Prices are starting to get me down
@ 8:07 pm Milk has gotten much more expensive. Juice has gotten much more expensive. Beef has gotten expensive. In the news they say bread is going to get more expensive. Fuel has gotten more expensive. My electricity bill has gotten more expensive. The TV permit is going up 4%. Day care has gone up. Housing prices have gone up. Public transportation, and so on and so on.
I don’t really believe much in what the Minister of Finance, Jyrki Katainen has been saying about lowering taxes and us getting more buying power. I will believe it when it happens. Lowering VAT on food 5% might help a bit with food prices, but if the past teaches us anything, the stores in will jack up the prices to fill the gap quickly. Salaries just are not going up at the rate of all these prices, and we are heading for a face first plunge economically, if this keeps going on. I am not the only person affected. The reality will hit when people start not having enough money to live on and we fall into recession.
Aren’t they lowering ticket prices in Helsinki? Meats price has really skyrocketed! What i have understood is that meats price has gone up because EU have ban for most of the Brazilian meat products.
Comment by Kips — Sun, Aug 10th, 2008 @ 8:31 pm
“has gotten” - what sort of English is that? Is this blog now to be authored by juntti-hillbillies? I suppose it’s the logical next step, most of the people who comment seem to be.
Comment by Anonymous — Sun, Aug 10th, 2008 @ 10:18 pm
e American Heritage® Book of English Usage.
A Practical and Authoritative Guide to Contemporary English. 1996.
3. Word Choice: New Uses, Common Confusion, and Constraints
§ 144. got / gotten
“There is no such word as gotten,” an irritated reader recently wrote to The Boston Globe Magazine, objecting to the use of the word by a usage commentator, who should have known better. The notion that gotten is illegitimate has been around for over 200 years and refuses to die. The word itself is much older than the criticism against it. As past participles of get, both got and gotten go back to the Middle Ages. In American English, have got is chiefly an intensive form of have in its senses of possession and obligation and can only be used in the present tense. Gotten sees regular use as a variant past participle of get. It can occur in a variety of past and perfect tenses: Had she gotten the car when you saw her? I would not have gotten sick if I had stayed home. In Britain, gotten has mostly fallen out of use. 1
There are subtle distinctions in meaning between the two forms. Got often implies current possession, where gotten usually suggests the process of obtaining. I haven’t got any money suggests that you are broke. I haven’t gotten any money suggests that you have not been paid for your efforts. This sense of process or progression applies to many other uses of gotten, and in some of these cases got just doesn’t sound as natural to the American ear: The bridge has gotten weaker since the storm. We have finally gotten used to the new software. Mice have gotten into the basement. 2
Remember that only got can be used to express obligation, as in I have got to go to Chicago. Note the difference in the sentence when gotten is used. I have gotten to go to Chicago implies that the person has had the opportunity or been given permission to go.
Comment by Dave the Revelator — Sun, Aug 10th, 2008 @ 11:01 pm
OK gas is high in Finland. What is more absurd is that beer in Finland is more expensive than gas as is soda as well in many cases, unless you find a good sale. In neither of the two latter cases can you blame the high prices on a simple limited supply scenario.
Comment by Fred Fry — Mon, Aug 11th, 2008 @ 2:10 am
Must be that new war next door. Please don’t even bother asking for our help.
Its your european mess, now fix it.
Lets see, you will go there for “oil”?
Comment by winter “Yea, Proton Power, now in remission” — Mon, Aug 11th, 2008 @ 3:57 am
Well, I have just moved from Finland to Estonia, and if situation is bad in Finland, here is horrible. Compared to some years ago (I visited Estonia first time in 2001 and I have lived here some years ago too), prices have been raised dramatically. When i go to do shopping, many things are as expensive as in Finland. Even tobacco and alcohol are not as cheap as they used to be. If you take into account that average salaries are 4 times lower than Finland, and the flat taxation is 20 per cent… I dont really know how most of Estonians manage. I suppose half of the country has a member of the family going to work to Finland or Sweden to save money, and the other half will have to pay loans for the rest of their lives. There is no balance at all between the adquisitive power and the salaries. So well, in Finland maybe situation is bad, but at least people still can save some money to have decent holidays. Here situation is turning into an every month survival to make ends meet. It is sad.
