Harvard University’s economics Professor Greg Mankiw is known for his popularity, especially as he seems to actually enjoy teaching introductory economics courses (while most of his peers tend to favor spending time with advanced, post-graduate students). He even runs a blogsite so that he can keep in touch with his students, now dispersed worldwide.

One student posed a question on that site recently that’s actually quite central to the kind of ideological divide we see in Finnish politics today: does the study of economics make people more conservative (or more classically liberal, in academic terms)?

I believe the answer is, to some degree, yes. My experience is that many students find that their views become somewhat more conservative after studying economics. There are at least three, related reasons.

First, in some cases, students start off with utopian views of public policy, where a benevolent government can fix all problems. One of the first lessons of economics is that life is full of tradeoffs. That insight, completely absorbed, makes many utopian visions less attractive. Once you recognize, for example, that there is a tradeoff between equality and efficiency, as economist Arthur Okun famously noted, many public policy decisions become harder.

Second, some of the striking insights of economics make one more respectful of the market as a mechanism for coordinating a society. Because market participants are motivated by self-interest, a person might naturally be suspect of market-based societies. But after learning about the gains from trade, the invisible hand, and the efficiency of market equilibrium, one starts to approach the market with a degree of admiration and, indeed, awe.

Third, the study of actual public policy makes students recognize that political reality often deviates from their idealistic hopes. Much income redistribution, for example, is aimed not toward the needy but toward those with political clout.

These are lessons certainly lost on Finland, where entrenched socialist ideology sees any challenge to its moral precepts as a threat. In fact, most of Finnish counter-arguments focus on the demonization of any contending models to the welfare-state, even to the extent of employing state-sponsored bigotry to ensure the status quo.

One of the preoccupations of Finland’s foreign minister, “Zero” (as Chirac allegedly called him) Tuomioja, has been the implementation of the CTT, or Tobin Tax, especially in relations to ATTAC, where he is a member. Though Tuomioja’s rationale sounds benign enough, there are more considerations behind this folly than initially meets the eye.

Consider whom such a Currency Transaction Tax would affect. Far from dissuading currency speculators (as it was initially intended to do), a CTT is designed to collect taxes from two willing international trading partners and forwarding those tax monies to other countries who have no role at all in that particular trade. Thus, for example, if an American company wires money to a factory in China to produce some goods for America, a country like Bolivia, - which has introduced socialist policies designed to dissuade international trade – would benefit from that kind of international transaction taking place. In other words, Bolivia would enjoy a freeride at the expense of the other two countries, without ever needing to revise its own trade-stifling policies.

Obviously, Zero Tuomioja also enjoys the other aspect of such a tax: it would collect the most money from the one nation that thrives on international trade: the United States. As the cost of such a transaction would eventually be transferred to the American consumer, making goods more expensive as a whole, it becomes quite clear that this tax is just another manifestation of European anti-American bigotry. And, when we consider that it is the American consumer that has done the most when it comes to lifting third world nations out of poverty, the CTT can be seen as quite counterproductive to its own poverty-fighting ideals.

In other words, it is folly, though it’ll certainly never be comprehended as such by Zero Tuomioja.

The blogosphere is abuzz on both sides of the pond by this provocative article by Ralph Peters:

…We don’t need to gloss over the many Muslim acts of barbarism down the centuries to recognize that the Europeans are just better at the extermination process. From the massacre of all Muslims and Jews (and quite a few Eastern Christians) when the Crusaders reached Jerusalem in 1099 to the massacre of all the Jews in Buda (not yet attached to Pest across the Danube) when the “liberating” Habsburg armies retook the citadel at the end of the 17th century, Europeans have just been better organized for genocide.

It’s the difference between the messy Turkish execution of the Armenian genocide and the industrial efficiency of the Holocaust. Hey, when you love your work, you get good at it.

