# AI and Society — Neuvottelija AI Section index. 170 articles. - 2026-08-31 — [MAGA Fracture Thiel vs Fuentes | Simo J. Lahtinen Ali Omar | Negotiator 404](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep404-maga-repea-thiel-vs-fuentes-simo-j-lahtinen-ali-omar/index.md): Simo J. Lahtinen from Boston and Ali Omar from Hyrynsalmi join Sami Miettinen to work through the 2026 US midterms and the fracture inside the MAGA movement. The central claim is that MAGA is not one camp but two: the tech wing built around Peter Thiel and JD Vance, which wants more legal immigration and conflicts settled by diplomacy, and the groypers led by Nick Fuentes, who want the opposite. The episode covers the role of oil prices and the grocery basket in deciding the election, the Iran war and the Strait of Hormuz, Thiel's network from Palantir to Anduril, Curtis Yarvin's tech cities, the erosion of dollar hegemony and five percent long rates. The second half covers humanoid robots, Grok and Cursor, Waymos on the streets of Boston and whether middle-class knowledge work disappears. The guests disagree at several points, and those disagreements are left visible in the article. - sections: society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/yhteiskunta/ep404-maga-repea-thiel-vs-fuentes-simo-j-lahtinen-ali-omar/ - 2026-08-03 — [Origins of the Coronavirus | Jari Kuikanmäki | Negotiator 398](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep398-origins-of-coronavirus-jari-kuikanmaki/index.md): Recorded in English days after Anthony Fauci invoked the Fifth Amendment more than a hundred times before a Senate hearing, and weeks after journalist Jari Kuikanmäki's book on the pandemic's origins went to print. Kuikanmäki lays out the case he spent years building, and Miettinen presses on the second half of the story: how authorities, the WHO and the platforms handled dissent, why every country produced its own local truth, and what the collapse of institutional trust costs the next time an authority is right. - sections: society, research - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/yhteiskunta/ep398-origins-of-coronavirus-jari-kuikanmaki/ - 2026-07-14 — [Inheritance tax, option taxation and due process in tax | Janne Juusela | Negotiator 395](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep395-perintovero-optioverotus-ja-oikeusturva-janne-juusela/index.md): Tax lawyer and Doctor of Laws Janne Juusela and Sami Miettinen work through the Orpo government’s tax decisions one by one: what was done well, what was left undone, and why. One principle runs through the hour — ability to pay, meaning tax falls only once money has actually arrived. It explains both the praise (contingent consideration, share exchanges, the reform of option taxation) and the sharpest criticism in the episode: inheritance tax falls due before a single euro has come out of the estate. It closes on due process in tax and on whether Finland needs a constitutional court, where guest and host end up on different sides. - sections: economy, society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/economy/ep395-perintovero-optioverotus-ja-oikeusturva-janne-juusela/ - 2026-07-09 — [Europe as Easter Island | Risto Linturi, Kari Angeria | Negotiator 394](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep394-euroopasta-tulee-paasiaissaari-linturi-angeria/index.md): Technology futurist Risto Linturi and Kari Angeria join Sami Miettinen to work through their book Elämän tarkoitus ja tekoäly. The question is not when AI surpasses people but what is left for them afterwards: where meaning comes from, where work comes from, and above all where power comes from. Linturi describes the 2,246-page technology report he curated for the Finnish Parliament’s Committee for the Future — written to be read by an AI rather than by a person — and makes two uncomfortable observations: withdrawal is possible but costs independence, and rebellion requires that the rebel’s labour still matters. Against that, concrete proposals — a five-robot quota, universal ownership — and practical lessons on why models hallucinate and how to stop them. - sections: society, economy, tools - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/yhteiskunta/ep394-euroopasta-tulee-paasiaissaari-linturi-angeria/ - 2026-07-03 — [Veikkauskratia and the STEA Cuts | Otto Juote and Tere Sammallahti | Negotiator 393](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep393-veikkauskratia-stea-leikkaukset-otto-juote-tere-sammallahti/index.md): The summer 2026 row over the allocation criteria for STEA grants opens a larger question: what is the relationship between a state-funded NGO sector and the political parties. MP Tere Sammallahti and writer Otto Juote unpack the funding loop in which taxpayers' money goes to organisations, which buy influence communications, which lobby for more funding. It includes figures rarely set side by side: Finland has roughly 100,000 registered associations, and 724 of them received STEA support. The episode also covers Statistics Finland's GDP revisions, the weakness of GDP as a welfare measure, and parliament's own use of power — including Sammallahti's observation of how often it cannot be done becomes it can once a decision is genuinely demanded. Two right-of-centre commentators who disagree with each other at several points. - sections: society, economy - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/yhteiskunta/ep393-veikkauskratia-stea-leikkaukset-otto-juote-tere-sammallahti/ - 2026-07-02 — [Temu-grade intelligence: is AI just a bubble? | Petri Kajander | Negotiator 392](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep392-onko-tekoaly-pelkkaa-kuplaa-petri-kajander/index.md): App developer Petri Kajander and Sami Miettinen work through what AI actually is. Kajander’s term is "temuäly" — Temu-grade intelligence: it guesses superbly and understands nothing. The weightiest part is not the bubble argument but what happens once moderation and customer support are automated — an account taken over by getting an AI support agent to bypass two-factor authentication, and an entire cloud account deleted over private drawings. Plus local models, the realities of the App Store, Gell-Mann amnesia, and two opposed views on whether inference pricing is a bubble. Both speakers are committed parties here, and that is disclosed. - sections: tools, economy, society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/tools/ep392-onko-tekoaly-pelkkaa-kuplaa-petri-kajander/ - 2026-06-21 — [SpaceX, Elon Musk and envy | Sami Miettinen on Puheenaihe 676](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/puheenaihe-676-spacex-musk-ja-kateus-rami-kurimo/index.md): Sami Miettinen as a guest on Rami Kurimo's Puheenaihe, in the week SpaceX listed and Elon Musk became the first trillionaire. The sharper half is financial: a hundred times revenue tells you nothing about when the price comes down, because the multiple prices optionality — Musk's companies read as a stack of long-dated options, many unexercised and several created out of nothing. The second half is about Finland: imported Marxist class hatred repurposed as identity politics, a country that fails to appreciate even its own successes, and the danger of a subsidiary economy. - sections: economy, society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/economy/puheenaihe-676-spacex-musk-ja-kateus-rami-kurimo/ - 2026-06-05 — [What Investors Must Not Forget Right Now | Martin Paasi | Negotiator 388](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep388-tata-sijoittaja-ei-saa-nyt-unohtaa-martin-paasi/index.md): MP and long-time Rahapodi host Martin Paasi joins Sami Miettinen to unpack their talks at the Tampere investment fair. Paasi's core claim is arithmetic rather than opinion: because investor returns distribute symmetrically around the market return, costs alone shift the whole distribution left until three quarters of investors lose to the market — so zeroing costs tells you today that you will land in the top quartile. From that follow the five-thousand-euro newborn, a proposal to convert Solidium into a zero-fee national pension fund, and the question of why anyone would still own a company in Finland. Miettinen answers with the AI working group that justified an investment decision through analysis, and with an uncomfortable finding from the Hello Humans project about political bias in language models. Finally the data-centre acid test and Philip Aminoff on ownership with a face. - sections: economy, tools, society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/economy/ep388-tata-sijoittaja-ei-saa-nyt-unohtaa-martin-paasi/ - 2026-04-30 — [Finland's 2026 budget framework — what was left? | Sami Miettinen on Paasipodi #71](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/paasipodi-71-kehysriihi-2026/index.md): Two days after the Orpo government's 2026 spending-limits session, Martin Paasi and Sami Miettinen go through what actually survived: the self-employed pension reform, the rewritten taxation of employee share options, youth employment measures, the household deduction and first-home loans — and then the €17 billion annual deficit underneath it all. Preceded by a quarter-hour on the agent architecture both men are now running. - sections: economy, society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/economy/paasipodi-71-kehysriihi-2026/ - 2026-04-12 — [AI changes everything | Sami Miettinen on Kuuntelija](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/kuuntelija-tekoaly-muuttaa-kaiken-roni-arvonen/index.md): Sami Miettinen as a guest on Roni Arvonen's Kuuntelija for two and a half hours on artificial intelligence: why AI labour is not capital in the Marxist sense but a direct substitute for human work, what that does to a pension system funded by wage-linked contributions, which jobs go first and which go last, and why the case for labour immigration weakens at the same time. The most useful stretch is an hour on how he actually built and runs his own agent — a Mac Mini, OpenClaw, a WhatsApp channel, the security posture, and never building a dependency on a single vendor. - sections: openclaw, economy, society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/openclaw/kuuntelija-tekoaly-muuttaa-kaiken-roni-arvonen/ - 2026-03-27 — [The AI storm warning, part II | Sami Miettinen on Paasipodi #66](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/paasipodi-66-tekoalyn-myrskyvaroitus-osa-ii/index.md): Five weeks after the first storm warning, Martin Paasi has bought a laptop, installed the tools and shipped his first application. The sequel is a builder's conversation: a four-model podcast engine that argues with itself, persistent agent memory, why index funds and AI discipline are the same problem, a hard look at the Finnish media, and a live design review of an investment robot that tracks which strategy the market is currently obeying. - sections: tools, society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/tools/paasipodi-66-tekoalyn-myrskyvaroitus-osa-ii/ - 2026-03-23 — [Negotiation Club + Inner Circle | Tere Sammallahti, Onni Rostila | Negotiator 377](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep377-neuvotteluklubi-sammallahti-rostila/index.md): The Viisasteluklubi's original cast takes on gifts given to MPs, the Constitutional Law Committee, inheritance tax and the Social Democrats' harassment inquiry — and Tere Sammallahti announces publicly for the first time that he is running for deputy chair of the National Coalition Party. Onni Rostila, now the committee's deputy chair, defends ex ante constitutional review on three structural grounds, and Sami Miettinen proposes a thousand-euro birth endowment that would turn the pension system on its head over sixty years. Unusually, the Neuvottelija Sisäpiiri segment on the Iran war that closes the episode is included free: about thirteen minutes of material that normally sits behind a subscription. This article adds how the episode's two open questions were subsequently resolved. - sections: society, economy - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/yhteiskunta/ep377-neuvotteluklubi-sammallahti-rostila/ - 2026-03-22 — [Communism after all? | Sami Miettinen on Keijon Tuumaustunti #171](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/keijon-tuumaustunti-171-kommunismi-toteutuu-sittenkin/index.md): Topi Salin asks for a report card on the government and gets an argument that the whole left–right frame has expired. Miettinen's case: taxing human labour is a dying business model, superintelligence arrives on a timescale that makes the basic-income debate incoherent in euros, and the Marxist end state may arrive by accident — a planned economy run by free intelligence. Around it, the inheritance tax, the pension system as a negative-NPV contract for the young, and where he is actually putting money. - sections: economy, society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/economy/keijon-tuumaustunti-171-kommunismi-toteutuu-sittenkin/ - 2025-11-21 — [An audit report, a defence of an opponent, and a supermarket that took up foreign policy | Weekly Wiseguys, 21 November 2025](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/viisastelijoiden-pikkujoulu-2025/index.md): Sami Miettinen with MPs Tere Sammallahti and Onni Rostila on the pre-Christmas edition of Ivan Puopolo's Weekly Wiseguys, 21 November 2025. The central moment is the one the title does not prepare you for: the panel defends the free speech of the chair of the Left Youth against its own political position, and asks for the law to be changed rather than for a prosecution. Alongside it, an audit office report on the previous government's spending increases, and a retail group's decision to drop Israeli products. The episode's audio was damaged and machine-restored — noted here. - sections: satire, economy, society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/poliittinen-satiiri/viisastelijoiden-pikkujoulu-2025/ - 2025-11-04 — [Champagne for Milei's win | Aleksi Tolvanen, Amos Ahola | Negotiator 358](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep358-samppanjaa-milein-voitolle-tolvanen-ahola/index.md): Aleksi Tolvanen and Amos Ahola on the election win of Javier Milei's party in Argentina. Tolvanen had forecast 40% for La Libertad Avanza back in August, and the best passage in the episode is why 40 was the decisive number: it secures the presidential veto and closes off the juicio político route. The second core observation inverts the usual framing — Argentina's public debt relative to GDP is not exceptionally large; the problem is a default history that blocks refinancing. It closes on the Finnish State Treasury's interest-rate strategy and what should have been modelled. Published 4 November 2025. - sections: economy, society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/economy/ep358-samppanjaa-milein-voitolle-tolvanen-ahola/ - 2025-10-15 — [A debt brake, a ceasefire, and open learning materials | Weekly Wiseguys, 15 October 2025](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/viisastelu-velkajarru-hamas-ja-oppimateriaalit/index.md): Sami Miettinen with MPs Tere Sammallahti and Onni Rostila on Ivan Puopolo's Weekly Wiseguys, 15 October 2025, after a long break. It opens on Finland's cross-party debt brake, which the panel considers more significant than its modest coverage suggested — while also saying what could go wrong with it. The middle is the Gaza ceasefire and the question of who fell silent when. It closes with one guest unpicking how his proposal for open learning materials became something else in print — and what he actually proposed. - sections: satire, economy, society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/poliittinen-satiiri/viisastelu-velkajarru-hamas-ja-oppimateriaalit/ - 2025-10-06 — [Trump, Israel and Hamas | Atte Kaleva | Negotiator 354](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep354-trump-israel-hamas-atte-kaleva/index.md): Member of Parliament Atte Kaleva maps the actors and power relations of the Middle East: the fragmentation of Israel's electoral system and Netanyahu's dependence on small hardline parties, the difference between Hamas and Fatah, the Palestinian Authority's prisoner and martyr payments, and the collapse of the Iranian axis through Hezbollah, Assad and the loss of Iran's air defences. The conversation was recorded on 3 October 2025, days after Trump's twenty-point plan was published and before Hamas had answered. Kaleva reads the plan as a ceasefire and hostage step rather than a peace plan, argues its novelty is that every regional actor is involved, and offers a cautious optimism that proved justified within a week. It includes a detour into Finnish constitutional review, where Kaleva himself sits on the Constitutional Law Committee. Published 6 October 2025. - sections: society, research - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/yhteiskunta/ep354-trump-israel-hamas-atte-kaleva/ - 2025-09-23 — [Left-Wing Gaslighting | Tere Sammallahti and Onni Rostila | Negotiator 352](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep352-vasemmistosumutus-sammallahti-rostila/index.md): The episode's organising concept is sumutus — Onni Rostila's proposed Finnish equivalent of gaslighting — and its separation from selective framing. The conversation starts from the Charlie Kirk killing and the suspension of Jimmy Kimmel, and moves to how a media controversy is either harnessed to an agenda or managed down. Its most concrete example is domestic: a reception unit in Tampere whose cost was explained away as the cheapest bid, when the real question concerns how the tender was specified. It also covers cancel culture turning in both directions, where Sammallahti draws the line against his own side, and citizenship-based social security as a question of incentives. - sections: society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/yhteiskunta/ep352-vasemmistosumutus-sammallahti-rostila/ - 2025-08-29 — [The capital shortage holding Finland back | Sami Miettinen on Puheenaihe 618](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/puheenaihe-618-paaomien-puute-leevi-leivo/index.md): Sami Miettinen's first solo appearance on Puheenaihe, hosted by Leevi Leivo. The argument is arithmetic: a household with €150,000 has nothing left to invest after the flat, while a €270bn pension complex quite logically wants large foreign targets. Founding a company without capital is hard. The angriest section is the YEL mess — entrepreneurs' pensions were never funded, the state carries a €600m expense, and the fix sits with a vague working group. The second half covers rates, tariffs, the dollar and his own portfolio: cash weight, bitcoin and gold. - sections: economy, society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/economy/puheenaihe-618-paaomien-puute-leevi-leivo/ - 2025-08-21 — [I am the media | Sami Miettinen on Myynnillä on asiaa #8](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/moa-8-mina-olen-media/index.md): Kert Kenner asks the question a salesperson would: what does it actually take to build your own media, and does it make selling easier? Miettinen answers with five years of operating numbers — why most podcasts die at twelve episodes, why he keeps almost no backlog, what the channel earns and why he does not maximise it, why audio-only is a mistake, and why podcast transcripts are becoming the training material that decides what an AI says about your industry. - sections: tools, society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/tools/moa-8-mina-olen-media/ - 2025-08-20 — [Euro, ECU2 and Hamilton | Sami Miettinen | Negotiator 347](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep347-euro-ecu2-hamilton-sami-miettinen/index.md): A solo episode, made at the Sisäpiiri audience's request that Sami work through a theory without a guest to argue with. He reflects on monetary systems, the euro and the EU by way of the Hamilton musical in London. At its centre is the ECU-2 proposal from Libera's 2014 book: twelve countries entered the euro by tying their currencies to the ECU basket first, and ECU-2 runs that backwards. A floating currency is counter-cyclical and the euro pro-cyclical — Sweden and Poland took the winning position. The Hamilton half is about what a federation actually requires: a one-off assumption of state debts and a tariff-funded tax base, neither of which the EU has. - sections: economy, society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/economy/ep347-euro-ecu2-hamilton-sami-miettinen/ - 2025-07-01 — [Penetration Bombs and the Social Democrats' Fairness | Tere Sammallahti and Onni Rostila | Negotiator 341](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep341-penetraatiopommit-demarien-reiluus-sammallahti-rostila/index.md): A late June 2025 Negotiation Club on three themes. First, the gap between the Social Democrats' fairness rhetoric and its practice: the taxation of dividends from unlisted companies that the party opposes politically, and a newly elected mayor opening redundancy talks weeks after the election. Second, the Academy of Finland's funding decisions and the question of who may challenge public research money without the discussion being turned into one about academic freedom. Third, the American strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities, the doctrine of the pre-emptive strike, and why air power does not change a regime. An