Comment by Antonio — Mon, Aug 11th, 2008 @ 9:46 am
“There is no balance at all between the adquisitive power and the salaries.”
Well, that’s New Europe for ya. All is not lost, however - there is prostitution, and drugs. And more Hummers.
Comment by Freeridin' Franklin — Mon, Aug 11th, 2008 @ 9:56 am
winnie:
“Lets see, you will go there for “oil””
Well if anyone goes there, it will definitely be for the oil.
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/may2005/oil-m31.shtml
That was in 2005. These things are pretty easy to predict, you know.
Comment by Freeridin' Franklin — Mon, Aug 11th, 2008 @ 10:18 am
There’s the map:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a1/Baku_pipelines.svg
Comment by Freeridin' Franklin — Mon, Aug 11th, 2008 @ 10:20 am
Freeridin’: I don’t think this war is there to stay. For the Russians it’s good to show that they could get easy access to the pipeline if need be. The Russian military industry can also get their products tested in a new war.
It looks like the Georgians started it on the same premise as the Russians went to Chechnya. But there was something wrong in their calculations. National sovereignty is a rather practical concept and Nato will keep out as long as the conflict does not grow to a larger scale.
Comment by Helsinkian — Mon, Aug 11th, 2008 @ 10:34 am
“It looks like the Georgians started it on the same premise as the Russians went to Chechnya. But there was something wrong in their calculations.”
Seems indeed that this is Saakašvili’s desperate attempt to divert attention from his domestic failures. Russia, being what it is, is an easy scapegoat but managed to call his bluff.
We should remember where the greatest chess masters come from.
http://www.uusisuomi.fi/blogit/juhapuistola/venaja-viemassa-koko-potin
Comment by Freeridin' Franklin — Mon, Aug 11th, 2008 @ 11:05 am
Hank (most likely to do so…), please write a new blog post about the Russian - Georgian thing, before this one gets hijacked!
Comment by majava — Mon, Aug 11th, 2008 @ 11:40 am
#12:
I’d rather hear some good fart jokes from Phil.
Check this for inspiration: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0Xe7-WDCak
Comment by Freeridin' Franklin — Mon, Aug 11th, 2008 @ 11:54 am
How appropriately just in HS today
http://www.hs.fi/talous/artikkeli/Hypermarketit+eiv%C3%A4t+kilpaile+hinnalla/1135238507288
they say thet the hypermarkets don’t care to compete with prices.
Comment by Hank W. — Mon, Aug 11th, 2008 @ 2:56 pm
Eeeee, Finland gets gold at the olympics! Eeee!!
Comment by donkey — Mon, Aug 11th, 2008 @ 2:57 pm
Not to mention this one:
http://www.hs.fi/talous/artikkeli/Masentavat+hypermarketit/1135238507040
Looks like they read FFT in Sanomatalo.
Comment by Freeridin' Franklin — Mon, Aug 11th, 2008 @ 3:02 pm
The hypermarkets seem to have some sort of price cartel. The prices are so completely uniform everywhere I go. It is a truly boring drudgery to go shopping for the same old stuff with all the same prices. And now they are even raising the prices, uniformly. Noone bothers to have any competitive prices and noone has any sales worth mentioning.
Getting wine into grocery stores could add some life to shopping. Especially if they sold some wines that Alko doesn’t. (some good Emilia Romagna Sangiovese, please!) The HS article also suggested that over-the-counter medications would help. Sometimes when I have a headache, there is no pharmacy to be found. Why do I have to go to a friggin pharmacy to buy pain relievers, anyway? I end up bumming them from someone or suffering with the headache. (fortunately not often)
The HS article also suggested that with better opening hours, it might improve things as well.