Far from enjoying the prospect of taking over Europe by having babies, Europe’s Muslims are living on borrowed time. When a third of French voters have demonstrated their willingness to vote for Jean-Marie Le Pen’s National Front - a party that makes the Ku Klux Klan seem like Human Rights Watch - all predictions of Europe going gently into that good night are surreal….

Are Finland’s Muslims also living on borrowed time?

When scanning Finnish journals for information on how Finns think about the Lebanon crisis, there is an odd lack of commentary on any kind of alternative interpretation to the recent decision on Finland’s part to deploy more troops in southern Lebanon. For all the grand talk of taking part in a peace mission, the reality on the ground is that Finnish troops, - as all troops in UNIFIL – are providing cover for Hezbollah as human shields while Hezbollah rearms.

There’s absolutely no debate in Finland regarding that. There are only immensely self-congratulatory assessments as to the nobility of so-called “peacekeeping”, and the righteousness of Finland’s pro-UN policies.

As Hezbollah rearms under the noses of UNIFIL, and as a confrontation with Iran is looming over Iran’s nuclear ambitions, Lebanon will once again become a war zone. As there are no plans for evacuation of these troops in case of war, it is clear that they are intended to be used as human shields, thus becoming collaborators with terrorists. As such, they become legitimate targets for eradication.

Seeing these young morons line up for duty becomes all the more incredulous, as it’s pretty obvious they really do not know for what purpose their leaders are using them. And how could they know, given the lack of debate?

The New York Times ran an article this past Sunday on the interesting phenomenon of foreign governments fronting the costs of US tours for their rock bands. While the article is actually a good example of the kind of interesting, minor-issue journalism that the left-leaning Times is good at, the writer of this piece seems at a loss in understanding what the phenomenon really means, - always a good sign, since journalists should only report facts, not their own opinions.

The Finnish band Bloodpit is included, though they get mentioned only at the very end (view this link soon, as the NYT permits free viewing for only about a week or two before articles disappear to their pay-only archives)

The piece highlights a lot of good questions, and even points to a government study (that of Scotland’s) which examined if it’s worthwhile to spend taxpayers’ money like this. Yet the question that was never asked is why would foreigners need to spend tax money on marketing in the US to begin with, if they have self-sustaining welfare states?

In any case, most of the Finnish taxpayers’ money spent on Bloodpit might have gone down the drain, as the conclusion of the article points out:

In their home country, Finland, and at European rock festivals, the earnest rockers Bloodpit are used to playing to hordes of fans. But when a government grant brought the band to America earlier this year, it played at a Los Angeles club during Musexpo, an upstart music conference specializing in international talent.

“The only thing that was different,” said Matthau Mikojan, who sings and plays guitar with the band, “was that in the audience, instead of our fans, there were suits.”

Did these band members realize they had just hit the jackpot? Or did they disappear into a bar after the gig, instead of mingling with the audience and making contact with the music industry heavies?

Oh well. Not to worry. The pockets of Finnish taxpayers are, in the end, a bottomless pit.

In one of those juvenile attempts to demonstrate that dramatic events could possibly happen in Finland, too, Aatos Erkko’s Helsingin Sanomat publishes an interview with Finland’s Security Police, SUPO, announcing that suspected terrorists are now being trailed in Finland:

The most serious suspicions in Finland have been associated with a grouping that is believed to have a plan for a terrorist act, says Selin. SUPO has also taken an interest in the flows of funding that may or may not have some links with this venture.
There is also empirical evidence that those individuals who have been under surveillance also know that SUPO has its eye on them.

Thanks, Aatos! We’re sure glad you know we need to know that.

