Finnish PM Mari Kiviniemi and Irish Times

jiikoo

Hello,

I've been looking for Irish forum, and I believe this to be the most popular. It is huge atleast. I would have sent this message for Irish Times forum but I guess there isn't any.

The reason for this forum message is the deceitful picture our primeminister Mari Kiviniemi painted for your press. Ofcourse good journalism is checking out the facts before publishing but I still feel the shame is on Kiviniemi.

First of all Mari Kiviniemi wasn't elected for PM as was said in the article. Our last 'elected' (elected by politicians. meaning the biggest party) primeminister was Anneli Jäätteenmäki(keskusta) who was our first female primeminister but she didn't last for long. She got fired from her office. Reason was releasing classified information for the media. The information was the last primeministers illega and secret promise to US for aiding them in afghanistan I believe(correction the war in question was Iraq year wass 2002). It is our very own little Iraq-gate. So not all people felt she should be fired because she just let the rest of the people now what promises were made in our behalf. But that hasn't got anything to do with this. She was replaced by Matti Vanhanen(political party: keskusta) he was not elected. In 2007 he WAS elected.(by the politicians) He quit his job a while ago because of 'health problems'. Real reason might have been the ongoing police investigations and relentless media show around this investigation. So Mari Kiviniemi(keskusta) our second replaced primeminister in a row. So all is NOT well in the land of Finns. Now I have bored you out of your senses with finnish internal politics so onward to the Irish Times article and what was wrong with that picture.

The 1990 depression caused thousands of families to lose their homes. I heard that 11 000 entrepeneurs committed a suicide. I don't know whether that is an accurate number but in a land of 5,5 million people You know it was hell for us. The government reacted in all the wrong ways which caused much more suffering. The banks went 'all' bankrupt. The banks tried to save themselves and took all homes that had mortgage on them. Which ofcourse ment that houseprices fell down and banks couldn't sell and went down themselves. Ofcourse the CEO's of the banks made a killing. So please don't do as we did last depression. We found out that our leaders had no idea what to do. Because of all this we are STILL paying for it. But also because of this we got a new law some years ago, which gives us a possibility to loose old debts. You need to be unemployed and not pay your debts for fifteen years and then you are free. 1990 plus 15 years equals to 2005 which is propably the year when the law was set up. So in a way we paid the last dime 5 years ago for the last depression, ofcourse by paying the last dime I mean the debts were cleared. 15 years of debt had ended to those poor people who took a chance and debt for company. But that depression was only ours and by devaluating our currency we got up. Can't do that this time.

Not needing to bail out our banks this time. That is true. We have Nordea a big swedish bank. It was sold to swedish after it collapsed last depression. We have Sampo a big Danske Bank. It used to be government owned during last depression. I don't think it collapsed last depression. We have Osuuspankki which is a big Finnish bank. Rest of the banks are minute. So it is true we haven't YET bailed out our banks this time, but I don't think we even could now, they are HUGE international banks now. So if they go bankrupt it's not just our problem and we will never be able to save international banks. But icelandic banks DID go down. Kaupthing atleast. We got our savings because the big banks Nordea, Danske(sampo) and Osuuspankki saved with government Kaupthing. So I'd call that some sort of bail-out.

Mari Kiviniemi said that last depression caused for most people her age not have summer jobs. In 1990 she was 22-years old. I don't understand how she never saw anything worse than lost summerjobs? How about 1520 suicides committed the year 1990, alone. Out of around 2-3million adult working people. Rest of the 5million were children and pensioners.
The bread queu used to be a social problem during last depression, now it is not a social problem. Why? Because the stigma of queueing for free bred is no more. http://www.hs.fi/talous/artikkeli/Taantuma+n%C3%A4kyy+Myllypuron+leip%C3%A4jonossa/1135246015165 an article of one bread queu in capital Helsinki. More than a year old article. Last one I found was from 2007, so it isn't something that we put to our news papers but the need for bread hasn't gone anywhere. It is increasing. It says in the article there used to be 650 people in this outlet, now there is 920 people at spring 2009. I wonder how many 'customers' they have now. And there are multiple locations for these bread queues in Helsinki. Two in the area of Kallio alone.

Housing bubble. At the moment you can get a decades old one room apartment with 20sq.m. in a city 100km from Helsinki for 20-30, 000€ , but in Helsinki it will go for about 100, 000€ even more. So I would consider calling that one a major bubble. In Tampere the second largest city in Finland (not counting the rest of greater helsinki) it will go upto 40-50, 000€. But you'll definitely get a bigger one for that price. So Helsinki is on the edge. Lot of working middleclass families are leaving Helsinki for possibilities of owning a home with more than one bedroom. Home prices in Helsinki raised 12% since last year. Recession? The average price in finland per sqm is 1500€ in Helsinki it is 3000€. http://www.taloussanomat.fi/asuminen/2010/01/29/asuntojen-hinnat-ampaisivat-helsingissa/20101400/139

So as a conclusion I feel that as a primeminister who was in her early 20's during the last depression and not noticing more serious concequences than her losing 3 years of summer jobs I don't feel like she should be given lot of attention when trying to fight to oncoming depression. She seems to be very deceitful person and I doubt she'll have a long term as pm. Next election is in spring and keskusta (political party leading finland for a long time now) just barely won the last election so the possibility for them to win this time and to be able to put Kiviniemi for a new term seems dim. She is also questioned about her election contributions that came from the same association which she herself was appointed to handling the funds. Her response was that under finnish laws there is no law that criminilizes if something fishy around election contributions. So she declines to let out contribution information. I'm sorry if I didn't get that one out clearly but she refuses to tell more about her contributions because the law doesn't have any punishment for that. But the police enquiry which is going on around keskusta and their fishy money politics with dozens of associations will propably end in her doorstep one day.

In Finland we don't have corruption. Just check out the corruption statistics. The least corrupted nation in the world, atleast we were. Why? Because in Finland we don't have corrupted police, so you could pay your way out. But our political and business world is totally run by something w call 'Hyvä veli-verkosto' in english I believe you call it cronyism. When I scratch your back you scratch mine. These contribution investigations are the reason why last pm Matti Vanhanen quit. And it has been biggest news this year and is going to last for a long time. Keskusta (biggest political party) seems to be in real trouble under this investigation and finnish political system will be changed somewhat because of all this. Atleast they are going to change the system so that you need to tell who gave you the contributions. Unbelievable that in the 2000's you can still have tens of thousands of euros given to you without any need to declare this money to anyone if you are running for politics.


I hope you don't follow our lead, atleast not the way we handled the last depression. It left deep scars. I am born in 1983 which makes me too young to really know that depression but still I am well aware of the reason why as a kid we ate a lot of sausage-soup.

If you follow our lead maybe the best help I can personally give is this.

- 1 sausage
- lots of water
- as much potatoes as you can get
- boil and eat. yumyum 5€ / week for a (malnutritioned) family



Someone from Finland who accidentally happened to read an article in Irish Times which was slightly mislead by our beloved PM Mari Kiviniemi.

I wish for all the best for you and the rest of the world under this economy.

gizmo555

Excellent 1st post jiikoo - welcome! Lots of food for thought there (as well as the recipe!)

DrumSteve

I know the analogy is patently obvious but everytime i seen Finland I misread it as Ireland.

Great first post btw.