€ on Silja Line with car. Finnish retailers/cartels take advantage of that threshold. They can arbitrarily decide which products to sell high and which to sell low; there are no repercussions.

Of course, Finnish retailers might say that overpricing is necessary to compensate for the high taxes (Tax Wedge) in Finland. Unfortunately it is done at the expense of the Finnish consumer.

Alko takes advantage of the 55€ threshold to Estonia and sets its prices accordingly. It has no competition other than Estonia. There’s also the law that states all beer over 4.6% (?) can only be sold by Alko. That ensures most import beers stay out of the supermarkets; only Alko can sell them….at ripoff prices of course.

“Number 27 Thomas can be barred from this competition because he’d win every time. It would be unfair to the others.”

My comment in this thread is untrue in what sense? Kristian may think what he likes about alco-taxes etc., but they are NOT trade-barriers, since they do NOT promote domestic production.

Call me an idiot if you like, but you do not seek the truth.