opinionated conversation between two right-wing MPs which also concedes the limits of its own analysis. - sections: society, economy - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/yhteiskunta/ep341-penetraatiopommit-demarien-reiluus-sammallahti-rostila/ - 2025-04-02 — [April Fools' Media Against the Right | Tere Sammallahti and Onni Rostila | Negotiator 320](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep320-aprillimedia-oikeiston-kimpussa-sammallahti-rostila/index.md): Recorded on April Fools' Day 2025, this Negotiation Club opens with an EVA survey in which 40 per cent of Finns see the public broadcaster as leaning left and 5 per cent as leaning right — an eightfold asymmetry. From there it moves to inheritance tax and what the debate leaves out: what comparable countries have done, where the money to pay the tax has to come from, and the fact that average adult wealth in Finland is EUR 150,000 against Sweden's EUR 300,000. The second half is Marine Le Pen's loss of eligibility and the structural problem it creates, why cordons sanitaires do not work, Finland's withdrawal from the Ottawa Convention, Greenland, and finally the question neither side asks: what did the money actually buy? - sections: society, economy - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/yhteiskunta/ep320-aprillimedia-oikeiston-kimpussa-sammallahti-rostila/ - 2025-03-22 — [Cold realism about Ukraine, who gets to live how they like, and the end of the gambling monopoly | Weekly Wiseguys, 22 March 2025](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/viisastelu-zelenskyi-onlyfans-koulussa-ja-veikkaus/index.md): Sami Miettinen and MP Atte Kaleva — making his first appearance — on Ivan Puopolo's Weekly Wiseguys, 22 March 2025. The strongest section is foreign policy: two competing explanations for Russia's war are set side by side and left open, and the durability of treaties is assessed against historical examples rather than hopes. The middle section applies a liberal principle to cases where it is uncomfortable for the panel's own side. It closes on the dismantling of the gambling monopoly and a practical test for which games are worth playing. - sections: satire, economy, society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/poliittinen-satiiri/viisastelu-zelenskyi-onlyfans-koulussa-ja-veikkaus/ - 2025-03-19 — [Negotiation Club: Capital | Tere Sammallahti, Jussi Lindgren and Petri Roininen | Negotiator 316](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep316-neuvotteluklubi-paaoma-sammallahti-lindgren-roininen/index.md): The Negotiation Club takes on a word that two professions use to mean different things. A banker's capital is the right-hand side of the balance sheet — where the money came from. An economist's capital is the left-hand side: bridges, roads and housing. The distinction turns into policy: of Finland's roughly EUR 1,000 billion in national wealth, more than half sits in real estate that produces nothing and has been falling in value, while private financial wealth is EUR 675 billion, about EUR 150,000 per adult — EUR 150,000 to 250,000 less than in the other Nordic countries. The episode works through municipal balance sheets, imputed rent, the earnings-related pension system as a second form of taxation, what inheritance tax does to firms, the arbitrariness of the self-employed pension scheme, the return of avoir fiscal to the debate, and finally Germany's suspension of its debt brake and what it does to interest rates. - sections: economy, society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/economy/ep316-neuvotteluklubi-paaoma-sammallahti-lindgren-roininen/ - 2025-03-01 — [The growth report | Sami Miettinen and Martin Paasi on Viisasteluklubi](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/viisasteluklubi-kasvuraportti-perintovero-ja-valtion-koko/index.md): Ivan Puopolo hosts Sami Miettinen and, newly elected to parliament, Martin Paasi to work through the Murto working group's growth proposals — replacing inheritance tax with capital gains tax on disposal, and letting share exchanges roll over untaxed. The conversation turns into the sharpest account of why Finland cannot cut: a first-hand description of how a coalition government's programme survives, and Miettinen's own proposal for making the public sector produce more, better, with less. - sections: economy, society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/economy/viisasteluklubi-kasvuraportti-perintovero-ja-valtion-koko/ - 2025-01-12 — [Inheritance tax and building wealth | Sami Miettinen on Kuuntelija](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/kuuntelija-perintovero-ja-vaurastuminen-roni-arvonen/index.md): Sami Miettinen as a guest on Roni Arvonen's Kuuntelija on Finland's most hated tax. The core argument is not about revenue: inheritance and gift tax raises around €1.3bn out of an inherited pot of some €7bn, but the damage is compounding cut off at the moment it has the most time left to run. Nobody inherits a sack of cash — they inherit a flat in a place with no market, held in an undivided estate, with the bill due before anything can be sold. Also covered: Sweden's 2005 abolition, an owner economy against a Finland owned by Solidium and the pension system, the euro and the payments imbalance, Poland, and whether Finland needs its own DOGE. - sections: economy, society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/economy/kuuntelija-perintovero-ja-vaurastuminen-roni-arvonen/ - 2024-11-11 — [A cancelled church concert, explanations for Trump's win, and liberty in two senses | Weekly Wiseguys, 11 November 2024](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/viisastelu-klassinen-musiikki-trump-ja-musk/index.md): Sami Miettinen, Tere Sammallahti and MP Onni Rostila on Ivan Puopolo's Weekly Wiseguys, 11 November 2024, a week after the US election. It opens on a cancelled school church concert and the question of where culture ends and religious practice begins — on which the panel genuinely disagrees. The middle section works through Finnish explanations for Trump's win and checks them against the numbers. It closes on the distinction between positive and negative liberty, applied to dietary guidelines. - sections: satire, society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/poliittinen-satiiri/viisastelu-klassinen-musiikki-trump-ja-musk/ - 2024-09-27 — [May an activist be interviewed, what a foundation supervises, and the Swedish model for inheritance tax | Weekly Wiseguys, 27 September 2024](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/viisastelu-elokapina-koneen-saatio-ja-perintovero/index.md): Sami Miettinen and Tere Sammallahti on Ivan Puopolo's Weekly Wiseguys, 27 September 2024, shortly after a climate group defaced the facade of the Finnish Parliament. The episode goes against expectation: the panel defends interviewing the activist and criticises the quality of the interview rather than its existence. The host describes his own interview request to the foundation that funded the group, and the answer he did not get. It closes on polygamy, where the panel disagrees with itself, and on inheritance tax, where it proposes a specific model. - sections: satire, economy, society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/poliittinen-satiiri/viisastelu-elokapina-koneen-saatio-ja-perintovero/ - 2024-08-15 — [A quote without its context, a headline, and what journalism is for | Weekly Wiseguys, 15 August 2024](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/viisastelu-hallituksen-ja-ylen-dei-humppa/index.md): Sami Miettinen and MP Onni Rostila on Ivan Puopolo's Weekly Wiseguys, 15 August 2024, with Tere Sammallahti arriving late. It opens on a diversity commitment in the government programme and moves into the series' most precise media criticism: a quotation stripped of its context, the mismatch between a headline and the body of a story, and what follows when a journalist states publicly that journalism builds society. It ends on why Finnish sport is funded through the state rather than through foundations — and on who decides about phones at school. - sections: satire, society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/poliittinen-satiiri/viisastelu-hallituksen-ja-ylen-dei-humppa/ - 2024-07-01 — [Phone anxiety | Isak Rautio, Mikko Alasaarela | Negotiator 258](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep258-puhelinahdistus-isak-rautio-mikko-alasaarela/index.md): Recorded in Futucast's studio as one half of a twin episode, this is a working reading of Jonathan Haidt's The Anxious Generation with Futucast host Isak Rautio and algorithmic-influence specialist Mikko Alasaarela. The conversation traces social media's three waves — friend, follower, algorithm — explains why 85 per cent of games are now never-ending free-to-play, works through the American constitutional problem with banning TikTok, and ends on Miettinen's contrarian hope that a conversational AI interface could be addictive enough to rescue us from the short-video feed. - sections: society, tools - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/yhteiskunta/ep258-puhelinahdistus-isak-rautio-mikko-alasaarela/ - 2024-07-01 — [Social media and the anxious generation | Sami Miettinen on Futucast #465](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/futucast-465-sosiaalinen-media-ja-ahdistunut-sukupolvi/index.md): The other half of a twin recording made in Futucast's studio the same afternoon as Negotiator 258. Isak Rautio, Sami Miettinen and Mikko Alasaarela take Jonathan Haidt's The Anxious Generation in a different direction: the RC-car experiment that showed how fast a recommendation algorithm drifts, why boredom tolerance matters, what happened to boys, and whether the family unit that was supposed to replace all this still works. - sections: society, tools - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/yhteiskunta/futucast-465-sosiaalinen-media-ja-ahdistunut-sukupolvi/ - 2024-06-03 — [The European election, the Mannheim stabbing, and who gets to fly a flag | Weekly Wiseguys, 3 June 2024](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/viisastelu-rahat-tanne-saksan-puukkoisku-ja-ylen-budjetti/index.md): Sami Miettinen, Tere Sammallahti and MP Onni Rostila on Ivan Puopolo's Weekly Wiseguys, 3 June 2024, six days before the European election and three days after the Mannheim stabbing. It is one of the sharper episodes in the series, and it also contains its most careful request: the panel asks for shades of grey in the immigration debate and says out loud that immigration is not a monolith. The later sections cover flags on government buildings, media criticism and public broadcaster funding. This write-up separates the arguments from the unsourced figures. - sections: satire, society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/poliittinen-satiiri/viisastelu-rahat-tanne-saksan-puukkoisku-ja-ylen-budjetti/ - 2024-04-23 — [An MP explains a tax rise, and the table does not agree | Weekly Wiseguys, 23 April 2024](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/viisastelu-oikeistohallitus-ja-veronkorotukset-spesiaali/index.md): Sami Miettinen, MP Onni Rostila and — arriving late — Tere Sammallahti on Ivan Puopolo's Weekly Wiseguys, 23 April 2024, just after Petteri Orpo's government had agreed €1.5 billion in tax rises including a VAT increase to 25.5 per cent. This is the exception in the series: an MP from a governing party sits and explains the decision to people who disagree with it, and the disagreement runs the whole way through. Both sides make their best case, and both are recorded here. - sections: satire, economy, society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/poliittinen-satiiri/viisastelu-oikeistohallitus-ja-veronkorotukset-spesiaali/ - 2024-03-11 — [Strike special: who pays for a political strike, and who can end it | Weekly Wiseguys, 11 March 2024](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/viisasteluklubi-suuri-lakkospesiaali/index.md): Sami Miettinen and Tere Sammallahti on Ivan Puopolo's Weekly Wiseguys, 11 March 2024, the day political strikes in the transport sector began. An hour on a single subject, which is both the episode's strength and its weakness: the case against the right to political strike and against the universal applicability of collective agreements is made carefully, while the other side's best argument goes unaddressed. This write-up sorts the structural arguments from the unverified figures and the political predictions — and says what the episode leaves out. - sections: satire, economy, society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/poliittinen-satiiri/viisasteluklubi-suuri-lakkospesiaali/ - 2024-02-07 — [Agenda research, a minister's slip, and the line between fact and opinion | Weekly Wiseguys, 7 February 2024](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/viisastelu-hiilamon-yle-kolumni-ja-hakkasen-molautus/index.md): Sami Miettinen and the journalist Matti Virtanen on Ivan Puopolo's Weekly Wiseguys, 7 February 2024, ahead of the second round of the Finnish presidential election. The main subject is a column by Professor Heikki Hiilamo accusing the Etla research institute and his own former employer of agenda-driven research. The panel takes the claim apart — and then says the column was useful, because it forces the same question in the other direction. Virtanen has known the columnist for thirty years and says so. The most durable stretch is a distinction between questions of fact and questions of opinion, put in a way that cuts against the panel too. - sections: satire, economy, society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/poliittinen-satiiri/viisastelu-hiilamon-yle-kolumni-ja-hakkasen-molautus/ - 2023-12-08 — [What the Independence Day ball costs, explaining the PISA fall, and a case for being ordinary | Weekly Wiseguys, 8 December 2023](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/viisastelu-linnan-juhlat-ja-pisa-katastrofi/index.md): Sami Miettinen, Tere Sammallahti and MP Onni Rostila on Ivan Puopolo's Weekly Wiseguys, 8 December 2023, two days after Finland's Independence Day ball and three days after the PISA results. It opens on what the ball costs — and the panel, which sells "taxation is theft" T-shirts, ends up defending it. The main section is the PISA fall: incentives, inclusion, holding pupils back a year, two decades of rising per-pupil spending and the language question. It closes somewhere unexpected, with a case for an ordinary life. - sections: satire, society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/poliittinen-satiiri/viisastelu-linnan-juhlat-ja-pisa-katastrofi/ - 2023-11-20 — [Groceries delivered home | Juhana Rintala | Negotiator 223](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep223-ruoka-kotiin-verkkokaupasta-juhana-rintala/index.md): NOTE: this episode was made in commercial collaboration with Ruokaboksi, the guest is the company's founder and CEO, and the host is one of its influencer marketing partners. All three are disclosed. This article separates the structural observations from the sales pitch. The parts that hold up are the choke point in Finland's concentrated grocery market, the picking-efficiency figures that explain why grocery e-commerce is hard, the reason Oda failed, and Wolt's small-market playbook as an expansion model. The transcript is auto-captioning, which is disclosed. - sections: economy, society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/economy/ep223-ruoka-kotiin-verkkokaupasta-juhana-rintala/ - 2023-11-20 — [The eastern border, treaties that no longer fit, and a chainsaw in Buenos Aires | Weekly Wiseguys, 20 November 2023](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/viisastelu-rajat-kiinni-kv-sopimukset-ja-milei/index.md): Sami Miettinen, Tere Sammallahti and MP Onni Rostila on Ivan Puopolo's Weekly Wiseguys, 20 November 2023 — the Monday crossing points on Finland's south-eastern border were being closed and razor wire was going up. The episode works through the mechanics of the border situation at the level of an individual asylum claim, makes its most durable argument — that treaties written in the 1950s cannot be followed to the letter once everyone else has stopped — and ends in Argentina, where a self-described anarcho-capitalist had been elected president the day before. The panel's harshest passages on the Middle East are summarised here only as far as they can be checked. - sections: satire, society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/poliittinen-satiiri/viisastelu-rajat-kiinni-kv-sopimukset-ja-milei/ - 2023-11-14 — [A Finnish President | Jussi Halla-aho | Neuvottelija 222](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep222-suomalainen-presidentti-jussi-halla-aho/index.md): Speaker of the Finnish Parliament Jussi Halla-aho and Sami Miettinen discuss the Speaker's role, parliament as the core of democracy, and the Finnish party system's drift toward a bloc structure. The episode weighs the explanatory power of the left-right axis, the new cleavages replacing it, and the political mobilisation of trade unions against labour market reform. The conversation covers the Nord Stream sabotage, the future of Finnish-Russian economic relations, proposed settlements for the Middle East conflict, and the structural problems of immigration and integration. It closes on the communal value of institutions and traditions, and presidential value leadership. - sections: society, economy - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/yhteiskunta/ep222-suomalainen-presidentti-jussi-halla-aho/ - 2023-11-10 — [The Ahtisaari mystery — a negotiator's legacy | Alpo Rusi | Negotiator 221](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep221-martti-ahtisaari-palestiinassa-alpo-rusi/index.md): Dr Alpo Rusi, foreign policy adviser to President Martti Ahtisaari, joins Sami Miettinen in November 2023 — three weeks after Ahtisaari's death. The starting point is a sentence Ahtisaari said to Miettinen in an interview for the book Uusi neuvotteluvalta, and which kept nagging at him: after Namibia, did he intend to negotiate peace in the Middle East? Out of that comes an article on Ahtisaari's legacy as a negotiator — the Namibian mandate, the bombs behind the Kosovo mediation, Aceh's autonomy and Northern Ireland's outside verification — and on Rusi's counter-thesis that the morality of foreign policy is measured in outcomes. The episode contains a commercial partnership and a strongly opinionated Middle East section; both are disclosed. The transcript is auto-captioning. - sections: society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/yhteiskunta/ep221-martti-ahtisaari-palestiinassa-alpo-rusi/ - 2023-11-08 — [Envy day, marginal rates and the YEL trap | Ivan Puopolo | Negotiator 220](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep220-kateuspaiva-verot-yel-ivan-puopolo/index.md): Journalist and podcast host Ivan Puopolo joins Sami Miettinen in November 2023, just after Finland's annual publication of individual tax records. The episode is strongly opinionated and is marked as such; this article separates structural arguments from positions and either corrects or flags the contested claims. The most usable section is the breakdown of YEL, the Finnish self-employed pension: why a pay-as-you-go system carries demographic risk, and what the detail in the confirmed-income review procedure is that the episode calls a trap. The episode contains a commercial partnership, which is disclosed. The transcript is auto-captioning, also disclosed. - sections: economy, society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/economy/ep220-kateuspaiva-verot-yel-ivan-puopolo/ - 2023-10-31 — [Following the money — teaching children about money | Elina Lappalainen | Negotiator 218](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep218-rahan-jaljilla-elina-lappalainen/index.md): Growth-company journalist and non-fiction author Elina Lappalainen joins Sami Miettinen in October 2023 to discuss her children's book Tornihuoneen salaseura — Rahan jäljillä. The episode has an unusual structure: some of the questions were written by the host's child, and they are the best ones in it. There are two surprises in the substance: Finnish teenagers are not weak at financial literacy but near the top of the PISA comparison, and the most important money lesson for a child is not investing but a buffer. It ends with a direct conversation about the firewall between journalism and commercial collaboration — on a channel that does both. The transcript is auto-captioning, which is disclosed. - sections: society, economy - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/yhteiskunta/ep218-rahan-jaljilla-elina-lappalainen/ - 2023-10-23 — [A critique of intersectional feminism | Binga Tupamäki | Negotiator 217](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep217-intersektionaalinen-feminismi-binga-tupamaki/index.md): Lawyer Binga Tupamäki joins Sami Miettinen in October 2023, during the leadership contest of the National Coalition Youth. The episode is strongly opinionated and is marked as such. The most durable part is the critique of identity classification, which grows out of the guest's own position as an international adoptee: the categories break down at the edges, and the people at those edges are the ones who have to explain themselves. The other half is the claim that intersectionality descends from