Podcast · Viikon viisasteluklubi Viisastelu 30.12.2022 · 2022-12-30 · 44:35 · In Finnish

A lie, a shaded truth, and the year's accounts — Sami Miettinen on Weekly Wiseguys

Published as “Viisastelu: Sanna Marinin valheet | Vuoden sakeimmat woketukset | Samppanjaa ja laulua!”

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 — for the last episode of 2022 on 30 December, with Tere Sammallahti and MP Onni Rostila. A table is laid, a champagne bottle is sabred open, and the framing is a “rich Nordic simulation”: what New Year would look like if Finns were as wealthy as Danes rather than as Portuguese.

The first half is about a word. The episode is titled lies, and then spends its opening arguing that the word does not quite fit — lying requires knowing a thing to be otherwise, while a false statement can come from incompetence — before landing on the point that for accountability the difference changes nothing. A chief executive cannot excuse an error by saying his division heads misunderstood him. The host then marks his own published wording on the same story as too soft, which is an unusual thing for a programme criticising others for not using the direct word.

The second half is the year in figures, and it is the part worth keeping: roughly 11 per cent excess mortality, some 40 billion borrowed over the term, a central-government deficit that grew by nearly as much as in the previous four terms combined — and, set against that, Denmark running no deficit years over the same period, reducing its state debt, with lower covid mortality. Sami adds the Credit Suisse finding that Finland was the only Nordic country whose average wealth fell in 2021, in a record stock-market year, and that 2.5 per cent of Finnish adults are millionaires against roughly 6 per cent in Sweden and 11 in the United States.

The most surprising moment has nothing to do with either. Reviewing their own year, one of them argues that the press should not have joined the NATO consensus — even though he thinks the conclusion was right — because its job was to keep the alternative in view. It is a criticism of the media for agreeing with him.

Chapters

• 00:00 — The last episode of the year, and a “rich Nordic” simulation
• 02:24 — Why parliament does not permit the word lying
• 03:10 — The host marks his own wording as an error
• 04:03 — What the claim was about: when the electricity support was prepared
• 04:51 — Responsibility does not transfer to subordinates
• 05:36 — The officials answered with a date
• 06:23 — The price data had been visible a year earlier
• 07:18 — Lying, falsity, and why the difference does not change accountability
• 08:52 — Why the claim does not hold: the subject was in the news daily
• 09:47 — The pattern of the smokescreen
• 11:06 — The personality cult, and why it is dangerous — on their own side too
• 13:03 — Checking their own earlier episode
• 13:54 — Why the press should not have joined the NATO consensus
• 15:31 — The covid panic stopped like a wall
• 16:32 — What they predicted a year earlier, and how it landed
• 17:20 — “Compared internationally” — compared with what
• 18:07 — The tax level, Scotland, and a marginal-rate comparison
• 19:49 — The only Nordic country where wealth fell
• 20:38 — The deficit against the previous four terms combined
• 21:23 — The Denmark comparison
• 22:10 — A press that reprints the release unchanged
• 23:04 — An unpublished piece, checked in hindsight
• 23:52 — Trust in media as a function of diversity
• 24:38 — A public-broadcaster producer, and journalistic integrity
• 25:29 — A proposal: not cuts, but saving taxpayers’ money
• 27:12 — The year’s most absurd woke moments
• 27:52 — A correction: the later study was not a government commission
• 29:30 — A textbook claim, and a 1970s comparison
• 31:07 — A reader’s letter from decades ago
• 32:03 — Who defines hate speech, and the targeting law
• 32:57 — Quota requirements at an awards gala
• 35:23 — Quotas with economic consequences
• 37:05 — Why activism costs a researcher credibility
• 38:10 — Woke as an old doctrine in new wrapping
• 38:50 — Moralising increases hate speech — and what follows
• 39:39 — The oat-milk millionaire and the obligatory epilogue
• 41:16 — The share of millionaires in Finland and elsewhere

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 episode carries an eight-part chapter list of its own. The finer marks above were derived from the recording so the sections can be found.

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

Topics: Finnish Economy & Policy · Free Speech & Society · Investing & Markets · ← All media visits· Talks & Events· Markdown mirror: index.md