Podcast · Viikon viisasteluklubi Viisastelu 23.4.2024 · 2024-04-23 · 56:55 · In Finnish

An MP explains a tax rise, and the table does not agree — Sami Miettinen on Weekly Wiseguys

Published as “Viisastelu | "Oikeistohallistus" ja veronkorotukset -SPESIAALI”

Hosted by: Ivan Puopolo

▶ Watch on Viikon viisasteluklubi

Sami Miettinen joined Viikon viisastelu — Ivan Puopolo’s weekly political panel, known in English here as Weekly Wiseguys — on 23 April 2024, alongside Finns Party MP Onni Rostila and, arriving halfway through, Tere Sammallahti. It was recorded just after the Finnish government agreed some €1.5 billion in tax rises, including a VAT increase to 25.5 per cent.

This is the exception in the series. Instead of criticising somebody who is not in the room, the panel has a governing-party MP at the table explaining the decision to people who disagree with it — and the host opens with a warning that voices will be raised. Both sides make their case: Rostila with five arguments including the EU deficit procedure, the arithmetic of a four-party compromise and the time it takes to remove a statutory spending obligation; Miettinen with Finland’s new position as effectively the second-highest VAT rate in the world, and a proposal that is the most feasible idea in the hour — print each tax’s international ranking in brackets in the budget document.

The best single moment is a correction made mid-sentence. When the MP says something “cannot be done”, Miettinen points out that no mechanism prevents it and the issue is that it is not wanted. The distinction is accepted, and it changes the terms of the rest of the discussion.

The second half turns to a case where a publisher lost advertising revenue after being listed by an international disinformation index, and to the structural claim that follows: once such a definition widens from inaccuracy to harm, the classification grades positions rather than facts, with financial consequences either way. The panel also turns that scepticism on themselves — “I’m not claiming the alternative media is any more reliable; it probably isn’t.”

Where figures are given without working — a €700 billion wealth comparison, a dividend total that does not match the same speaker’s earlier number — the write-up says so.

Chapters

• 00:52 — A warning: there will be shouting
• 01:40 — The line-up, and one empty chair
• 02:28 — The question the audience sent in
• 03:17 — €1.5 billion, and VAT at 25.5
• 04:03 — Rostila’s answer, part 1: what was said before the election
• 04:54 — The threat of the deficit procedure
• 05:42 — A correction: cannot, or will not?
• 06:29 — “What would Milei do?”
• 07:18 — Why there was no alternative
• 08:31 — Criticism of the communication, not the decision
• 09:17 — The tax ratio that inevitably falls
• 10:04 — Who pays, and how much
• 10:55 — Bargaining power inside a coalition
• 11:44 — The mid-term review, and pressure from outside
• 12:31 — What the papers are writing at the same time
• 13:20 — Looking for new taxes
• 14:08 — The Swedish comparison and a wealth calculation
• 14:54 — Dividends as an order of magnitude
• 15:52 — Losing a client as an analogy
• 16:39 — Why the tax ratio never falls
• 17:30 — The opposition’s alternative
• 18:17 — A proposal: put the international ranking in the budget
• 19:06 — What “taxes on high earners” means here
• 19:55 — When not taking is called spending
• 20:44 — Opposition rhetoric and the gender split
• 21:36 — The welfare state as a woman’s party
• 22:32 — Net taxpayers and service use
• 23:19 — Tere arrives
• 24:05 — Arriving late as a tactic
• 24:52 — Every party has its favourites
• 25:39 — The corporatist inheritance
• 26:32 — Why not simply decide?
• 27:19 — Whose table the thirteen billion sits on
• 28:05 — The broadcaster: cuts without changing the law
• 28:59 — The limits on how fast cuts can be made
• 29:45 — Who the interest is paid to
• 30:33 — Liquidity and the bond market
• 31:18 — Statutory obligations first
• 32:04 — Why permanent rather than temporary?
• 32:51 — Preparation time in the ministry
• 33:42 — Whose fingers get hit
• 34:37 — An antifragile system
• 35:26 — The low-hanging fruit
• 36:22 — Coalition, polling, and the limit
• 37:15 — Who is already shouting
• 38:01 — The third sector’s service obligation
• 38:52 — Comparing with previous governments
• 39:40 — A memory from 2007
• 40:27 — Sweden’s choice and its result
• 41:33 — Where we start from
• 42:19 — The pension system as an explanation for wealth
• 43:06 — One point awarded to the government
• 43:55 — A publisher that lost its ad market
• 44:43 — How disinformation gets defined
• 45:34 — The definition widening
• 46:19 — The practical consequences
• 47:09 — Who funds the classifier
• 48:01 — The effect on public debate
• 48:48 — Trust in the mainstream press
• 49:49 — How the same story gets framed
• 50:39 — Is a neutral outlet missing in Finland?
• 51:26 — Who gets interviewed
• 52:13 — Who ended up on the list
• 53:00 — An observation about where disinformation starts
• 53:46 — Communications advice for the government
• 54:37 — Renaming as a political instrument
• 55:23 — What the opposition’s silence says
• 56:14 — Sign-off

The recording lives on Ivan Puopolo’s own channel and he owns it. This page is a record of the appearance and a pointer to the original, not a copy of it. The chapter marks above are derived from the recording itself; the episode carries no published chapter list of its own.

A fuller write-up is on Neuvottelija AI, in English and in Finnish.

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