Marxism and that critical theory abandons objectivity — a genuine but contested argument, presented here as one. The transcript is auto-captioning, which is disclosed. - sections: society, economy - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/yhteiskunta/ep217-intersektionaalinen-feminismi-binga-tupamaki/ - 2023-10-17 — [Fibre takes over Finland | Heikki Kaunisto | Negotiator 216](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep216-valokuitu-valloittaa-suomen-heikki-kaunisto/index.md): NOTE: this episode was made in commercial collaboration with Valokuitunen Oy, and the guest is its CEO. This article separates the structural observations from the sales pitch and marks which is which. The parts that hold up are why Nokia's legacy explains Finland's lag in fibre, the difference between the open and closed network models — that is, that a free connection is paid for later in the service fee — and why competition happens before construction and therefore produces disappointed customers. The transcript is auto-captioning, which is disclosed. - sections: economy, society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/economy/ep216-valokuitu-valloittaa-suomen-heikki-kaunisto/ - 2023-10-11 — [The second wave of renewable energy | Jussi Lilja, Toni Perätalo | Negotiator 215](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep215-uusiutuvan-energian-2-aalto-jussi-lilja-toni-peratalo/index.md): NOTE: this episode was made in commercial collaboration with Korkia, and both guests work for the company. This article separates the episode's structural observations from the fund marketing and marks which is which. Jussi Lilja and Toni Perätalo join Sami Miettinen in October 2023. The parts that hold up are the chicken-and-egg argument about power prices and investment, the point that a project's durable value lies in the grid connection rather than the land, agri-PV — solar panels raised above farmland — and the answer to the question of whether wind power's golden age is over. The transcript is auto-captioning, which is disclosed. - sections: economy, society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/economy/ep215-uusiutuvan-energian-2-aalto-jussi-lilja-toni-peratalo/ - 2023-10-05 — [Investing in about 50 minutes | Merja Mähkä, Esa Juntunen | Negotiator 214](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep214-sijoittaminen-noin-50-minuutissa-merja-mahka-esa-juntunen/index.md): Merja Mähkä and Esa Juntunen join Sami Miettinen in September 2023, each with a new book on investing. It is an unusually honest beginner's guide, because both guests also tell you their own mistakes: the dividend trap, a cyclical steelmaker as a first investment during the financial crisis, the pain of selling Kone, and the host's own Russia blunder. The load-bearing claims are time diversification, costs, and Bessenbinder's finding that only a few per cent of stocks produce the index return — from which follows that a thirty-stock diversification theory is not enough. The episode has two guests and no speaker labels, which is disclosed. The transcript is auto-captioning, which is disclosed. - sections: economy, society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/economy/ep214-sijoittaminen-noin-50-minuutissa-merja-mahka-esa-juntunen/ - 2023-09-29 — [The negotiating president | Pekka Haavisto | Negotiator 213](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep213-neuvotteleva-presidentti-pekka-haavisto/index.md): Presidential candidate Pekka Haavisto joins Sami Miettinen in September 2023, four months before the election. The spine of the episode is four negotiating theses Haavisto formulated out of the Darfur peace talks: giving space and listening with the other side, directness even about genocide, consistent truthfulness with no separate story for each party, and the rule that a warning must be carried out. Around them sit the good cop / bad cop arrangement of the NATO process with Turkey and Hungary, the question of what diplomacy can still do inside a war, and a critique of Africa policy that lands on Europe. This is a candidate interview during a campaign, which is disclosed. The transcript is auto-captioning, which is disclosed. - sections: society, economy - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/yhteiskunta/ep213-neuvotteleva-presidentti-pekka-haavisto/ - 2023-09-21 — [Dividend tax and the equity savings account 2.0 | Victor Snellman | Negotiator 212](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep212-osakesaastotil-isommaksi-victor-snellman/index.md): Victor Snellman, CEO of the Finnish Shareholders' Association, joins Sami Miettinen in September 2023. The load-bearing claim is structural: inside an otherwise progressive tax system, dividend taxation is regressive for the small investor — a private individual pays an effective rate above 40 per cent on top of corporation tax, while an owner above the 10 per cent threshold receives dividends tax-free. The other half is the equity savings account and its limits. Also: Euroclear's shareholder counts, an alternative use of Solidium's portfolio through call options, and the shareholder-meeting fight over Fortum's Solidium loan. The transcript is auto-captioning, which is disclosed. - sections: economy, society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/economy/ep212-osakesaastotil-isommaksi-victor-snellman/ - 2023-09-13 — [The State Pension Fund and five near-crises | Timo Löyttyniemi | Negotiator 211](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep211-valtion-elakerahasto-kriisit-timo-loyttyniemi/index.md): Timo Löyttyniemi, CEO of the State Pension Fund of Finland (VER), joins Sami Miettinen in September 2023. The episode is an unusual combination: the same person raised the funding ratio of Finnish state pensions from 8 per cent to roughly 25, and sat on the EU Single Resolution Board building bail-in to replace bail-out. That produces two time horizons on one subject — a fund already turned into run-off, and a banking system that came close to systemic crisis five times in a single year. The most interesting part is what Löyttyniemi questions inside his own industry: whether the solvency capital of the Finnish TyEL system has an economic rationale, and whether it is procyclical. The transcript is auto-captioning, which is disclosed. - sections: economy, society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/economy/ep211-valtion-elakerahasto-kriisit-timo-loyttyniemi/ - 2023-09-08 — [AI and me | Petteri Järvinen | Negotiator 210](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep210-tekoaly-ja-mina-petteri-jarvinen/index.md): Author Petteri Järvinen joins Sami Miettinen in September 2023 to discuss his book Tekoäly ja minä ("AI and me"). It is a consoling book turned into a conversation: people cope, professions die and are born, and the Luddites have always been wrong. Underneath run two questions that do not resolve — how anyone takes responsibility for a neural network’s decision when it cannot give its reasons, and what happens when bias is corrected by distorting the data. The practical takeaway is the line between summarising and extrapolating. The transcript is auto-captioning, which is disclosed. - sections: society, tools - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/yhteiskunta/ep210-tekoaly-ja-mina-petteri-jarvinen/ - 2023-08-28 — [The economy holds, Finland does not | Sami Miettinen on 23 minuuttia #708](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/23-minuuttia-708-talous-kestaa-suomi-ei/index.md): A year after the Uniper negotiation, Miettinen returns to score it: what the worst case would have been, why the German state's stake was priced the way it was, and what Germany did with the gas price the moment it took control. From there to why he is unsentimental about Germany's industrial decline, why Finland managed to get poorer in nominal dollars, where the next banking crisis actually sits, and whether the BRICS bloc is anything to worry about. - sections: economy, society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/economy/23-minuuttia-708-talous-kestaa-suomi-ei/ - 2023-08-22 — [Finland’s economy and the second cold war | Ville Valkonen | Negotiator 208](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep208-suomen-talous-ja-toinen-kylma-sota-ville-valkonen/index.md): National Coalition MP Ville Valkonen joins Sami Miettinen in August 2023, two months into Petteri Orpo’s government. The episode works through the programme’s economic section in order: housing, property tax, the labour market, social security, taxation, and where the €6 billion adjustment is supposed to come from. The most interesting single figure is inheritance tax — some €800 million a year out of a tax take above €110 billion — and the question built around it of what changing the tax type would actually cost. It closes on Valkonen’s long argument about a second cold war. The guest is both a governing-party MP and a housing investor; both are disclosed. - sections: economy, society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/economy/ep208-suomen-talous-ja-toinen-kylma-sota-ville-valkonen/ - 2023-08-09 — [The construction union is after the entrepreneurs | Katariina Komulainen, Tia Kiiskinen | Negotiator 206](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep206-rakennusliitto-yrittajien-kimpussa-komulainen-kiiskinen/index.md): Katariina Komulainen, business director at Euro Work, and Tia Kiiskinen, growth director at Yrittäjän Tili ja Laki, join Sami Miettinen in August 2023. The episode is about what happened on Finnish building sites in June 2023, when people working through invoicing services were removed from the sites — and why traditional sole traders went out with them. This write-up sets out the four forms of entrepreneurship, the motive behind the YEL pension reform and the co-operative model, and marks what in the episode is a structural argument and what is an assessment of the other side's intentions. The episode was made in commercial collaboration with Euro Work, and no trade union representative is present. - sections: economy, society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/economy/ep206-rakennusliitto-yrittajien-kimpussa-komulainen-kiiskinen/ - 2023-07-27 — [The Wiseguys Club and the media rage | Ivan Puopolo | Negotiator 204](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep204-viisasteluklubi-ja-mediaraivo-ivan-puopolo/index.md): Ivan Puopolo joins Sami Miettinen in July 2023, in the middle of the press storm that followed the new right-wing government taking office. This is the Weekly Wiseguys club’s own backstory: why the programme started, whether its format survives now that its guests sit in government, and what separates a video column from news journalism. The weightiest section asks whether a columnist may be criticised by name — and this write-up separates the media-ethics argument in it from what the panel leaves out. The transcript is YouTube auto-captioning, which limits quotation; that is disclosed. - sections: society, satire - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/yhteiskunta/ep204-viisasteluklubi-ja-mediaraivo-ivan-puopolo/ - 2023-07-24 — [Purra, ministerial resignations, taxes and opinion polls | Sami Miettinen | Negotiator 203](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep203-purran-ja-ministerien-erot-gallupit-sami-miettinen/index.md): A July 2023 summer episode in which Sami Miettinen goes through the season's surveys alone: MTV's online panel on Riikka Purra's resignation, Jethro Rostedt's and Jessikka Aro's Twitter polls, the Helsingin Sanomat poll and the channel's own votes. This write-up treats the sampling question openly — none of the surveys named is a probability sample — and unpacks the episode's weightiest single claim, the eight billion euro error on the tax rate, so the reader can check it themselves. The episode is the host's own commentary, and that is disclosed. - sections: society, economy - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/yhteiskunta/ep203-purran-ja-ministerien-erot-gallupit-sami-miettinen/ - 2023-07-07 — [The Government as a Culture-War Target | Sari Essayah | Negotiator 201](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep201-hallitus-kulttuurisodan-maalina-sari-essayah/index.md): Sari Essayah, chair of the Christian Democrats and minister of agriculture and forestry, reviews the government's bumpy start. She begins with her account of an Ilta-Sanomat story linking her and Elina Valtonen to a budget motion by Wilhelm Junnila: the paper misread the voting lists, no comment was sought, and the correction ran at the foot of the article. Her diagnosis of the summer is structural — with no bills yet introduced there is no political substance to argue about, so the argument circles around it. On the brief: income distribution along the food chain, an oligopolistic grocery market, and her defence of the eight per cent, fermentation-only limit on wine in shops. On EU influence: send the minister early, do not rely on the civil-service level. It closes on why portfolios follow the programme, the half portfolio as a negotiating win, assessments of Orpo, Purra and Henriksson, and social security reform — her strongest figure being that Finland has twice as many people on last-resort income support as Sweden. Published 7 July 2023. - sections: society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/yhteiskunta/ep201-hallitus-kulttuurisodan-maalina-sari-essayah/ - 2023-06-29 — [Prigozhin against Putin | Pekka Toveri | Negotiator 199](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep199-prigozin-vs-putin-pekka-toveri/index.md): MP and former head of Finnish military intelligence Pekka Toveri reviews Wagner's midsummer mutiny a week after the events. The operation was, he says, competently planned — heavy transporters in place, logistics arranged, Rostov secured the rear — until Prigozhin lost his nerve. The best structural explanation concerns why Prigozhin was allowed to rage at all: in the good tsar, bad boyars model he served as a lightning rod, so the accusations never reached Putin. The mutiny exposed four things: the rear is empty, nobody defended, information does not move inside the administration, and a dictator does not get accurate information. Toveri dismisses the staged-coup theory with two arguments. It closes on the counteroffensive: a Russian defence 20 to 30 kilometres deep whose first line has not yet been broken. Published 29 June 2023. - sections: society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/yhteiskunta/ep199-prigozin-vs-putin-pekka-toveri/ - 2023-06-26 — [Into the Neuvottelija Inner Circle? | Sami Miettinen | Negotiator 198](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep198-neuvottelija-sisapiiriin-sami-miettinen/index.md): An announcement of under three minutes: Sami Miettinen opens a YouTube membership on the channel. Members get four things — an after-session recorded with the guest of each episode, his own Neuvottelija analyses of things like the government programme or the Fortum-Uniper deal, episodes made on member request, and particularly careful replies to comments. The essential limit is stated plainly: the public feed remains the bulk of the channel's content regardless, so this is an addition rather than a paywall. The working title is Neuvottelija Platinum, and inner-circle episodes will be marked in platinum rather than the usual purple. Published 26 June 2023. - sections: society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/yhteiskunta/ep198-neuvottelija-sisapiiriin-sami-miettinen/ - 2023-06-16 — [The Right-Wing Government Pulled It Off! | Marko Junkkari | Negotiator 196](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep196-oikeistohallitus-onnistui-marko-junkkari/index.md): Marko Junkkari, political journalist at Helsingin Sanomat, assesses Petteri Orpo's forming government the day before the programme was published, so everything said is the state of knowledge at the time of recording rather than a report of what was agreed. Leaks have been unusually scarce. Three market liberalisations: parliamentary unanimity on the gambling monopoly, pharmacy rules where the online stock requirement looks set to go, and a rise to eight per cent on alcohol. The sharpest analysis concerns the housing allowance, where the mechanism rather than the size of the roughly 350-million-euro cut determines who it lands on. The strongest structural claim is that Finland has moved from three parties taking turns to a zigzag between blocs. Host and guest disagree on the record about impact assessments and about taxation powers for the wellbeing services counties. It closes on the opposition's profiles, Lindtman's rise, the EU packages and protectionism, and a forecast of a very tight first presidential round. Published 16 June 2023. - sections: society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/yhteiskunta/ep196-oikeistohallitus-onnistui-marko-junkkari/ - 2023-06-08 — [What is a woman, who funds Pride, and what happens when the majority goes | Weekly Wiseguys, 8 June 2023](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/viisastelu-mika-on-nainen-velkaviisikko-ja-tucker-carlson/index.md): Sami Miettinen, Tere Sammallahti and the writer and journalist Matti Virtanen on Ivan Puopolo's Weekly Wiseguys, 8 June 2023. The episode works through Matt Walsh's documentary What is a Woman and the definitional fight around it, the first instalment of Tucker Carlson's show after its move to Twitter — whose media criticism the panel accepts and whose author it dismisses in the same breath — and the public funding of Helsinki Pride, on which the panel genuinely disagrees with itself. It closes on its most ambitious idea: that the legitimacy of Finland's state monopolies and of universally binding collective agreements is pinned to majority support, and that the majority is going. - sections: satire, economy, society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/poliittinen-satiiri/viisastelu-mika-on-nainen-velkaviisikko-ja-tucker-carlson/ - 2023-06-04 — [The Coalition Talks | Sami Miettinen and Elli Harju on Puheenaihe 348](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/puheenaihe-348-hallitusneuvottelut-harju-miettinen/index.md): A media appearance. On Puheenaihe, hosted by Leevi Leivo, Iltalehti political journalist Elli Harju and Sami Miettinen review Finland's 2023 coalition negotiations in their fifth week, before any programme has been published. Harju opens up the daily routine at Säätytalo and why the motive behind a leak must always be assessed. Miettinen's running claim is procedural: the programme locks in too much in advance, and the Finnish fixation on a single defeated bill bringing down a government is incomprehensible. He forecasts that no other government can come out of this parliament, and reads the coalition on two axes: exceptionally coherent on economics, scattered on values. Harju disputes part of it. The single best observation is that the National Coalition chairs all eight reform tables and therefore writes the base papers. It closes on the Centre Party's choice, the leadership of Purra and Orpo, and both speakers' forecasts of what will actually change. Recorded 2 June 2023, published 4 June 2023. - sections: society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/yhteiskunta/puheenaihe-348-hallitusneuvottelut-harju-miettinen/ - 2023-05-26 — [Pride and the Coalition, moving defamation to the civil courts, and the arithmetic of coalition talks | Weekly Wiseguys, 26 May 2023](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/viisastelu-pride-oikeistohallitus-ja-sananvapaus/index.md): Sami Miettinen, Tere Sammallahti and MP Onni Rostila on Ivan Puopolo's Weekly Wiseguys, 26 May 2023 — recorded in the middle of Petteri Orpo's coalition negotiations, on the day the Finns Party had set a deadline on immigration policy. Three items: Helsinki Pride's decision to end its partnership with the National Coalition Party, Sammallahti's own deliberation about filing a criminal complaint over being called a Nazi online and the proposal that follows from it — move defamation out of criminal law and into the civil courts — and Miettinen's reasoning for why he does not expect the talks to collapse. Two places where the panel openly disagrees with itself are left in. - sections: satire, economy, society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/poliittinen-satiiri/viisastelu-pride-oikeistohallitus-ja-sananvapaus/ - 2023-04-08 — [Two New Right-Wing MPs | Onni Rostila, Tere Sammallahti | Negotiator 187](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep187-oikeistokansanedustajat-rostila-sammallahti/index.md): Two newly elected MPs from Uusimaa the day after Finland's April 2023 result: Onni Rostila of the Finns Party and Tere Sammallahti of the National Coalition. A short episode whose most durable content is the electoral arithmetic of Finland's largest constituency — the National Coalition's threshold for a seat in Uusimaa rose from 3,400 votes to 5,200 in four years, and Riikka Purra's landslide personal vote took thousands of votes from her own party's sitting MPs. Both men built their campaigns on YouTube, and the episode is a practical account of what seat allocation looks like from the inside on election night. Published 8 April 2023. - sections: society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/yhteiskunta/ep187-oikeistokansanedustajat-rostila-sammallahti/ - 2023-04-05 — [The Government After Sanna Marin | Jari Hanska | Negotiator 186](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep186-sanna-marinin-jalkeinen-hallitus-jari-hanska/index.md): Jari Hanska of Iltalehti, lead anchor of the Politiikan puskaradio podcast, unpacks Finland's April 2023 election two days after the result — on the same day Finland became a NATO member. The sharpest analytical point is that the three largest parties gained twenty seats between them and every one of those came from the middle-sized parties that had themselves been in government, which Hanska argues is too large to be explained by tactical voting. The episode also contains an unusually concrete exchange about minority government, in which Hanska identifies the constitutional obstacle and Miettinen proposes an experiment; the migration of political campaigning from Twitter to TikTok and YouTube; and a naming culture in which one flank is fascism and the other communism. Published 5 April 2023. - sections: society, economy - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/yhteiskunta/ep186-sanna-marinin-jalkeinen-hallitus-jari-hanska/ - 2023-03-31 — [The Christian Democrats Rise, Feet on the Ground | Sari Essayah | Negotiator 185](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep185-kd-nousee-jalat-maassa-sari-essayah/index.md): Sari Essayah, leader of the Christian Democrats, as the last guest before Finland's April 2023 election — on the morning Yle's final poll put her party past the Swedish People's Party. The episode's most durable observation is not the polling but the coalition arithmetic: when every other party has announced who it will not govern with, the one that has ruled nobody out becomes the party without which a government may not form. Also a sharp critique of the timing of Finnish EU influence — a position should be taken when a directive is still a glint in the Commission's eye — extending earnings-related unemployment benefit to everyone on a tapered basis, a defence of home care allowance resting on a comparison rarely made, and a language supplement for integration. Published 31 March 2023. - sections: society, economy - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/yhteiskunta/ep185-kd-nousee-jalat-maassa-sari-essayah/ - 2023-03-22 — [Economics Instead of Number Magic | Martin Paasi, Elina Valtonen | Negotiator 183](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep183-talous-numeromagian-tilalle-paasi-valtonen/index.md): Two National Coalition candidates ten days before Finland's April 2023 election: Nordnet economist Martin Paasi and MP Elina Valtonen. The most usable part is not the campaign pitch but the unpicking of a concept: making something more efficient is not the same as cutting it, and Paasi illustrates the difference with a concrete health centre example. Also Paasi's proposal that Finland simply telephone the hundred most growth-hungry companies in the world and ask directly what an investment here would require; criticism of promising Hornets to Ukraine rather than building Finnish defence capacity; ministerial competence in negotiations such as the Uniper deal; and work-based immigration, labour market testing and Estonia's flat tax. Published 22 March 2023. - sections: economy, society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/economy/ep183-talous-numeromagian-tilalle-paasi-valtonen/ - 2023-03-09 — [The Shadow Viisasteluklubi, a Right-Wing Takeover | Tere Sammallahti, Onni Rostila | Negotiator 180](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep180-varjoviisasteluklubi-oikeistokaappaus-sammallahti-rostila/index.md): Two parliamentary candidates from Uusimaa, Tere Sammallahti (National Coalition, 78) and Onni Rostila (Finns Party, 341), in the format of Ivan Puopolo's satire show a month before Finland's 2023 election. Subjects include Estonia's election result and its 21 per cent flat tax, the size of the public sector, the adjustment list the finance ministry's budget chief took public, the equality ombudsman's opinion on a school assignment in Salo — which Rostila answers as a lawyer by pointing to the absence of any weighing of fundamental rights — and campaign ethics, where both had signs torn down and Sammallahti describes his team putting competing parties' signs back up. All positions belong to the guests. Published 9 March 2023. - sections: society, economy - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/yhteiskunta/ep180-varjoviisasteluklubi-oikeistokaappaus-sammallahti-rostila/ - 2023-03-02 — [Values Adrift, the Rule of Law at Risk | Heikki Pursiainen, Kai Lintunen | Negotiator 178](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep178-arvot-hukassa-oikeusvaltio-vaarassa-pursiainen-lintunen/index.md): Two National Coalition candidates a month before Finland's April 2023 parliamentary election: economist Heikki Pursiainen from Helsinki and lawyer-economist Kai Lintunen from Uusimaa. The heaviest part of the episode is a long exchange on constitutional review — why Finland has no constitutional court, why the Constitutional Law Committee speaks in the conditional, and why an individual finds it hard in practice to invoke fundamental rights before a court. Also state ownership from Fortum to Patria, the universal applicability of collective agreements as privatised legislation, and a sharp disagreement about which side of the spectrum fascism and national socialism belong to. Published 2 March 2023. - sections: society, economy - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/yhteiskunta/ep178-arvot-hukassa-oikeusvaltio-vaarassa-pursiainen-lintunen/ - 2023-02-21 — [A broken election compass, a school tool nobody was meant to see, and the choice of base year | Weekly Wiseguys, 21 February 2023](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/viisastelu-hsn-vaalikone-s2-tulokset-ja-verovalheet/index.md): Sami Miettinen and Tere Sammallahti on Ivan Puopolo's Weekly Wiseguys, 21 February 2023, six weeks before the Finnish parliamentary election. Three stories, all of them about the same question: who decides which numbers a citizen gets to see. Helsingin Sanomat's election compass gave one question double weight, the paper conceded the error — and, the panel argues, the arithmetic still fails to reconcile after the fix. A public-broadcaster tool comparing schools was demanded taken down, and Yle kept it up. A claim that taxation has quietly fallen is taken apart on the choice of base year. The episode is tongue-in-cheek, sharp-edged and sometimes overshoots — those passages are marked too. - sections: satire, economy, society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/poliittinen-satiiri/viisastelu-hsn-vaalikone-s2-tulokset-ja-verovalheet/ - 2023-02-20 — [Sinking Finland into the Bermuda Triangle | Petri Roininen | Neuvottelija 176](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep176-suomi-upotetaan-bermudan-kolmioon-petri-roininen/index.md): Petri Roininen, chair of the Finnish party Korjausliike, draws Finland's situation as a Bermuda Triangle whose corners are one of the world's highest total tax rates, a decade and a half of zero growth, and households among Western Europe's least wealthy. He proposes balancing public finances immediately rather than over two parliamentary terms, and as means, flattening tax progression, a privatisation programme and extending a single dividend tax rate to all owners. The discussion opens up the entrepreneur's five-tax wedge and how construction taxation creates the need for housing benefit. Published 19 February 2023. - sections: economy, society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/economy/ep176-suomi-upotetaan-bermudan-kolmioon-petri-roininen/ - 2023-02-17 — [Finland Is Not a Free Market Economy | Lasse Pipinen & Tero Lundstedt | Neuvottelija 175](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep175-suomi-ei-ole-vapaa-markkinatalous-pipinen-lundstedt/index.md): Lasse Pipinen, executive director of the Finnish liberal think tank Libera, and content director Tero Lundstedt answer the claim that the age of think tanks is over. At the centre is Libera's two-billion-euro list of spending cuts, deliberately built from easy, research-backed targets — and which nonetheless brought the interest groups out. The episode asks why value liberalism advances in Finland while economic reform stalls, and why the process consequences of political decisions are so rarely worked out. Also covered are the think tank's funding model and its independence from public money. Published 12 February 2023. - sections: society, economy - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/yhteiskunta/ep175-suomi-ei-ole-vapaa-markkinatalous-pipinen-lundstedt/ - 2023-02-15 — [A minister's explanation, boys at school, and a balloon | Weekly Wiseguys, 15 February 2023](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/viisastelu-lintilan-selitykset-pojat-ja-ruotsin-tie/index.md): Sami Miettinen and Seida Sohrabi, a National Coalition parliamentary candidate, on Ivan Puopolo's Weekly Wiseguys, 15 February 2023. Sohrabi is the strongest voice in the episode and also its most moderate: she gives a first-hand account of working as a classroom support teacher, corrects the panel's generalisations with her own counter-example, and describes defending at university the right of a candidate she disagrees with to stand for election. On a minister's claim that his messaging account was hijacked the panel builds a logical case — and then dismantles part of its own reasoning. It closes on the objects shot down over North America and the question of where airspace ends. - sections: satire, society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/poliittinen-satiiri/viisastelu-lintilan-selitykset-pojat-ja-ruotsin-tie/ - 2023-02-10 — [The Owner's Will | Timo Leino, Markku Pohjola & Harri Saukkomaa | Neuvottelija 174](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep174-omistajan-tahto-leino-pohjola-saukkomaa/index.md): The three authors of the Finnish book The Owner's Will come straight from its launch to explain what ownership means in practice, from private equity to cooperatives and from trade unions to family firms. The through-line is what happens when the owner's will is left unclear: the vacuum is filled by management's own idea. Posti, VR, Fortum and Sampo serve as cases, alongside activist investors as constructive owners. Also raised is the question of who you actually own alongside. Published 5 February 2023. - sections: economy, society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/economy/ep174-omistajan-tahto-leino-pohjola-saukkomaa/ - 2023-01-31 — [The Erdoğan cartoons, and three different positions on tax | Weekly Wiseguys, 31 January 2023](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/viisastelu-miesten-menkat-pilakuvakisa-ja-miljonaarivero/index.md): Sami Miettinen and Joakim Vigelius, chair of the Finns Party youth organisation, on Ivan Puopolo's Weekly Wiseguys, 31 January 2023. The two best passages are disagreements. The first is about a left-wing youth organisation's Erdoğan cartoon competition: two speakers treat it as a free-speech question, Miettinen treats it as a question of national interest and reaches for a wartime precedent — and neither side moves. The second is about tax, where three right-of-centre speakers arrive at three different positions, from abolishing progression to conceding that there is no public mandate for dismantling the welfare state. It opens with Vigelius's first-hand account of being removed from a university lecture. - sections: satire, economy, society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/poliittinen-satiiri/viisastelu-miesten-menkat-pilakuvakisa-ja-miljonaarivero/ - 2023-01-27 — [Cut Taxes on Work, Curb the Waste | Ville Valkonen & Heikki Vestman | Neuvottelija 172](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep172-tyon-verot-alas-tuhlaus-kuriin-valkonen-vestman/index.md): National Coalition MPs Ville Valkonen and Heikki Vestman argue that the government term's greatest failure is not only the money handed out but everything that was left undone. They propose 8 to 10 billion in consolidation over two parliamentary terms and a billion in relief on the taxation of work, because marginal rates destroy the incentive to take on extra work. Vestman sets out the electricity crisis remedies in unusual detail, from a lower technical price cap to demand flexibility through smart meters and a reform of the market model. The discussion also covers slow permitting, restricting appeal rights, and overhauling the labour market. Published 22 January 2023. - sections: economy, society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/economy/ep172-tyon-verot-alas-tuhlaus-kuriin-valkonen-vestman/ - 2023-01-24 — [The Finns Rise, Marin Blundered | Juhani Huopainen & Onni Rostila | Neuvottelija 171](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep171-persut-nousee-marin-mokasi-huopainen-rostila/index.md): Prime Minister Sanna Marin ruled out governing with the Finns Party just as the polls turned, and this episode unpacks what the guests believe lies behind that line. Juhani Huopainen and Onni Rostila argue that the Social Democrats have drifted far from their labour-party roots, and assess what a bloc contest means for the spring parliamentary election. The discussion runs from the recovery fund's negotiated outcome to the EU restoration regulation and to a total tax rate that has passed Sweden's. It also covers how business lobbies got a green-left government to pass a subsidy comparable in scale to a corporate tax cut. Published 15 January 2023. - sections: society, economy - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/yhteiskunta/ep171-persut-nousee-marin-mokasi-huopainen-rostila/ - 2023-01-15 — [The Realism of War and Mearsheimer | Mika Aaltola | Neuvottelija 170](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep170-sodan-realismi-ja-mearsheimer-mika-aaltola/index.md): Mika Aaltola, director of the Finnish Institute of International Affairs, recounts the first year of the war in Ukraine in diary form and assesses where his own forecasts landed and where they missed. At the centre of the discussion is structural realism and Mearsheimer's sphere-of-influence thinking, which from a small state's point of view is bleak and historically a poor predictor of stability. Aaltola also opens up the dynamics of Finland's NATO process, how Washington's messages should be read, and why public opinion turned before the political leadership. He treats Russia's strategic culture as a durable structure and forecasts that the war will end in a frozen conflict rather than a peace treaty. Published 8 January 2023. - sections: society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/yhteiskunta/ep170-sodan-realismi-ja-mearsheimer-mika-aaltola/ - 2023-01-02 — [Cut Nine Billion of Waste! | Lassi Kivinen | Neuvottelija 168](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep168-leikataan-9-miljardia-turhaa-lassi-kivinen/index.md): Lassi Kivinen, chair of Finland's Liberal Party, presents a nine-billion-euro list of spending cuts and justifies it by sorting the budget into public and private goods. Defence, the police and the courts are untouched, but business subsidies, culture funding, the public broadcaster Yle and the gambling-monopoly grant system come under the magnifying glass. The discussion runs from structural corruption to the incentive flaw in the wellbeing services counties' funding model, and to why a transfer payment seems to be Finland's answer to every problem. Kivinen also argues that it is not the state's job to employ people or to sell below market price. Published 27 December 2022. - sections: economy, society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/economy/ep168-leikataan-9-miljardia-turhaa-lassi-kivinen/ - 2022-12-30 — [A lie, a shaded truth, and the year's accounts | Weekly Wiseguys, 30 December 2022](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/viisastelu-vuoden-2022-woketukset-ja-marinin-valheet/index.md): The last episode of the year, with four people: Sami Miettinen, Tere Sammallahti and MP Onni Rostila on Ivan Puopolo's Weekly Wiseguys, 30 December 2022. The best passage in the first half is a distinction the panel draws against its own headline: lying requires knowledge, a false statement does not — and for accountability purposes the difference changes nothing. The host also flags his own choice of words in his own video as a mistake. The second half is the year in figures: excess mortality, borrowing set against Denmark's, Finland's rank among taxing countries, and the Credit Suisse finding that Finland was the only Nordic country where average wealth fell in 2021. - sections: satire, economy, society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/poliittinen-satiiri/viisastelu-vuoden-2022-woketukset-ja-marinin-valheet/ - 2022-12-25 — [Worries About the Economy and Unemployment | Mauri Kotamäki | Neuvottelija 167](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep167-kansantalouden-huolet-ja-tyottomyys-mauri-kotamaki/index.md): Mauri Kotamäki, chief economist of Finnvera, reviews the macro picture at the turn of the year: central banks are slowing the pace of rate rises, inflation turns first in the United States and later in Europe. The discussion also assesses whether fiscal dominance was really the constraint many expected, and why accelerating inflation in Japan is big news. Kotamäki uses data to separate how much of the rise in employment is policy and how much is world growth, and why Finland's structural unemployment remains high. It closes on electricity subsidies, the self-employed pension reform, and an analogy between the Chinese and Soviet growth models. Published 25 December 2022. - sections: economy, society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/economy/ep167-kansantalouden-huolet-ja-tyottomyys-mauri-kotamaki/ - 2022-12-18 — [The Left Horrified by Twitter | Ivan Puopolo and Onni Rostila | Neuvottelija 166](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep166-vasemmisto-kauhuissaan-twitterista-puopolo-rostila/index.md): Ivan Puopolo and Onni Rostila assess what really happened to Twitter after the change of ownership and whether free speech has increased or the centre of gravity has merely shifted. The discussion moves quickly to the commercial side: costs have been cut, but advertising revenue is caught between Apple and the platform economy. The guests' disagreement about the principle of non-discrimination and platform regulation is the episode's most interesting tension, and the EU's Digital Services Act and America's Section 230 both attach to it. It closes on the Finnish climate of opinion, blocking, and why the columnist field produces such uniform writing. Published 18 December 2022. - sections: society, tools - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/yhteiskunta/ep166-vasemmisto-kauhuissaan-twitterista-puopolo-rostila/ - 2022-12-15 — [A study with no control group | Weekly Wiseguys, 15 December 2022](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/viisastelu-vihapuhetutkimus-ja-sananvapaus/index.md): This episode is about a single study: a justice-ministry commission on hate speech directed at government ministers, in which one researcher hand-coded 10,000 tweets. The panel's criticism is methodological rather than political, and it holds up: there was no control group, follower counts were given in absolute terms without any denominator, and accusations of corruption and of lying were classified as hate speech. The strongest single observation is that the government's own appointed expert on criminalising "targeting" had reached the opposite conclusion to the one in the government programme. It closes on the conflation of humanitarian and work-based immigration — which the panel says happens on their own side too. - sections: satire, society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/poliittinen-satiiri/viisastelu-vihapuhetutkimus-ja-sananvapaus/ - 2022-12-06 — [Negotiating your own pay rise | Sami Miettinen on Sijoituskästi #102](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/sijoituskasti-102-nain-neuvottelet-palkankorotuksen/index.md): Teemu Liila and Kevin van Dessel ask for the step-by-step version rather than the platitudes, and get it: use Finland's open tax records to plot your colleagues' pay against their tenure, set the promotion conversation eighteen months early, come back with the goals your boss gave you, and then stay quiet. Around it, an unusually candid tour of investment banking — Credit Suisse First Boston hours, the Nordea deal Miettinen calls his biggest win and his biggest failure at once, project code names, fee structures, and why he stopped hiring his own mirror image. - sections: economy, society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/economy/sijoituskasti-102-nain-neuvottelet-palkankorotuksen/ - 2022-11-24 — [Finland's Decline | Tuomas Malinen | Neuvottelija 163](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep163-suomen-alennustila-tuomas-malinen/index.md): Economist Tuomas Malinen explains why he is preparing to leave Finland and what he believes has gone badly wrong. The conversation runs from the problems of the Constitutional Law Committee to the unexamined questions of the 1990s banking crisis and on to the structures of the euro area. Malinen sets out his own reading