Comment by Tapani Pallomeri — Mon, Aug 11th, 2008 @ 9:08 pm
At which level of marketshare Finnish law or EU law consider a company to have monopoly ?
Does anyone know what is the respective marketshare of S and K groups in Finland ?
Comment by Anonymous — Tue, Aug 12th, 2008 @ 3:51 pm
#18 yes, it was posted here about a month ago or so in the appropriate article by yours truly.
Comment by Hank W. — Tue, Aug 12th, 2008 @ 4:18 pm
dear sir,
thanks for bringing out such a nice site that provides valuable info.i have a query to make regarding migrating to finland.I an indian and studying in ireland.i want to know the average cost of living in finland and how easy is it to find jobs in finland for english speakers.
Comment by SYED — Tue, Aug 12th, 2008 @ 4:32 pm
SYED, I’d recommend you to go read http://www.finlandforum.org - your questions have been asked and answered numerous times quite recently.
Comment by Hank W. — Tue, Aug 12th, 2008 @ 8:10 pm
#1 Aren’t they lowering ticket prices in Helsinki?
Nope - raising them.
http://www.kauppalehti.fi/5/i/talous/uutiset/etusivu/uutinen.jsp?oid=2008/08/13659&sort=false
Comment by Hank W. — Wed, Aug 13th, 2008 @ 3:40 pm
@20 Dear Syed, don’t let the subjects discussed here deter you from coming to Finland to study. We cover some very controversial issues. Finland has a lot of good stuff going on. The schools here are good and you can have a very positive experience here as a foreign student. Some foreign students even stay on to work afterward. Here is the foreign student entrance page to one university, for example: http://www.jyu.fi/hallinto/intl/en/
Comment by Tapani Pallomeri — Wed, Aug 13th, 2008 @ 6:52 pm
Price will go down drastically next year and the year after. That’s what always happen when a country goes into a recession.
This time it could be a little more painfull as it is the first time that ALL countries are in recession in a synchronous world thanks to a very high economical coupling.
It is true that lots of local company have passed their cost to their client and ultimately to the Finnish comsumer. Who to blame for? as long as Finns buy grossely overvalued asset or do not change their past habit, the same game will continue.
But the game has changed very rapidly in the past 6 months, the inflation you are currently witnessing is a lagging indicator, it just reflect the past few years where you had a credit binge, too much liquidity flowing and bankd lending to any mortals…
What you got to look is forward…an expensive product won’t sell to people who are living a deterirating economy where the threat of being fired get real. You know what happen…people will try to find cheaper or avoid the product…thus leading slowly to a deflationnary situation as it happen in 1991 and 2001.
Time will who’s right on that and could make a huge impact on your finance…ask the guy in the US why on earth he bought house in 2006?? when all were shouting that was price were ridiculously high…well you don’t see the bubble until it burst.
I don’t read back what i wrote, kind of lazy, hope some comment won’t hurt some, as sometime I write faster than my thought, a Homer style…
http://housingfinland.blogspot.com/
Comment by HousingFinland — Thu, Aug 14th, 2008 @ 8:40 pm
#24: Then again, people have been saying that since, what, 1996?
Comment by Freeridin' Franklin — Fri, Aug 15th, 2008 @ 12:19 pm
;->, I have started the blog in October 2007 as there was clear sign of a turn around. Trying to send a clear signal to first time buyer as the rest (who already own a property before 2002) are immune anyway …
I suppose if internet had been available in 1989, I guess lots of people would have been warned, got the knowledge (not only a handfull of economist and wealthy people)
Now it could have been they would have ignored the warnings and would have anyway bought as you are suggesting.
But getting heavy debt for 30 years for an overvalued asset in a time when Europe is slowly very fast and is about to enter into a recession….might not a wise decision.
I suggest to wait 1- 3 years to have a better view, what’s 1-3 years compare to a 30 years sentence?
Comment by HousingFinland — Fri, Aug 15th, 2008 @ 8:35 pm