But read on down the admittedly interesting article, and you’ll find a curious omission:

The British Sunday broadsheet “The Observer” was able to disclose details soon after the scheme was foiled…

(Note to Aatos: after the scheme was foiled), -

revealing how British and Pakistani security forces had got on the trail of the planned attack.
One of the most important tip-offs came from inside the British Muslim community, and as a result of this information the authorities set about monitoring the telephone traffic of those under suspicion. This sketched out a picture of a network in which certain individuals had a more significant role than others.
At much the same time, information came to light on e-mail addresses of some of the suspects, and the authorities began to follow the traffic through these addresses. The next stage involved phone-tapping, the bugging of apartments and houses used by suspects, and the planting of electronic tracking devices in vehicles.

Nowhere does Helsingin Sanomat reveal the most important source of evidence for the British: i.e., that which came from Pakistan’s torture of one of the ringleaders while he was visiting Pakistan. Aatos Erkko, of course, doesn’t want you to discuss the issues too much. For that, you need to turn to the blogosphere.

Now, given Finland’s predilection to do the morally right thing in every instance, shouldn’t eduskunta begin to debate the issue of whether SUPO should be allowed to use information that possibly came from the use of torture overseas in this case? There is a possibility that one of these fellows under surveillance might travel overseas, where he could be arrested and tortured. Isn’t it important for Finland to decide now whether it should accept any information gleaned from such a source? Why haven’t any of the political parties in eduskunta taken upon themselves, as guardians of Finland’s morality, to pre-empt the possibility that SUPO might be overeager to get information from such sources? And, finally, shouldn’t this debate take place now, before any further action regarding these potential terrorists are taken?

Come to think of it, it does look like SUPO may have sought the help of Aatos Erkko in getting publicity for this case, which makes flight for these potential terrorists a real possibility. Doesn’t that already imply that SUPO, like the British, could want to tip off security services in some Muslim dictatorship, in the hopes that they will do the dirty work Finns don’t deign to do? Shouldn’t concerned Finns do something about it?

A major moron in Finland’s National Defense College becomes the first one to opine on behalf of Finland on the recently submitted Israeli explanation on the airstrike on the UN observation post, where one Finnish soldier died:

http://virtual.finland.fi/stt/showarticle.asp?intNWSAID=13742&group=General

“Major Torsti Sirén of Finland’s National Defence College told the Finnish News Agency (STT) on Friday he regarded Israel’s account of the airstrike on a UN observation post with suspicion.

[…]

“Surely the original map had the UN positions marked. If not, their attitude towards UN observers is rather disrespectful and negligent.”

Is this guy for real? Are there no news outlets available at the Finnish National Defense College? Does he get all his news from Finnish sources only? Has he no idea of how corrupt the United Nations is, and how it openly allowed Hezbollah to co-opt UN observes as human shields for Hezbollah’s terror activities? And, finally, has he no idea that Israel has absolutely no reason to respect UN observers, given the open bias the UN has shown against Israel over the years?

Granted, the major is just a cog in the wheel of a naïve welfare state acting on its ideologies. Yet it still seems puzzling that Finland, with all its pretensions regarding humanitarian values, winds up eagerly supporting an organization like the UN whose majority membership do their utmost to work against those very values. Two-thirds of the General Assembly are non-democratic nations, yet Finland’s official policy seems to follow the notion that these nations are morally equivalent to those which are democratic.

It would be interesting what the major would have to say about training Finnish officers for UN duty. Perhaps they offer courses in bribery, prostitution, and child molestation there, in order to fall in line with UN practices and values.

Just as I was scanning news items for information at the latest (non)development in Finland’s presidential handling of the crisis in southern Lebanon, none other than oily Jacques Chirac comes out with an alleged broadside against Erkki Tuomioja. Though Chirac’s handlers are now busy trying to spin the story, Chirac is well known to blurt things out at the most inopportune moments (remember the “opportunity to shut up”? That term has now been coined into common usage).

As HS reports:
According to the story, Chirac had asked Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy during a government meeting last week, if Blazy had told Tuomioja that he is “a zero, and incompetent”.
Douste-Blazy reportedly responded “I did, but not in so many words”.
“Are you sure that he understood?” Chirac asked.
“Yes, at least the Prime Minister did”, was the Foreign Minister’s response. To that, Chirac is said to have commented that the Finns have one thing going for them: “they are far away.”