of central bank money, the ECB's purchase programmes and the autumn crisis in British pension funds, and why he regards local currencies as a form of preparedness. It closes on the public debate of the Covid years and why speaking about certain subjects leads to being labelled. The views are the guest's own and contested in many places. Published 24 November 2022. - sections: society, economy - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/yhteiskunta/ep163-suomen-alennustila-tuomas-malinen/ - 2022-11-20 — [The Unrestrained Man of the National Coalition | Sture Fjäder | Neuvottelija 162](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep162-kokoomuksen-hilliton-mies-sture-fjader/index.md): Sture Fjäder, long-standing president of the Akava confederation, is moving into politics and says plainly why. The episode covers public debt, an employment rate lagging the other Nordics, and the question Fjäder says is never asked: is everything currently financed from tax revenue actually needed. He argues for lower income tax, Canadian-style work-based immigration and voucher-funded primary healthcare. It also contains criticism of the nurse staffing ratio and the social and health services reform, and a discussion of why defending a market economy is such a sensitive subject in Finland. Published 20 November 2022. - sections: society, economy - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/yhteiskunta/ep162-kokoomuksen-hilliton-mies-sture-fjader/ - 2022-11-17 — [Crime and Profiteering | Karo Hämäläinen | Neuvottelija 161](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep161-rikos-ja-rahastus-karo-hamalainen/index.md): Author and financial journalist Karo Hämäläinen works through the cases in his new book Rikos ja rahastus, from the asphalt cartel to Bernie Madoff. The discussion explains why asphalt paving was the perfect ground for a cartel and why a cartel always eventually comes out. Nick Leeson's option strategies, Charles Ponzi's postal coupon arbitrage and WinCapita's cult-like inner circle all tell the same story about how the promise of a risk-free return persuades people to hand over their money. It also covers Libor manipulation, Enron's accounting tricks and the question of whether the game improves at all on a public exchange. It closes on IPOs, the return of value investing, the Fortum and Uniper mistakes, and who actually defines fair value. Published 17 November 2022. - sections: economy, society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/economy/ep161-rikos-ja-rahastus-karo-hamalainen/ - 2022-11-12 — [Trust | Martin-Mikael Lilius | Neuvottelija 160](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep160-luottamus-mikael-lilius/index.md): Martin-Mikael Lilius has written Trust, Knowledge and Society and shares his name with Fortum's former CEO, which has produced both a good seat at a Draghi lecture and hate mail. The episode unpacks the three building blocks of trust — ability, benevolence and integrity — and compares them with the trust account concept from Uusi neuvotteluvalta. The discussion widens from childhood experience to the siloing of science, American polarisation, and the intriguing question of why China and Saudi Arabia rank above Finland in trust surveys. It closes on the banking system as trust's extreme case, from Lehman Brothers to Basel regulation and its unwanted consequences. Published 12 November 2022. - sections: society, economy - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/yhteiskunta/ep160-luottamus-mikael-lilius/ - 2022-11-11 — [The midterms, envy day and the Sámi Parliament Act | Weekly Wiseguys, 11 November 2022](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/viisastelu-usan-vaalit-kateuspaiva-ja-saamelaiskiista/index.md): Sami Miettinen and the journalist Matti Virtanen on Ivan Puopolo's Weekly Wiseguys, 11 November 2022. The single best observation is about expertise: two Finnish specialists on the United States gave diametrically opposite forecasts on the same question, and the panel's explanation is that an expert's liking for a foreign politician colours their prediction of his success. On the day Finland publishes everyone's tax records, Norway's model is put forward as a concrete alternative. At the end Matti Virtanen explains the background to the Sámi Parliament Act dispute — who counts as an Inari Sámi, where the reindeer-herding families came from, and why the argument is also about livelihoods — and the panel falls out over whether small wealth differences mean poverty or a functioning welfare state. - sections: satire, economy, society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/poliittinen-satiiri/viisastelu-usan-vaalit-kateuspaiva-ja-saamelaiskiista/ - 2022-11-05 — [Joona Linna and Nordic Noir | Lars Kepler | Negotiator 159](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep159-joona-linna-ja-nordic-noir-lars-kepler/index.md): Alexander and Alexandra Ahndoril, together Lars Kepler, explain why writing together required inventing a whole new author and how they were finally tracked down to their summer house by torchlight. The Finnish Joona Linna was born from a wish to create a Finnish hero in Swedish crime fiction at a time when Finns were not well regarded there, with Väinö Linna's Rokka as the model. The couple also open up Jurek Walter's origins, the one idea they felt The Silence of the Lambs left unused, and why researching real serial killers turned out to be too depressing as material. The idea for The Spider was found in the middle of a Småland forest in the pandemic summer of 2020. Recorded in English. Published 5 November 2022. - sections: society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/yhteiskunta/ep159-joona-linna-ja-nordic-noir-lars-kepler/ - 2022-10-29 — [1992, the Hornets and Russia | Esko Aho | Neuvottelija 158](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep158-1992-hornetit-ja-venaja-esko-aho/index.md): Within three and a half months in early 1992 Finland detached itself from the YYA Treaty, applied for EU membership and bought the Hornet fighters, and none of it was in the government programme. Former prime minister Esko Aho explains why his book's totem animal is a phantom cat — the Lion of Ruokolahti — and how the same imagined beast is still hunted in politics from Trump to Putin. The conversation runs from the Tehran Conference to the floating of the markka, the rupture between Kullberg and the government, and Gaidar's prediction of post-imperial nostalgia, a passage Aho says he has read fifty times. It also covers the Sberbank board seat, the agricultural conditions of EU membership, and what 1992 has to teach 2022. Published 29 October 2022. - sections: society, economy - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/yhteiskunta/ep158-1992-hornetit-ja-venaja-esko-aho/ - 2022-10-22 — [The woke test, one sentence in English, and the price of energy | Weekly Wiseguys, 22 October 2022](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/viisastelu-woke-testi-aaltola-ja-energiakriisi/index.md): Sami Miettinen and Tere Sammallahti on Ivan Puopolo's Weekly Wiseguys, 22 October 2022. The episode opens with the panel taking a newspaper's "woke test" live on air and conceding two things to the other side while doing it — that the experience of being a visible minority is real, and that labour markets are not perfect. The middle section takes apart a single English sentence and how it became a headline. The last third is the strongest: the panel argues against compensating households for electricity prices, a policy that would be easy to support, and grounds the argument in the energy balance. - sections: satire, economy, society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/poliittinen-satiiri/viisastelu-woke-testi-aaltola-ja-energiakriisi/ - 2022-10-14 — [The Alex Jones verdict, PayPal and two identical appeals | Weekly Wiseguys, 14 October 2022](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/viisastelu-alex-jonesin-tuomio-paypal-ja-jengirikollisuus/index.md): A four-handed special: Sami Miettinen, Tere Sammallahti and MP Onni Rostila on Ivan Puopolo's Weekly Wiseguys, 14 October 2022. The episode is unusual in that a free-speech programme ends up defending the basis of the Alex Jones verdict and arguing only about the size of it — and in that it sets out the difference between the US and Finnish thresholds for defamation with real precision. The last third supplies two concrete examples of official discretion: a library that refused a venue to someone who had been acquitted, and two word-for-word identical appeals that produced opposite decisions at the same employment office. - sections: satire, society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/poliittinen-satiiri/viisastelu-alex-jonesin-tuomio-paypal-ja-jengirikollisuus/ - 2022-10-03 — [Geopolitical Risk in Renewables | Mikko Kantero and Petri Haataja | Neuvottelija 155](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep155-geopoliittinen-riski-uusiutuvissa-kantero-haataja/index.md): The bubbles from Nord Stream in the Baltic are a reminder that energy is always also geopolitics. Mikko Kantero and Petri Haataja of Korkia explain why country risk is driving much of the world to build its own energy infrastructure and why industrial solar now works practically anywhere. Their surprising favourite market is Alberta, the Texas of Canada, where oil wealth flows into wind and solar on market terms without subsidies. The discussion covers dependence on China in component manufacturing, Fingrid's exceptionally good work, the battery breakthrough in the UK market, and what plant maintenance actually means in terms of jobs. It closes on why the best place for solar is not the Sahara. Commercial collaboration with Korkia. Published 3 October 2022. - sections: economy, society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/economy/ep155-geopoliittinen-riski-uusiutuvissa-kantero-haataja/ - 2022-09-23 — [Harari, Work and Artificial Intelligence | Sami Miettinen | Neuvottelija 154](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep154-harari-tyo-ja-tekoaly-sami-miettinen/index.md): Yuval Noah Harari spoke at Nordic Business Forum about what work people will do in 2050 and what a six-year-old should be taught now. Sami Miettinen works through Harari's output from Sapiens to Homo Deus and assesses where the forecasting holds and where it does not. The episode considers why intelligence and creativity turn out to be automatable precisely as pattern recognition, why the priest and the athlete survive, and why politicians should not be replaced by AI even though the totalitarian temptation is large. It also contains criticism of the details of Harari's monetary theory and of his failure to localise, plus thoughts on the risks of gene technology. It closes on the Fortum–Uniper resolution and how a change of control clause was probably the decisive lever. Published 23 September 2022. - sections: tools, society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/tools/ep154-harari-tyo-ja-tekoaly-sami-miettinen/ - 2022-09-23 — [Mobilisation, envy day and forbidden words | Weekly Wiseguys, 23 September 2022](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/viisastelu-venajan-liikekannallepano-ja-kielletyt-sanat/index.md): Sami Miettinen and Tere Sammallahti on Ivan Puopolo's Weekly Wiseguys, 23 September 2022, the week Russia declared partial mobilisation. The most durable passage is conceptual: the panel separates biological sex from gender identity and argues that collapsing the two is a change in language rather than in science. On Ukraine the panel openly disagrees about two things — whether Finland should open its border to Russian conscripts, and whether a negotiated settlement is acceptable at all. On the economics Miettinen puts Fortum's 5.6-billion Uniper loss into scale: it is worth about 15 per cent of all direct share holdings of Finnish private individuals combined. - sections: satire, economy, society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/poliittinen-satiiri/viisastelu-venajan-liikekannallepano-ja-kielletyt-sanat/ - 2022-09-16 — [The targeting law, the "slave law" and Uniper's missing backstop | Weekly Wiseguys, 16 September 2022](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/viisastelu-tuppurainen-hoitajien-pakkolaki-ja-maalittaminen/index.md): Sami Miettinen and MP Onni Rostila on Ivan Puopolo's Weekly Wiseguys, 16 September 2022. The strongest passage is about a principle of legislative design: should a law be written assuming the best or the worst of whoever holds power, and does Finland's proposed "targeting" law survive a proportionality test when the interest being protected is an official's peace of mind rather than the prevention of genocide. On the economics Miettinen takes apart the nationalisation of Uniper, the backstop that evaporated, and why Fortum's original bid was made in a hurry. Also the nurse-staffing law, the Swedish election and the arithmetic of the debt. - sections: satire, economy, society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/poliittinen-satiiri/viisastelu-tuppurainen-hoitajien-pakkolaki-ja-maalittaminen/ - 2022-09-11 — [Wahlroos versus Rehn on Monetary Policy | Jussi Ahokas and Antti Ronkainen | Neuvottelija 152](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep152-wahlroos-vastaan-rehn-rahapolitiikka-ahokas-ronkainen/index.md): Björn Wahlroos wrote in Helsingin Sanomat that inflation is a purely monetary phenomenon and that regional inflation is not worth discussing inside the euro area. Olli Rehn replied with nuances. Doctoral researchers Jussi Ahokas and Antti Ronkainen unpack what is missing from Wahlroos's model and why commercial banks' endogenous money creation and the exchange rate are left out of it. The episode runs from the supply shocks of the pandemic and the war to the ECB's 75 basis point hike, the PEPP programme's departure from the capital key, and the legal question of what strict rules mean if a central bank can always create a new programme. Recorded 9 September 2022, the day after the ECB hike and the death of Queen Elizabeth II. Published 11 September 2022. - sections: economy, society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/economy/ep152-wahlroos-vastaan-rehn-rahapolitiikka-ahokas-ronkainen/ - 2022-09-08 — [The Uniper negotiation, read as a negotiation | Sami Miettinen on Rahapodi #297](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/rahapodi-297-keskiluokka-uniper-ja-kontraaminen/index.md): Rahapodi obtained the Uniper negotiation memos by information request and brought in Sami Miettinen to read them as a negotiator rather than a commentator. His verdict: Finland sent the wrong seniority to the wrong subject, defended a sunk seven billion instead of the eight billion still recoverable, and never used the leverage it actually held — Germany's gas dependency and the option of filing Uniper into bankruptcy. - sections: economy, society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/economy/rahapodi-297-keskiluokka-uniper-ja-kontraaminen/ - 2022-08-26 — [Sanna Marin's Dark Clouds | Ivan Puopolo | Neuvottelija 150](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep150-sanna-marinin-synkat-pilvet-ivan-puopolo/index.md): Journalist Ivan Puopolo and Sami Miettinen examine Sanna Marin administration policies, media dynamics, and public discourse culture. The episode analyzes public finance trends, national debt accumulation, and the interdependence between politics and journalism. The discussion addresses freedom of speech, journalism standards, and political personalization in the social media era. Finally, the role of media as a democratic watchdog and conditions for critical debate are discussed. - sections: society, economy - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/yhteiskunta/ep150-sanna-marinin-synkat-pilvet-ivan-puopolo/ - 2022-08-26 — [Marin as victim, Fortum on fire | Weekly Wiseguys, 26 August 2022](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/viisastelu-marin-uhriutuu-fortum-ja-hs-oikeudessa/index.md): Sami Miettinen and Tere Sammallahti on Ivan Puopolo's Weekly Wiseguys, 26 August 2022, in the middle of the Sanna Marin party-video row and Fortum's Uniper disaster. The panel splits the row into two separate questions: what a prime minister's private time is, and what the office itself demands. On the economics Miettinen takes apart the Fortum–Uniper structure — the eight-billion capital injection in January, the twelve-billion write-down, KfW's nine billion — and asks whether due diligence was ever properly done. It closes on a genuine free-speech case: the Helsingin Sanomat signals-intelligence trial and the state's incentive to over-classify. - sections: satire, economy, society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/poliittinen-satiiri/viisastelu-marin-uhriutuu-fortum-ja-hs-oikeudessa/ - 2022-08-22 — [Even the bankers are poor in Finland | Sami Miettinen on 23 minuuttia #489](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/23-minuuttia-489-suomessa-pankkiiritkin-ovat-koyhia/index.md): Jussi Heikelä and Arto Koskelo put the Credit Suisse wealth report on screen and ask whether Finland is rich or poor. Miettinen's answer runs through the €600bn of Finnish net wealth of which €400bn sits in homes, why only 1.9 per cent of adults are dollar millionaires against Sweden's 7, what Iceland did differently after its banking crisis, and — the part he was really brought on for — what makes a good negotiator and why Finland does not prepare. - sections: economy, society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/economy/23-minuuttia-489-suomessa-pankkiiritkin-ovat-koyhia/ - 2022-08-21 — [Finland's Only Republican? | Matti Apunen | Neuvottelija 149](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep149-suomen-ainoa-republikaani-matti-apunen/index.md): Matti Apunen — chair of the board of Yle, former editor-in-chief of Aamulehti and co-host of the A&M podcast — has called himself Finland's only republican. He explains what classical liberalism and republicanism in Buckley's tradition mean to him, and why every euro paid in tax is a piece of personal freedom surrendered. Sami Miettinen presses him to compare Finland's 42 per cent tax ratio with other Western countries and asks why Finnish private wealth has fallen behind Sweden's. The conversation runs from editing Aamulehti to Yle's competitive position, the decline of business journalism, and why statism is in Apunen's view the fundamental problem of the Finnish economy. Published 21 August 2022. - sections: society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/yhteiskunta/ep149-suomen-ainoa-republikaani-matti-apunen/ - 2022-08-08 — [The end of the world is just the beginning | Sami Miettinen on Futucast #289](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/futucast-289-maailmanloppu-on-vain-alkua/index.md): William von der Pahlen, Isak Rautio and Sami Miettinen read Peter Zeihan's The End of the World Is Just the Beginning against Ray Dalio's changing world order — depopulation and deglobalisation on one side, debt and hegemonic cycles on the other. Miettinen takes Zeihan's demographics seriously and his deglobalisation absolutism much less so, and the argument turns on whether markets and automation can outrun a shrinking workforce. - sections: society, economy - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/yhteiskunta/futucast-289-maailmanloppu-on-vain-alkua/ - 2022-08-06 — [The Kremlin Card in Finland | Alpo Rusi | Neuvottelija 147](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep147-kremlin-kortti-suomessa-alpo-rusi/index.md): Alpo Rusi — doctor of political science, career diplomat and former adviser to Martti Ahtisaari — discusses his book The Kremlin Card: the KGB's political war in Finland and how deeply the Soviet Union came to steer Finnish foreign and domestic policy. The episode covers the shelving of the Tiitinen list, Kalevi Sorsa's CPSU contacts, Mauno Koivisto's direct channel to the Kremlin, and Esko Aho's EU opening in September 1991. Rusi recounts first-hand the phone call that saved Finland's accession negotiations at Maastricht. It closes on the NATO windows missed after the Georgian war and Crimea, and on a multipolar world order. Published 6 August 2022. - sections: society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/yhteiskunta/ep147-kremlin-kortti-suomessa-alpo-rusi/ - 2022-07-10 — [Peak Woke | Matti H. Virtanen, Onni Rostila | Neuvottelija 145](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep145-peak-woke-virtanen-rostila/index.md): Has peak woke already been reached, or are both extremes strengthening at once? Freelance journalist Matti H. Virtanen, author of the book Ääripäät, and Onni Rostila, Master of Laws, consider the US Supreme Court's abortion ruling, the rise of ultra-conservatism, and the role of identity politics in Russian war propaganda. The discussion covers the mechanisms of polarisation from schismogenesis to the Overton window, and the independence of Finland's prosecution service and courts. It closes by asking whether a heterodox sensible centre can save public debate. Published 10 July 2022. - sections: society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/yhteiskunta/ep145-peak-woke-virtanen-rostila/ - 2022-06-28 — [Talking About Freedom | Petri Kajander | Neuvottelija 143](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep143-vapauspuhetta-petri-kajander/index.md): Petri Kajander — serial entrepreneur living in Estonia, founder of the Libera think tank and host of the Talks with Petri podcast — considers why freedom is so hard to talk about in Finland. The conversation covers Libera's founding and the absurdity of the fundraising permit, the Austrian school, and how the crypto scene and the early internet carry the same idea of decentralisation. Kajander also opens up his own sweat equity model, in which he takes a stake and builds the company alongside the founders. It closes on a quiet mind and vipassana meditation. Published 28 June 2022. - sections: society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/yhteiskunta/ep143-vapauspuhetta-petri-kajander/ - 2022-06-19 — [Principles for a New World Order | Antero Vartia | Negotiator 142](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep142-uuden-maailmanjarjestyksen-periaatteet-antero-vartia/index.md): Antero Vartia returns to Neuvottelija two years after the first conversation, and the subject is the same as it was then: principle. The episode covers why flexibility can itself be a principle and staying in the truth its bedrock, what Ray Dalio's three cycles say about a changing world order, and what the book did not live to see of the war in Ukraine and China's Covid policy. It also runs through the link between the inflation spiral and populism, Acemoglu and Robinson's narrow corridor, the two classic market failures, and Compensate's three-and-a-half-year money-collection-law process, during which the company was effectively barred from trading without the matter ever reaching a district court. It closes on meditation, ego, and why executives practise it quietly. - sections: society, economy - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/yhteiskunta/ep142-uuden-maailmanjarjestyksen-periaatteet-antero-vartia/ - 2022-05-27 — [Is Everything Fair Game for a Joke | Peltomäki, Rautio | Neuvottelija 139](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep139-saako-vitseille-nauraa-peltomaki-rautio/index.md): Can you laugh at anything, and who decides what may be joked about? Sami Miettinen's guests are Tuomas Peltomäki, host of the Uutisraportti podcast and for years a writer of political satire, and Isak Rautio, who runs Futucast and has done stand-up himself. The conversation unpacks the punching-down rule, offence as a weapon, and whether a joke's morality is decided by the teller's intention or by its effect. It also opens up the mechanics of a joke: what makes a punchline work and why repetition and callbacks make people laugh. Published 27 May 2022. - sections: society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/yhteiskunta/ep139-saako-vitseille-nauraa-peltomaki-rautio/ - 2022-04-30 — [Amber Heard versus Johnny Depp | Sinnu Savola | Neuvottelija 135](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep135-amber-heard-vs-johnny-depp-sinnu-savola/index.md): Psychologist and podcaster Sinnu Savola goes through the televised defamation trial in the United States with Sami Miettinen, in which Johnny Depp sued Amber Heard over a Washington Post piece. They unpack why a side thread became the most interesting part of the case, and why social media sided almost unanimously with Depp before Heard had even testified. Savola opens up the forensic psychologist's testimony and how the surface level and the clinical depth level of personality tests differ. It closes on whether the trial is becoming a counter-movement to MeToo. Published 30 April 2022. - sections: society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/yhteiskunta/ep135-amber-heard-vs-johnny-depp-sinnu-savola/ - 2022-04-19 — [Russia in Ukraine and Victory Day | Pekka Toveri | Neuvottelija 133](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep133-venaja-ukrainassa-voiton-paiva-pekka-toveri/index.md): Major General retired Pekka Toveri and Sami Miettinen assess what Russia is trying to achieve by Victory Day on 9 May and why Mariupol is both a symbolic and a strategic necessity. The episode unpacks the sinking of the cruiser Moskva, the targeting behind the Neptune missiles, and the role of Bayraktar drones as a distraction. The discussion covers the structure of the battalion tactical group, Russia's manpower shortage and recruitment from its poorest regions, and the effect of sanctions on arms production. It closes on the risks around the Finnish and Swedish NATO applications, nuclear rhetoric, and the value of a domestic defence industry. - sections: society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/yhteiskunta/ep133-venaja-ukrainassa-voiton-paiva-pekka-toveri/ - 2022-04-10 — [Russia Withdraws from Kyiv | Kastehelmi, Helin | Neuvottelija 131](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep131-venaja-vetaytyy-kastehelmi-helin/index.md): The people behind the map project, Emil Kastehelmi and John Helin, go through the state of the war in Ukraine region by region with Sami Miettinen after the Russian withdrawal from around Kyiv. They explain why the famous 60-kilometre column was never marked on their map and why the vast encirclement rumoured around Irpin never existed. The episode also shows how open source intelligence is really done and why the team always digs down to the original source. It closes on Finland's defence and evacuation planning. Published 10 April 2022. - sections: society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/yhteiskunta/ep131-venaja-vetaytyy-kastehelmi-helin/ - 2022-04-07 — [Hungary's Election and NATO Diplomacy | Pertti Torstila | Neuvottelija 130](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep130-unkarin-vaalit-nato-diplomatia-pertti-torstila/index.md): Pertti Torstila, former state secretary at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs and a career diplomat, has known Hungary for almost five decades and still grows wine there. With Sami Miettinen he unpacks Viktor Orbán's election victory: why the war in Ukraine became Orbán's trump card and why people voted with their wallets. Torstila also explains the trauma of Trianon and the significance of voting rights for Hungarians beyond the borders. The episode covers his own role in Martti Ahtisaari's team in the Kosovo peace process and an assessment of whether Sweden will apply at all after Finland. Published 7 April 2022. - sections: society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/yhteiskunta/ep130-unkarin-vaalit-nato-diplomatia-pertti-torstila/ - 2022-03-19 — [Putin and Russia's Strategic Culture | Martti J. Kari | Neuvottelija 126](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep126-putin-ja-venajan-strateginen-kulttuuri-martti-j-kari/index.md): Colonel (ret.) and intelligence researcher Martti J. Kari takes Russia's strategic culture apart layer by layer on the Neuvottelija channel: the cruelty inherited from Mongol rule, the lost proto-democracy of Kievan Rus, the idea of God-given autocracy that moved to Moscow after Constantinople fell, and why the infallible tsar's mistakes always land on the boyars. Featuring Ukraine as buffer zone and invasion route, intelligence failure on the Yom Kippur model, confirmation bias in Putin's inner circle, the rivalry between the FSB, SVR and GRU, the Lubyanka raid and Beseda's house arrest, oligarchs holding possession without ownership, the palace-coup culture, Kari's two years drafting Finland's intelligence laws, tactical truth and gibridnaja pravda, the unbroken line of influence operations from the Cheka in 1923, and NATO as a question of generations. Recorded 19 March 2022, three weeks into the invasion. Kari died on 30 August 2023. - sections: society, research - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/yhteiskunta/ep126-putin-ja-venajan-strateginen-kulttuuri-martti-j-kari/ - 2022-03-12 — [Russia's Invasion of Ukraine and Putin's War | Pekka Toveri | Neuvottelija 125](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep125-hyokkays-ukrainaan-putin-pekka-toveri/index.md): Major General (ret.) Pekka Toveri analyzes the first 2.5 weeks of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine on the Neuvottelija channel: why armored columns drove into a clump and were shot up, why the famous 60-kilometer column got stuck, what the T-72, T-64 and the Armata 'wonder-weapon' reveal about the fleet, why the Russian air force cannot mount an air operation, how railway-based logistics failed, and why a false political situation picture collapsed the whole plan. Featuring Bayraktar drones, Javelin and NLAW top-attacks, Iskander missile stocks, the 'learned victory' of Chechnya and Syria, Putin's siloviki machine and corruption, nuclear escalation, China and Taiwan, and Finland's road to NATO. The assessments are Toveri's, made in the situation of March 2022. - sections: society, economy - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/yhteiskunta/ep125-hyokkays-ukrainaan-putin-pekka-toveri/ - 2022-03-06 — [Ukraine, Niinistö and NATO | Sami Miettinen | Neuvottelija 124](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep124-ukraina-niinisto-nato-sami-miettinen/index.md): Sami Miettinen answers viewer requests with a solo episode on Russia's war of aggression, Finland's road to NATO and the resilience of the monetary system. In the war's second week the Russian advance is stalling, the 40-kilometre column approaching Kyiv is stuck in mud, and the air force in particular has been exposed as weak — a significant observation for Finland. Miettinen's view is that Finland and Sweden will apply for NATO membership in spring 2022 and will get in, and that the risk is at its lowest right now. The second half unpacks the sanctions: what Swift actually is and how central bank money moves. Published 6 March 2022. - sections: society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/yhteiskunta/ep124-ukraina-niinisto-nato-sami-miettinen/ - 2022-02-25 — [Ukraine special | Sami Miettinen on Viisasteluklubi](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/viisasteluklubi-ukraina-spesiaali-puopolo-sammallahti/index.md): Sami Miettinen, Tere Sammallahti and host Ivan Puopolo recorded on 25 February 2022, the day after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine began. A contemporaneous record rather than a retrospective: what the balance of forces looked like, why Russia advanced without air supremacy, whether SWIFT exclusion or targeted bank sanctions bite harder, and the Finnish NATO question at the moment it stopped being theoretical. The last third covers the information war, the Russian-speaking minority in Finland, a market crash as a buying opportunity, and Jokerit in the KHL. - sections: society, economy - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/yhteiskunta/viisasteluklubi-ukraina-spesiaali-puopolo-sammallahti/ - 2022-01-16 — [Hostage to the Wellbeing Services County | Tere Sammallahti | Neuvottelija 117](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep117-panttivangiksi-hyvinvointialueelle-tere-sammallahti/index.md): Tere Sammallahti is a candidate in the West Uusimaa county elections and begins by admitting he does not like the reform at all: his first campaign theme would have been to cancel it, but since that is no longer politically possible, the question is how to make a catastrophe tolerable. He calls his position hostage-taking — if those who want less administration do not stand, the counties go to those who want more. His example of the wrong metric is the nurse staffing ratio, and he opposes a county tax on empirical grounds. The most uncomfortable section comes at the end: if services cannot be produced efficiently, something must be cut. Published 16 January 2022. - sections: society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/yhteiskunta/ep117-panttivangiksi-hyvinvointialueelle-tere-sammallahti/ - 2022-01-13 — [Bringing back the markka | Sami Miettinen on Rahapodi #270](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/rahapodi-270-markka-takaisin/index.md): Nordnet's Rahapodi frames Finland as a hostage and asks whether the markka could actually be brought back. Sami Miettinen walks through the two legal doctrines that decide it, why the 2015 Greek near-exit closed the loophole, what the €67bn Target 2 surplus is worth in a divorce, and the parallel-currency design he would propose instead — before concluding that a euro nobody can raise rates in may be a gift rather than a trap. - sections: economy, society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/economy/rahapodi-270-markka-takaisin/ - 2021-12-23 — [The Great Reset 2.0 | Tuomas Malinen | Neuvottelija 114](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep114-the-great-reset-2-0-tuomas-malinen/index.md): A sequel to last year's episode, watched more than 120,000 times, in which Tuomas Malinen reviews which of his forecasts came true. The frame is the same: Acemoglu and Robinson's narrow corridor, in which democracy emerges from a balance between a despotic state and civil society. The carrying argument is constitutional rather than medical: if a level can be placed above the constitution by decree, on which the population is sorted, it will in Malinen's view be used again in another context. Miettinen says openly that he changed his own position two weeks earlier and sets out where he disagrees with his guest. Published 23 December 2021. - sections: society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/yhteiskunta/ep114-the-great-reset-2-0-tuomas-malinen/ - 2021-12-15 — [Sanna Marin's Apology | Kortesuo, Puopolo | Neuvottelija 112](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep112-sanna-marinin-anteeksipyynto-kortesuo-puopolo/index.md): Communications trainer Katleena Kortesuo and Ivan Puopolo consider when an apology is called for and when it is a mistake. Kortesuo's rule is precise and runs through the whole episode: you apologise when you have offended your own audience, not when the offended party was never your customer. The Africa Star row is her example of the wrong situation and Telia's response to social media pressure an example of the right one. In Sanna Marin's case the distinction produces two different conclusions. The episode also covers why a prime minister is under a magnifying glass of an entirely different order, the Jäätteenmäki case as a matter of procedural form, and Kulmuni and responsibility. Published 15 December 2021. - sections: society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/yhteiskunta/ep112-sanna-marinin-anteeksipyynto-kortesuo-puopolo/ - 2021-11-07 — [A Woman's and a Man's Euros | Mikael Vuorinen | Neuvottelija 106](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep106-naisen-ja-miehen-eurot-mikael-vuorinen/index.md): Mikael Vuorinen, an industrial engineering student at Aalto who runs a YouTube channel, unpacks contested questions in public debate through statistics, and the episode covers three of them. On the pay gap he draws a distinction often left undrawn in public: the ratio of total earnings is a different thing from a comparison of the same field, the same hours and the same weekend work, where the gap shrinks to a few cents. The second topic is the Africa Star row at the University of Helsinki, where his criticism targets the student union's role. The third is Extinction Rebellion Finland, which he opposes on two grounds. Miettinen offers his own emissions compensation as a counterweight and asks why market-based mechanisms are used so little relative to bans and taxes. Published 7 November 2021. - sections: society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/yhteiskunta/ep106-naisen-ja-miehen-eurot-mikael-vuorinen/ - 2021-10-01 — [Puopolo's Weekly Wisecrack Club | Tere Sammallahti, Ivan Puopolo | Neuvottelija 101](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep101-puopolon-viikon-viisasteluklubi-sammallahti-puopolo/index.md): A debrief recorded after the third episode of the Weekly Wisecrack Club, in which Sami Miettinen asks his guests how you actually live with free speech when your own livelihood is at stake. Miettinen admits that after more than a hundred episodes he still has a small amount of self-censorship running, and Sammallahti replies that the feeling is entirely natural but you get rid of it by building tolerance. Ivan Puopolo draws a distinction about his own position: he can protect himself, but not his business partners, through whom the pressure reaches his livelihood. The sharpest observation is the perspective illusion: Sammallahti's most widely shared tweet reached around a hundred thousand impressions, which means the vast majority of Finns never saw it. For a CEO they offer a concrete course of action when an employee is targeted, and the episode closes with why Finnish corporate communications are so cautious. Published 1 October 2021. - sections: society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/yhteiskunta/ep101-puopolon-viikon-viisasteluklubi-sammallahti-puopolo/ - 2021-09-22 — [New Season, New Party Leader | Petri Roininen | Negotiator 100](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep100-uusi-kausi-uusi-puoluejohtaja-petri-roininen/index.md): The second season of the Neuvottelija channel opens with the same guest as the first, but in a new role: Petri Roininen was elected leader of Sininen tulevaisuus (Blue Reform) the previous day, and the episode is recorded the following morning. The first question is one of governance — can the head of two listed companies also lead a party — and Roininen's own observation is that the criticism came from the right rather than the left. His programme compresses into the claim that the National Coalition Party has, across thirty years in government, been the chief architect of the social democratic tax state; his alternative is a family-centred welfare state. On economic policy he brings three numbers: 322,000 unemployed, a total tax rate higher than in 98 percent of the world's countries, and a gap to the OECD average worth 14,000 euros a year to a family of four. The most original passages are the five-tax wedge — two thirds of a customer's euro can go in tax before it reaches the entrepreneur — and the observation that debate on public finances stays stuck on income and expenditure when it should be looking at the balance sheet. The episode also covers the self-censorship that keeps business leaders out of politics. - sections: economy, society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/economy/ep100-uusi-kausi-uusi-puoluejohtaja-petri-roininen/ - 2021-08-27 — [Bitcoin: The Key to Freedom | Toni Heiskanen Janne Piiroinen | Negotiator 96](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep96-bitcoin-avain-vapauteen-heiskanen-piiroinen/index.md): Toni Heiskanen and Janne Piiroinen wrote the first original Finnish-language book on Bitcoin and published it free online. The longest and most analytical part of the episode is a point-by-point dismantling of Nassim Nicholas Taleb's Bitcoin critique: the zero-value claim rests on miners eventually stopping, yet addresses only the block reward and not transaction fees, while the slowness claim overlooks the Lightning Network entirely — never once mentioned in the six-page paper. In Heiskanen's view the critique matches what 2017-era critics argued before Lightning became common. The conversation covers Tether's stablecoin risk and the lesson of Mt. Gox, the energy use of proof of work and why a 30 percent fall in hash rate after China's mining ban did not bring the network down, and the market psychology of the halving cycle. The guests are openly pro-Bitcoin, but Heiskanen explicitly distances himself from maximalism as an identity and explains why he keeps an open mind about other protocols. - sections: economy, society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/economy/ep96-bitcoin-avain-vapauteen-heiskanen-piiroinen/ - 2021-08-07 — [Abstract Art | Panu Ruotsalo | Negotiator 93](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep93-abstrakti-taide-panu-ruotsalo/index.md): Installation artist Panu Ruotsalo comes in from Billnäs to describe how the four glass-embedded works commissioned from him by Sami Miettinen — Power, Principle, Sociability and Analytical Thinking — came into being. The subjects are the four core themes of Neuvotteluvalta, the book by Miettinen and Juhana Torkki, and the question the episode turns on is whether an abstract concept can be depicted abstractly at all. Ruotsalo opens up the materials and symbolism of each piece: goat willow as the root of growth, 22-carat gold as the plane where everything is refined into something higher, glass as the sphere of the human psyche where anything is possible — and the colours, from whisky-toned Power to the endless deep blue of Analytical Thinking. The episode also covers Ruotsalo's move from photorealism to abstraction inspired by Reidar Särestöniemi, a work for Sisu Partners whose auction proceeds went undiminished to the New Children's Hospital, Aalto EE's art collection, and the revival of the Billnäs ironworks. The most unusual passage is Ruotsalo's account of why he deliberately avoids seeing other artists' work — and Miettinen's observation that this is the same phenomenon negotiators call rapport. - sections: society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/yhteiskunta/ep93-abstrakti-taide-panu-ruotsalo/ - 2021-07-30 — [A Wild Year in the Business Desk | Alex af Heurlin | Negotiator 