And far be it for me to defend Chirac, - perhaps the worst European leader we have seen in decades - but the man is right. Tuomioja’s performance in a time of crisis has been nothing but lackluster. In fact, Finland has simply not succeeded at all in terms of leadership, ultimately putting the whole wisdom of rotating EU presidencies into question.

But would we assume that such a bumbling foreign minister might be fired soon? There seems to be little debate about that in Finland, perhaps because such an act would be seen as an indictment of Tarja Halonen herself. And far be it for Finns to upset their dear old mother.

Red-faced with embarrassment from his UPM stock-selling fiasco, which initially prompted intense speculation on profiteering, The Toad of Finland, Finnish foreign minister Erkki Tuomioja, decides to deflect attention from his imbroglio by attempting to bait and trap former president and fellow social democrat Martti Ahtisaari by speculating on his reasons in continuing to sit on the board of directors of UPM. Forgetting for a moment the fact that Tuomioja’s neglecting his purview in the foreign ministry, - not the finance or interior ministry - Tuomioja’s desperate attack does point out a certain conflict of interest that indeed needs to be explored:

Why do so many Finnish social democrats sit on the boards of private Finnish corporations, or are employed by banks and other free-market institutions? As this is already a conflict of interest from a political point of view, does it not make sense for social democrats to take example from Tuomioja and divest themselves from these seats of capitalist power and privilege? Or do the perks of power make the seats so tempting that somehow all of it gets rationalized in the end?

Social democrats are forever preaching about social morality, so much so that you would think most of them are just rehashing fundamentals learned in a Lutheran confirmation school. If corporations truly are behaving in an immoral way when they try to stay competitive on the global markets, shouldn’t social democrats do the right thing and resign those seats, especially at UPM where, as Tuomioja points out, their efforts have been in vain?

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.

While wasting time in evil little Finland one year, I happened to frequent a cafe near my neighborhood. It was a nice enough cafe, with nice cookies and good coffee, but what always struck me was its lack of customers. The location of the cafe was amongst some housing complexes, with plenty of families, not exactly a prime location, but still the only cafe for several blocks. A young guy came in on a regular basis, and perfunctorily did his job, while taking long cigarette breaks outside and reading books inside, made possible by the lack of customers. I did some mental arithmetic and came to the conclusion that the cafe could not have been pulling in more than 100 euros a day; certainly not enough to run a business. My incredulity increased when I chatted up the young man, and found out that he was the owner. He just seemed the most relaxed, unconcerned entrepreneur-owner I’ve ever seen.

A few blocks away there was a kebab house, serving Middle Eastern cuisine, which I frequented, since I like Middle Eastern fare. That place was emptier than the cafe, yet the immigrant-proprietor didn’t seem too overly concerned, happily reading newspapers all day long.

I discussed these observations with a professor at HKKK, and he, of course, began to ennumerate all the different forms of state subsidies these two storekeepers were most likely enjoying. The list was quite long (I can’t remember them all), but the rationales behind them all pointed to the make-work policies of the welfare state: create jobs, even if there’s no market need for them.

What strikes me as interesting that it was very difficult, with so many different programs, to come up with a figure of how much the welfare state spends, - and how many people are freeriding – on these fake jobs. Implicit in this is of course the assumption that the welfare state wants to keep these numbers under wraps, as they would produce a damning riposte to any claims that unemployment in Finland is insignificant or under control.

Does anyone out there know of any comparative studies that would do a cost analysis – in terms of tax monies wasted - on these fake jobs? I doubt that an organization like ETLA would have them; perhaps EVA might be a better place to look. In either case, it has been difficult to locate them, and I wonder if that in itself is an indicator of how perverted the welfare states has become, as such calculations should be fairly easy to make in a small, homogenized state like Finland.