92](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep92-taloustoimituksen-hullu-vuosi-alex-af-heurlin/index.md): Alex af Heurlin, a journalist at Helsingin Sanomat's HS Vision, describes what it is like to write about investing in a year when SPACs, the IPO boom, modern monetary theory and the EU's pandemic stimulus were all in the headlines at once. The episode is a conversation between two market watchers in which the journalist criticises Finland's first SPAC bluntly — 'why would you want to buy a pig in a poke' — and in which two readings of MMT are set against each other: for af Heurlin it is a creditable description of what is already happening, for Miettinen an accurate description of the system but branded from the left. Miettinen adds that MMT does not work in the euro area at all, because its mechanisms require your own currency and your own taxation. The discussion turns to Finns' weak financial wealth, a tax rate near the OECD top, and the zero-sum culture described by Juha Hurme. It closes on Roger Wessman's critique of equity saving, Bessembinder's research on the few winning stocks, and the power of the tech giants. Also included: a frank exchange on why journalists should appear as individuals. - sections: economy, society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/economy/ep92-taloustoimituksen-hullu-vuosi-alex-af-heurlin/ - 2021-07-23 — [Corporate Responsibility and Wokenomics | Thomas Taussi | Negotiator 91](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep91-yritysvastuu-ja-wokenomics-thomas-taussi/index.md): Aalto University researcher Thomas Taussi argues that Milton Friedman's classic 1970 essay has been widely misread. Friedman did not dispute the importance of stakeholders and did not condemn all corporate social responsibility — he criticised one particular doctrine, in which a company's resources are spent on activities with no purpose of supporting the business. The episode's load-bearing observation is conceptual: responsibility sets itself no limits and does not explain itself, with the consequence that almost anything can be pursued under its cover. Taussi locates the source of his own scepticism precisely — the question is not whether the goals are good, but whether limits can be set at all on things that depart from the core business. The examples include Neste Oil's biofuel turn, Stora Enso's China venture, the Kemijärvi pulp mill, the Finnair deportation controversy and Finnwatch's position, the Google and Apple dismissals, and Basecamp's depoliticisation. Taussi finally explains woke excesses through Thorstein Veblen and costly-signalling theory. Miettinen offers a counter-reading that Taussi accepts as an addition but does not share. - sections: economy, society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/economy/ep91-yritysvastuu-ja-wokenomics-thomas-taussi/ - 2021-07-09 — [The EU and the Euro Recovery Package | Sami Metelinen Toni Vuorinen | Negotiator 89](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep89-eu-ja-euron-elvytyspaketti-metelinen-vuorinen/index.md): The Negotiator channel's first multi-guest episode: journalist Sami Metelinen, author of Libera's euro report, and economic analyst Toni Vuorinen ask what the EU's €750 billion recovery package is really about. Vuorinen advances the hypothesis that the package is an empirical experiment: the ECB buys the joint debt and converts it into a zero-coupon perpetual, and if nothing follows, the same is done to member states' debts. The end point of his scenario is a return to national currencies via Sami Miettinen's ECU-2 basket model. Metelinen considers it possible but unlikely: he sees a federal objective running back to the 1970s, and the over-indebted countries have no interest in returning to their own currencies. Both reject the claim that the package is an Italian rescue — ECB purchases keep Italy funded regardless. Also covered: the EU's power to tax, the 2012 Greek haircut as an example of bluffing, German ordoliberalism bending, and the Swiss model as a template for a workable federation. - sections: economy, society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/economy/ep89-eu-ja-euron-elvytyspaketti-metelinen-vuorinen/ - 2021-06-16 — [The Economic Right Won the Election | Ivan Puopolo | Negotiator 85](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep85-talousoikeisto-voitti-vaalit-ivan-puopolo/index.md): A quick reflection on Finland's June 2021 municipal elections, in which Ivan Puopolo and Sami Miettinen ask whether Finland has an economic right at all. The National Coalition Party took Helsinki, Turku and Tampere, but in Puopolo's view no party campaigns on shrinking the public sector — even the Coalition's right flank talks only about balancing it, and Petteri Orpo's 'growing the common cake' means in practice a larger tax take. On Iltalehti's values map Finland's most right-wing party sits on the centre line, with both main US parties clearly to its right. Miettinen offers a tax-rebel counterpoint: Finland's richest percentile is poor by international standards, the total tax rate is 42–43 percent against the OECD's 34, and by Laffer-curve logic a tax cut could raise revenue. The episode ends on the observation that nobody in Finland proposes lowering the tax rate. - sections: society, economy - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/yhteiskunta/ep85-talousoikeisto-voitti-vaalit-ivan-puopolo/ - 2021-06-04 — [The Bubble Economy and Finland in a Federation | Stefan Törnqvist | Neuvottelija 83](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep83-kuplatalous-ja-suomi-liittovaltiossa-stefan-tornqvist/index.md): Stefan Törnqvist opposes neither the euro nor a federation — he opposes Finland drifting into them like driftwood, without a strategy. The core of the argument is a municipal-merger analogy: before a merger a municipality puts its own house in order on borrowed money, because the infrastructure stays put either way. Finland does the opposite. He closes by sketching three end points for the world record in stimulus: a crash, hyperinflation or political conflict. - sections: economy, society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/economy/ep83-kuplatalous-ja-suomi-liittovaltiossa-stefan-tornqvist/ - 2021-05-26 — [Negotiation and social skills | Sami Miettinen on Sinnu's podcast](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/sinnu-50-neuvottelutaito-ja-sosiaaliset-taidot/index.md): Psychologist Sinnu Savola interviews Sami Miettinen on the social and psychological side of negotiation. Along the way: Martti Ahtisaari's fifteen-person negotiating team and the realisation that almost nobody knows how to negotiate as a team, emotional regulation as a stress function running from eustress to the amygdala hijack, why personality models remain useful even when crude, the alpha–beta–gamma roles in a negotiating team, why the seemingly weak role gathers the most information, and where negotiation ends and manipulation begins. - sections: society, tools - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/yhteiskunta/sinnu-50-neuvottelutaito-ja-sosiaaliset-taidot/ - 2021-05-16 — [KY, Aalto and the EU Green Taxonomy | Meri Löyttyniemi | Negotiator 79](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep79-eun-vihrea-taksonomia-meri-loyttyniemi/index.md): Aalto University's special adviser on sustainable development corrects a widespread misunderstanding: the EU taxonomy is not merely a climate instrument but rests on six criteria. She describes how it swelled from an investor's tool into a political instrument, and warns against national over-implementation. Miettinen presses her on the treatment of hydro and nuclear power. In the background, a shared student-politics victory and the birth of Aalto University as a merger of three egos. - sections: economy, society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/economy/ep79-eun-vihrea-taksonomia-meri-loyttyniemi/ - 2021-05-08 — [Vote Down the EU Package in Parliament | Tuomas Malinen | Negotiator 77](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep77-kaadetaan-eu-paketti-eduskunnassa-tuomas-malinen/index.md): Tuomas Malinen returns to the channel just before the decisive vote on the EU recovery instrument and calls on Parliament to vote it down. The core argument sits in Articles 310 and 125: once they are set aside, no treaty article can be relied on again — security guarantees included. Two consolations are taken apart, the claim of an investment programme and the claim that the ECB will monetise it away, alongside the question of who bears responsibility if 'one-off' does not hold. - sections: economy, society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/economy/ep77-kaadetaan-eu-paketti-eduskunnassa-tuomas-malinen/ - 2021-05-06 — [The Owner's Tripartite | Marjo Miettinen | Negotiator 76](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep76-omistajan-kolmikanta-marjo-miettinen/index.md): Marjo Miettinen, chair of Ensto Group and of Technology Industries of Finland, opens up a concept she found in her father's diaries: the owner's tripartite, in which the owner takes the risk, the employee brings the competence, and society's task is to create the operating environment. The episode also covers her doctoral thesis on shop stewards, where grounded theory produced 59 competence areas in six categories — showing the role to be far more demanding than the employer-side stereotype allows. It continues into Technology Industries' dual-membership solution, the merits and drawbacks of universally applicable collective agreements, industrial peace seen through an international owner's eyes, and trust as a property of institutions. Recorded in May 2021, months before anyone knew how many companies would choose national bargaining. - sections: society, economy - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/yhteiskunta/ep76-omistajan-kolmikanta-marjo-miettinen/ - 2021-04-28 — [Threats and Opportunities in the Rental Market | Ville Valkonen | Negotiator 75](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep75-vuokramarkkinoiden-uhat-ja-mahdollisuudet-ville-valkonen/index.md): Ville Valkonen, who heads advocacy at the Finnish Landlord Association, explains why the rental market is local down to the city block and why the largest centres have pulled away from mid-sized cities. The core of the episode is the tension between debt and regulation: leverage is all but compulsory, yet a buyer should be able to see how many layers of debt hide inside a flat's price. Also: the financing-charge tax tightening, the 450 per cent debt cap proposal, the limits of Airbnb, and three pressures on construction. - sections: economy, society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/economy/ep75-vuokramarkkinoiden-uhat-ja-mahdollisuudet-ville-valkonen/ - 2021-04-18 — [Wicked Problems | Eija-Riitta Korhola | Negotiator 73](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep73-ilkeat-ongelmat-eija-riitta-korhola/index.md): Doctor of philosophy and 15-year MEP Eija-Riitta Korhola explains what makes a problem wicked: a one-dimensional solution creates further problems. The practical cases are blocking the waste incineration directive as a first-term MEP, the swinging regulation of biofuels, and Germany's Energiewende. The episode closes on why labelling people's motives poisons decision-making, and why one must be able to change one's mind. - sections: society, research - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/yhteiskunta/ep73-ilkeat-ongelmat-eija-riitta-korhola/ - 2021-03-27 — [Business Socialism | Sami Kuusela | Negotiator 70](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep70-bisnessosialismi-sami-kuusela/index.md): Sami Kuusela unpacks the term he coined — business socialism: many entrepreneurs love business but do not find their values on the right. The core claim is that safety nets are precisely what make Finns free to take risk — met by Sami Miettinen's counter-figures on the total tax rate, the subsidiary economy and the shortage of capital. Also: Kuusela's own journey from 'hoodie guy' to humbled clarifier, the municipal campaign, and a bolder Helsinki. - sections: society, economy - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/yhteiskunta/ep70-bisnessosialismi-sami-kuusela/ - 2021-03-14 — [A Lousy Finland in 2021? | Heikki Pursiainen | Negotiator 68](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep68-paska-suomi-2021-heikki-pursiainen/index.md): Heikki Pursiainen revisits the arguments of his book Paska Suomi five years on: which he still stands behind and where he has softened. At the centre is the state-centredness of Finnish civil society and culture, the question of where the line for public support runs, and what digitalisation does to the justifications for public broadcasting and library compensation. - sections: society, economy - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/yhteiskunta/ep68-paska-suomi-2021-heikki-pursiainen/ - 2021-03-07 — [The Extremes in Finland | Matti Virtanen | Negotiator 67](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep67-aaripaat-suomessa-matti-virtanen/index.md): Journalist and author Matti Virtanen discusses his forthcoming book on political extremes and identity politics. The episode traces identity politics to 1970s America, sets out Eric Hobsbawm's defence of universalism against fragmentation, and works through the Finnish version: the National Coalition's mayoral race, Atte Kaleva's communist joke, the trans law and the fight over word choices, and reporting trips to Sápmi and to nationalist circles. - sections: society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/yhteiskunta/ep67-aaripaat-suomessa-matti-virtanen/ - 2021-02-28 — [Imagined Communities | Leevi Leivo | Negotiator 66](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep66-kuvitellut-yhteisot-leevi-leivo/index.md): Leevi Leivo of the Puheenaihe podcast opens up Benedict Anderson's classic Imagined Communities: how a shared language, media and capitalism built the nation state. The episode separates community from network, weighs the climate movement, sports clubs and online platforms as transnational communities, and argues that the central problem of our time is communitylessness. - sections: society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/yhteiskunta/ep66-kuvitellut-yhteisot-leevi-leivo/ - 2021-02-05 — [Dark Scaremongering, the Euro and the Government's Bogeymen | Tuomas Malinen | Negotiator 62](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep62-pimeaa-pelottelua-euro-tuomas-malinen/index.md): Tuomas Malinen, CEO of GnS Economics, argues that the EU recovery fund is not a one-off but the end point of a transfer union, and that currency unions historically have only two directions: they break up, or they become political unions. The episode covers the two functions of an exchange rate, Esko Aho's 1998 warning, and why Finland's longest recession came during a period without a currency of its own. - sections: economy, society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/economy/ep62-pimeaa-pelottelua-euro-tuomas-malinen/ - 2021-02-01 — [Tax Elasticities and Discriminatory Unemployment Benefit | Mauri Kotamäki | Negotiator 61](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep61-verojoustot-ja-ansiosidonnainen-mauri-kotamaki/index.md): Chief economist Mauri Kotamäki unpacks the concept of elasticity and its link to the Laffer curve, explains why micro and macro elasticities lead to different policy conclusions, and takes apart the structural unfairness of Finnish earnings-related unemployment insurance: every employee pays the contribution, but only fund members receive the earnings-related part. - sections: economy, society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/economy/ep61-verojoustot-ja-ansiosidonnainen-mauri-kotamaki/ - 2021-01-12 — [Trump's impeachment and deplatforming | Antti Ronkainen | Negotiator 57](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep57-trumpin-viraltapano-ja-bannaus-antti-ronkainen/index.md): Recorded six days after the storming of the Capitol and a week before the inauguration, researcher Antti Ronkainen reads the event as a chain of security failures with an unresolved question of intent at its centre. The episode covers why Trump was never capable of a conventional coup, the split between Republican 'gamers' and 'breakers', why holding the Senate would have served the party better than Trump did, and what the coordinated deplatforming of a sitting president means for the relationship between Big Tech and power. - sections: society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/yhteiskunta/ep57-trumpin-viraltapano-ja-bannaus-antti-ronkainen/ - 2021-01-07 — [Carbon compensation | Elina Kajosaari | Negotiator 56](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep56-paastokompensointi-elina-kajosaari/index.md): Compensate CEO Elina Kajosaari explains why the carbon sequestration market is the Wild West and what verifying quality compensation actually takes: of roughly a hundred projects drawn from the best of the two best-known standards, only about ten per cent passed Compensate's own criteria. The episode covers the design flaw in capitalism that leaves climate harm out of prices, the correct order of reduction and compensation, over-compensation through quality multipliers, and the Finnish legal ambiguity that froze the whole sector — is sequestering carbon a service or a money collection? - sections: society, economy - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/yhteiskunta/ep56-paastokompensointi-elina-kajosaari/ - 2021-01-01 — [Psychology and channel feedback | Kaisa Mäkelä | Negotiator 55](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep55-psykologia-ja-neuvottelija-palaute-kaisa-makela/index.md): Kaisa Mäkelä, founder of the startup Awareness Recreated, discusses consciousness, cognitive distortions and how non-verbal feedback exposes your own biases. This is an informal feedback episode that also covers the non-verbal synchronisation broken by remote work, the channel dependency of online communities, and trolls as a psychological phenomenon. Towards the end Miettinen challenges the standing of Freud and Jung, and Mäkelä explains why the old theories have survived — even though they are details within an extremely broad science. - sections: society, tools - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/yhteiskunta/ep55-psykologia-ja-neuvottelija-palaute-kaisa-makela/ - 2020-12-23 — [The Great Reset | Tuomas Malinen | Negotiator 54](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep54-the-great-reset-tuomas-malinen/index.md): The channel's audience voted for the year's closing episode and chose Tuomas Malinen on the Great Reset. He argues the V-shaped recovery is artificial — built on record global debt and debt moratoria that suspend normal bankruptcy law — and reads the World Economic Forum's programme as a path towards greater state control sold on attractive language. The episode covers central bank digital currency, Acemoglu and Robinson's narrow corridor, and Malinen's own recipe: take the economic hit, keep the freedoms. - sections: society, economy - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/yhteiskunta/ep54-the-great-reset-tuomas-malinen/ - 2020-12-17 — [The Basic Account and The Victory of Freedom | Elina Valtonen | Negotiator 53](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep53-perustili-vapauden-voitto-elina-valtonen/index.md): Elina Valtonen (still Lepomäki at the time of recording), deputy chair of the National Coalition Party, works through the themes of her book Vapauden voitto and answers the question the channel's viewers sent in: has she become a defender of the euro and a federal Europe? The answer is no — the monetary union has, on her account, stood on clay feet almost from the start. The episode opens up the basic account she designed in 2013, universalism as a principle for allocating public goods, the 95/5 split in earnings-related unemployment funding, the spending automaton built into the health and social services reform, and why federalism means the opposite in Germany to what it means in Finland. It closes on whether the ECB's digital euro could deliver a basic account — and on Miettinen's ECU-2 model. - sections: economy, society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/economy/ep53-perustili-vapauden-voitto-elina-valtonen/ - 2020-12-12 — [Responsible capitalism | Tiina Landau | Negotiator 52](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep52-vastuullinen-kapitalismi-tiina-landau/index.md): Tiina Landau, co-author of a book on earning excess returns through responsibility, unpacks the mechanics of responsible investing from a practitioner's standpoint. The episode opens by correcting Milton Friedman — he never said profit should be made at any cost — and moves on to Maersk's Indian shipbreaking beaches, where Norway's KLP did not sell but stayed to engage. It covers the three letters of ESG and how their order came about, the toolkit of influence from exclusion to activist funds, Stora Enso's Chinese pulp mill as a genuinely contested case, green bonds and the EU taxonomy — and Landau's daily question: is responsibility risk management or impact? - sections: economy, society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/economy/ep52-vastuullinen-kapitalismi-tiina-landau/ - 2020-12-08 — [Equality and free speech | Ivan Puopolo | Negotiator 51](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep51-tasa-arvo-ja-sananvapaus-ivan-puopolo/index.md): Journalist Ivan Puopolo argues that free speech is a relationship between a citizen and the state and nothing else — which is why a broadcaster, an employer or a platform declining to publish you restricts nothing. The episode opens with a live free speech test on Puopolo's own identities and moves through the difference between equality of opportunity and equality of outcome, what the word 'structural' adds to 'racism', why Macron's Enlightenment defence found so few supporters, the problem of judging intent in hate speech law, and the Nordic gender equality paradox. Miettinen pushes back throughout on bias in hiring and on whether the market really corrects it. - sections: society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/yhteiskunta/ep51-tasa-arvo-ja-sananvapaus-ivan-puopolo/ - 2020-12-03 — [The EU's opposition | Sari Essayah | Negotiator 50](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep50-eun-oppositio-sari-essayah/index.md): Christian Democrat leader and former MEP Sari Essayah answers the claim Sami Miettinen heard on a visit to the European Parliament: there is no opposition in the EU. Her answer is partly yes and more interesting than a yes — there is no government-versus-opposition structure, and what takes its place is a triangle in which the Commission and Parliament form a pair and the Council is the body that watches the money. The episode covers the Commission's monopoly on initiative, the division of labour between rapporteur and shadow rapporteur, the drift from directives to regulations, the failure of the lead-candidate system, and the passage of the recovery fund, in which treaty articles were, in her words, interpreted very creatively. She closes with a concrete reform: give the Council a right of initiative. - sections: society, economy - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/yhteiskunta/ep50-eun-oppositio-sari-essayah/ - 2020-11-25 — [The exit handbook and capital income | Kim Väisänen | Negotiator 48](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep48-exit-opas-ja-paaomatulot-kim-vaisanen/index.md): Kim Väisänen and Sami Miettinen work through how a person actually moves between wealth classes in Finland — and why most imagined shortcuts are not shortcuts. The episode dismantles the myth that income classes are permanent, notes that Finland's poorest postcode is almost always Otaniemi, and works out what the 1:10 ratio between earned and capital income means for the tax debate. Startup investing turns out to be a poor route to wealth, leaving one: building and selling a company. Väisänen sets out the five things that have to be right for a good exit, and why preparation takes two years rather than two quarters. - sections: economy, society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/economy/ep48-exit-opas-ja-paaomatulot-kim-vaisanen/ - 2020-11-24 — [An alternative to the euro: the ECU-2 basket | Sami Miettinen and Juhana Vartiainen on Puheenaihe 131](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/puheenaihe-131-ecu-2-kori-juhana-vartiainen/index.md): The episode where Sami Miettinen's ECU-2 proposal meets a serious opponent. Puheenaihe put him opposite MP and economist Juhana Vartiainen, who does not buy it. The proposal is to reverse the euro's own construction: reintroduce national currencies as parallel money and define the euro juridically as their weighted sum. Vartiainen's objection is direct — if the willingness to tax German surpluses does not exist, no currency architecture creates it, and Finland's adjustment problem is domestic. Also covered: Target2, federation without transfers, fiscal dominance and Greece in 2015. - sections: economy, society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/economy/puheenaihe-131-ecu-2-kori-juhana-vartiainen/ - 2020-10-29 — [The second wave and a global dystopia | Tuomas Malinen | Negotiator 43](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep43-koronan-toinen-aalto-ja-globaali-dystopia-tuomas-malinen/index.md): GNS Economics' Tuomas Malinen and Sami Miettinen work through the economic consequences of the coronavirus second wave and arrive at the episode's central worry: every solution being offered to the crisis is a centralised one. The economy already collapsed in the second quarter, and that collapse has been prevented from realising through bankruptcy moratoria — a carpet pulled over the chasm. The core of the discussion is central bank digital currency and the Chinese model, in which private payment systems are forced to settle in central bank money, opening a path where the commercial banking system becomes unnecessary. Malinen closes on the question the episode keeps returning to: will we let fear take away freedoms bought with tens of millions of lives? - sections: economy, society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/economy/ep43-koronan-toinen-aalto-ja-globaali-dystopia-tuomas-malinen/ - 2020-10-26 — [White hats and the Vastaamo extortion | Juho Ranta | Negotiator 42](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep42-2ns-valkohatut-ja-vastaamon-kiristys-juho-ranta/index.md): Second Nature Security CTO Juho Ranta unpacks the Vastaamo data breach and extortion while it was still unfolding: what white hat and black hat actually mean, why Tor and bitcoin are double-edged in the same way, and why you should neither pay the extortionist nor read the leaked files. The episode also covers common misunderstandings about GDPR, password practice and two-factor authentication, the three identifiers of which only two can be changed, and why security has to be run on the business's terms rather than by staring at a single system. - sections: society, tools - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/yhteiskunta/ep42-2ns-valkohatut-ja-vastaamon-kiristys-juho-ranta/ - 2020-10-17 — [How the US federation was built | Manolis Huuki | Negotiator 40](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep40-usan-liittovaltiokehitys-manolis-huuki/index.md): Huuki Show host and political history student Manolis Huuki walks through the birth of the American federation: taxation without representation, the Articles of Confederation, the quarrel between federalists and anti-federalists, the three-fifths compromise and the federal debt that took off after the Civil War. The second half applies all of it to the European Union. The sharpest observation is numerical: US federal and state government together run at around 30 per cent of GDP, while Finland alone is at 42 — so copying a Hamiltonian moment would mean moving taxes to Brussels and cutting the rate, not building a new layer on top. - sections: society, economy - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/yhteiskunta/ep40-usan-liittovaltiokehitys-manolis-huuki/ - 2020-10-10 — [The Saavutus podcast and the psychology of goals | Aaro Huttunen | Negotiator 39](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep39-saavutus-podcast-aaro-huttunen/index.md): Aaro Huttunen, host of the Saavutus podcast, appears in a twin episode covering individual goal-setting and the self-improvement literature behind it. Along the way: Risto Siilasmaa's paranoid optimism as corporate scenario analysis, the success laws of Brian Tracy and Jari Sarasvuo, Tony Robbins's pain-and-pleasure anchoring, NLP's eye-movement theory and how much to trust it, Kiyosaki's Rich Dad Poor Dad, and biohacking in Finnish conditions. Running through it is Huttunen's principle: every episode has to leave the listener something concrete they can actually use. - sections: tools, society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/tools/ep39-saavutus-podcast-aaro-huttunen/ - 2020-10-01 — [V-curves and Taistoism | Tuomas Malinen | Negotiator 38](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep38-v-kayria-ja-taistolaisuutta-tuomas-malinen/index.md): GNS Economics CEO Tuomas Malinen explains why the firm's latest Q-review contained no positive scenario at all for the first time: the options are collapse, reset and great inflation. A European banking crisis has become the baseline. Malinen unpicks why record-low junk bond yields cannot coexist with record-high large corporate bankruptcies unless a central bank has broken the pricing mechanism, and why debt-financed stimulus in an over-indebted economy creates the conditions for a debt crisis. The second half covers the public clash between the Finnish government and business leaders, what corporate social responsibility actually means, and the quality of the debate over the EU recovery fund. - sections: economy, society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/economy/ep38-v-kayria-ja-taistolaisuutta-tuomas-malinen/ - 2020-09-09 — [Life after RBS and pinBox Solutions – Sanjeev Kumar | Negotiator 36](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep36-elama-rbs-jalkeen-pinbox-solutions-sanjeev-kumar/index.md): Sami Miettinen's former Royal Bank of Scotland colleague Sanjeev Kumar, based in Singapore, traces his path from running RBS's global corporate advisory business through MUFG to a new chapter — and explains why he joined the global advisory board of pinBox Solutions. pinBox builds digital micro-pension systems for low-income workers, especially women and the non-salaried: live in Rwanda and Kenya, just launched in India. The conversation compares Finland's collective pension system with Singapore's personal-account model, works through the allocation problem in defined-contribution schemes, and lands on why longevity, financial inclusion and impact investing make finance more interesting after the global financial crisis than it was before it. - sections: economy, society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/economy/ep36-elama-rbs-jalkeen-pinbox-solutions-sanjeev-kumar/ - 2020-08-24 — [Security policy, the euro and NATO | Vesa Kanniainen | Negotiator 33](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep33-turvallisuuspolitiikka-euro-ja-nato-vesa-kanniainen/index.md): Vesa Kanniainen, emeritus professor of economics, examines Finland's permanent security deficit and why he considers EU membership one of the most significant post-war security decisions the country has made — even though he is best known as a euro critic. The episode covers a game-theoretic reading of the YYA treaty, the NATO option and the price of exercising it as shared responsibility for the Baltics, the costs of the common currency and the parallel-currency idea, and Kanniainen's work at the boundary of morality and economics from Adam Smith to Vernon Smith. - sections: society, economy - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/yhteiskunta/ep33-turvallisuuspolitiikka-euro-ja-nato-vesa-kanniainen/ - 2020-08-20 — [Taxation, the Laffer curve and Libera | Tere Sammallahti | Negotiator 32](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep32-verotus-lafferin-kayra-ja-libera-tere-sammallahti/index.md): Tere Sammallahti of the think tank Libera asks why Finnish tax debate always aims at the peak of the Laffer curve and never at collecting as little tax as possible. The conversation covers the problem of cherry-picked comparison periods in economic argument, the scale of transfers and Gini figures, a three-dimensional political coordinate system, universally binding collective agreements and the position of the non-unionised worker, and taxing externalities as a way to fund lower taxes on work. - sections: economy, society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/economy/ep32-verotus-lafferin-kayra-ja-libera-tere-sammallahti/ - 2020-08-12 — [The Stealth Federalization of the EU | Tuomas Malinen | Negotiator 31](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep31-eun-hiipiva-federalisoituminen-tuomas-malinen/index.md): An English-language episode in which Tuomas Malinen sets out the mechanics of the recovery fund for an international audience. A EUR 750 billion package split into EUR 390 billion of grants and EUR 360 billion of loans, allocated on population, GDP per capita and unemployment from 2015-2019 - variables with nothing to do with the pandemic. Malinen names two treaty articles he considers broken, sorts the euro countries into beneficiaries and losers by GDP per capita, and walks through GnS Economics' synthetic markka simulation, which suggests Finnish exports would have been some 40 per cent higher with an own currency. He closes with one concrete demand: a referendum on the recovery fund in every member state. - sections: economy, society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/economy/ep31-eun-hiipiva-federalisoituminen-tuomas-malinen/ - 2020-08-06 — [The EU recovery fund and fiscal transfers | Tuomas Malinen | Negotiator 30](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep30-eun-elpymisrahasto-ja-tulonsiirrot-tuomas-malinen/index.md): Tuomas Malinen of GnS Economics walks through the structure of the EU recovery fund and argues it is a permanent transfer mechanism rather than a one-off crisis measure: the allocation criteria do not correlate with Covid, the EU borrows directly into member-state budgets for the first time, and the balanced-budget requirement of Article 310 is bypassed. The conversation covers the German constitutional court's ultra vires ruling, the scale of Italy's debt, the arithmetic of Finland's negotiated outcome, and the case for a referendum. - sections: economy, society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/economy/ep30-eun-elpymisrahasto-ja-tulonsiirrot-tuomas-malinen/ - 2020-08-03 — [Growth, institutions and Acemoğlu | Mika Maliranta | Negotiator 29](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep29-kilpailu-instituutiot-ja-talouskasvu-mika-maliranta/index.md): Mika Maliranta, research professor at the Finnish Competition and Consumer Authority, explains why firms exist at all (the Coase theorem), where the line runs between vertical and horizontal integration, and how natural monopolies are regulated. The second half takes up Acemoğlu and Robinson's institutional theory, The Narrow Corridor and Hayek: why good institutions are not adopted even when they are well known, why some institution always fills the gap — the mafia included — and why the Nordic model and earnings-related unemployment insurance actually encourage risk-taking. - sections: economy, society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/economy/ep29-kilpailu-instituutiot-ja-talouskasvu-mika-maliranta/ - 2020-06-19 — [The Markka and the Coming Federation | Tuomas Malinen | Neuvottelija 25](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep25-markka-ja-tuleva-liittovaltio-tuomas-malinen/index.md): Tuomas Malinen of GnS Economics and Sami Miettinen revisit the three scenarios they set out in their book on the euro's future six years earlier: zombification through the ECB's balance sheet, a move to federation, and fragmentation of the euro area. Malinen reads the pandemic as a classic asymmetric shock being explained away as a symmetric one, and argues the EU has moved onto a path that breaches its own treaties in both the recovery fund and the ECB's pandemic programme. The episode covers the Karlsruhe court's deadline for the Bundesbank, Finland's hidden contingent liabilities, and why a floating currency works as a countercyclical safety valve. It closes with Malinen's pointed promise about leaving the euro and a scenario in which the recovery package fails in national parliaments. - sections: economy, society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/economy/ep25-markka-ja-tuleva-liittovaltio-tuomas-malinen/ - 2020-06-18 — [Charts on the Facts: Markka or Federation | Tuomas Malinen | Neuvottelija 24](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep24-faktakaaviot-markka-vai-liittovaltio-tuomas-malinen/index.md): Tuomas Malinen of GnS Economics and Sami Miettinen work slide by slide through the most common misconceptions about an independent currency and an EU federation. The episode shows that Finnish interest rates were not exceptionally high during the markka era once the currency floated, and that the rate spike came from defending a fixed exchange rate rather than from having one's own money. The discussion presents the GnS simulation of how the markka would have moved during the euro years and its countercyclical effect, and compares US federal tax levels with the EU equivalent. It closes on Puerto Rico's debt restructuring, the broken no-bailout principle, and where a federation's ten-point tax increase would come from. - sections: economy, society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/economy/ep24-faktakaaviot-markka-vai-liittovaltio-tuomas-malinen/ - 2020-06-01 — [The Role of Podcasts in Public Debate | Sami Miettinen on Futucast | Futucast 87](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/futucast-87-podcastien-rooli-yhteiskunnallisessa-keskustelussa/index.md): Sami Miettinen is a guest on Futucast, hosted by William von der Pahlen and Isak Rautio, in a conversation about what unedited long-form talk does to public debate. The episode opens up the Overton window and the risk that a society's consensus drifts badly out of line with reality when the range of the discussable is never widened. The discussion sets identity politics — judging a claim by which box the speaker fits — against Ray Dalio's believability weighting, where a track record on that specific subject earns the hearing. The sharpest observation concerns institutions: inside a bank, a party or an agency every sentence is read as the institution's position, leaving only entrepreneurs and the not-yet-hired free to speak. - sections: society, tools - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/yhteiskunta/futucast-87-podcastien-rooli-yhteiskunnallisessa-keskustelussa/ - 2020-02-21 — [Identity Politics – Antti Ronkainen | Neuvottelija 6](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep6-identiteettipolitiikka-antti-ronkainen/index.md): Doctoral researcher Antti Ronkainen unpacks the mechanics of identity politics as the megatrend of political influence: why Boris Johnson won with a single identity while Corbyn's Labour leaked in every direction, how Fukuyama's thymos and the white worker explain Trump's rise, what Krastev and Piketty reveal about imitation and the left's gentrification, and why identity politics is a 'cage of democracy.' Featuring the Overton window, the 'Frankfurt School' myth, Bloomberg's micro-targeting, and the crisis of Finland's and Kokoomus's center-right. - sections: society, economy - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/yhteiskunta/ep6-identiteettipolitiikka-antti-ronkainen/ - 2020-02-03 — [Negotiation skills and ownership | Sami Miettinen and Tero Luoma on Puheenaihe 53](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/puheenaihe-53-neuvottelutaidot-ja-omistajuus/index.md): Rami Kurimo puts a negotiation author and an ownership author in the same room and asks whether you can negotiate your way to a million. What comes out is a two-part conversation: the four levers of negotiation and the team roles nobody bothers to agree before walking into the room, and then the distinction Luoma draws between an owner and an investor — the owner is the one who has to negotiate. Underneath both sits the same Finnish problem: too little private capital and too few owners. - sections: economy, society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/economy/puheenaihe-53-neuvottelutaidot-ja-omistajuus/ - 2019-10-31 — [The international monetary system | Sami Miettinen on Puheenaihe 44](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/puheenaihe-44-kansainvalinen-rahajarjestelma-sam-laakso/index.md): Sami Miettinen and Sam Laakso on Puheenaihe in October 2019, at the tail of what was then the longest expansion in American history and one of the weakest by average growth. The argument that carries the episode is about pegs: a gold standard rebalances itself, but the mechanism breaks when a local currency is tied one-to-one to an international settlement currency while labour markets stay rigid — which is precisely the euro's defect. Also covered: the policy rate as a deliberate choice, Russia's digital gold-backed currency, Libra as an SDR-like basket, the scale of crypto, and housing. - sections: economy, society - suomeksi: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/economy/puheenaihe-44-kansainvalinen-rahajarjestelma-sam-laakso/ All sections: [AI Research](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/research/index.md) · [AI and the Economy](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/economy/index.md) · [AI and Society](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/society/index.md) · [Tools and Implementations](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/tools/index.md) · [OpenClaw Chronicles](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/openclaw/index.md) · [Political Satire](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/political-satire/index.md) Publication index: https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/index.md · Machine index: https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/index.json · RSS: https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/feed.xml · llms.txt: https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/llms.txt Finnish edition: https://www.neuvottelija.fi/yhteiskunta/index.md