Mannerheim strikes a Brokeback Mountain pose.

… and if so, did that have any bearing on the development of Finnish democracy?

Some time ago, I was privy to some private documents shown to me by an old friend in Finland. The documents, written during the war years by a Finnish army officer, discussed Mannerheim’s homosexuality at length, and held forth that Mannerheim was unfit to be a leader because of it. Now, Mannerheim’s homosexuality has long been rumored in Finland, yet there hasn’t been much discussion of it, even though, - according to some friends of mine – young gay men in Finland have taken to hanging his picture on their walls, and not for any particularly patriotic reasons.

Yet an in-depth discussion would be illuminating, not because of the fact that he’s gay – there’s nothing wrong with that – but because of its possible implications in the historical development of Finnish democracy. Most of the young European republics that emerged after the First World War had very shaky democratic foundations, Finland included. And quite a few of them succumbed to dictatorships by strong military men: Poland under Marshall Pilsudsky, Hungary under Admiral Horthy, in addition to others in Romania, Bulgaria, Slovakia, and Croatia.

Mannerheim stands out as having insisted, every step along his ascendancy to the pinnacle of power in Finland, that lawful parliamentary steps be taken. He wanted to be asked; he never attempted to grab power through the support of the army - as had happened in so many European countries. Yet his popularity throughout Finland certainly indicates that if he did attempt such a maneuver, it would probably not have met with lots of resistance from the general populace.

Except, possibly, from the officer corps. There is something quite hasty in Mannerheim’s sudden resignation from the army in the early twenties, citing the “germanification” of the Finnish Army as an excuse. If his homosexuality had become widely known within the officer corps, the general’s resignation makes more sense, as he sought to nip things in the bud by exiting the stage – until, of course, different political climates brought him back.

There is nothing to indicate that Mannerheim was a complete democrat (he was more of a monarchist, actually). He might have seen that, as a homosexual, his chances for ascendancy were secure when he would play by the democratic rules. If that is the case, we could maintain that one of the main reasons democracy survived in Finland was not due to any deeply held democratic convictions amongst the Finnish people, who’ve been swayed by governmental elites since time immemorial, but simply because the Commander-In-Chief of Finland was, serendipitously, a fag.

Well it looks like The Bimbo of Finland is considering getting out her kneepads to kiss and make up with Dubya, given the rumblings from the east.

 ”YLE Television News reported last week, Finland has been so concerned about Russia’s greater military presence near Finland, that there are plans to send President on a hasty visit to Washington.
     According to the report, the purpose of the visit would be to seek US help in striking a balance against stronger Russian military strength.”

That is just like a freerider, and a cowardly one at that. Profess anti-American policies, fan the flames of bigotry in Finland, but as soon as you need the big guy, you come running back for help.

The countries of New Europe are certainly proving innovative in myriad ways. Even their journalists tend to show more courage than, let’s say, Finnish journalists, whose practise of self-censorship, - a trait from the Cold War years - persists in cloaking the failures of the welfare state from the public, rather than exposing the truth.

But this New European Czech journalist certainly raised the bar in terms of journalistic chutzpah:

The footage in I, Muslim shows a reporter pretending to be someone interested in converting to Islam. He conducts several conversations with members of the mosque, located in Černý Most, about Islam, Europe, terrorism and the role of women.

“It’s like this: During official shooting they were peaceful, nice,” he says. “Hidden camera footage showed something else — aversion, hatred toward Europe, the entire world, and a mild attitude toward terrorism.”

The reaction was to be predicted:

Ambassadors to the Czech Republic from Arab nations and members of the Czech Muslim community say they are outraged by a documentary aired on ČTV last fall that used hidden camera footage of conversations in a Prague mosque and spliced it — they say unfairly — with images of terrorism.

Has anything like this ever been attempted in Finland? Would something like it ever be attempted, and if not, why not?