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Martin Paasi: Some restless host of the Rahapodi podcast went, back then

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in the era of negative interest rates, shouting all the way on YLE that we should

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take out 100 billion in loans. Negative interest rate — so really, invest it in something

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productive, that is. And that's how I think about it:

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let's make Finland a superpower of entrepreneurship, let's make everything possible.

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Then again, under the Marin government it would have

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just raised the discretionary 20 billion of spending to 80

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billion. All right, welcome to the year 2026. With us is Member of Parliament Martin

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Paasi. Howdy. Howdy. Well, this took off quickly.

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You're not the "Tsädäm" guy anymore. Have you given up on that era?

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Sure I am — didn't you just say it yourself? No, no, just on my own show. Of course it's,

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you know, a registered trademark — there's something fine about that. It was my third time

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on Paasipodi in parliament. There's something fine about going — well, this time

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we came in through the tunnels of the Little Parliament annex, so —

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don't go telling that now. Oh right, the Russians are listening. The Russians

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are listening, or, or maybe Tuomo Pietiläinen is taking

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notes on the real influencers, um, to put into Helsingin Sanomat's GDPR register,

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filing criminal complaints about us. Yeah, let's actually start right there. So,

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um, I've been following this with interest — how our leading paper, Helsingin

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Sanomat, did an investigative-journalism, um, exposé, where they concluded that 600

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thousand Finns were investigated — that is, among the signatories of citizens' initiatives that had made it

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through, an awful lot of right-wing ideas were found.

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In my view the research method was questionable — essentially digging up

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people's political opinions with the consent of the digital surveillance agency's

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um, henchmen — but the finding itself is, to me, a fine thing.

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Well, it does, it does in a way give a little hope that, that, um, this country isn't

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completely fire-red through and through, but, but,

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um — but then again it was, all the same, also

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just as much a bit of a, like, hit job

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of sorts. I was honestly a bit disappointed in Salla. In Salla Vuorikoski. I've

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considered her a really, like, critical

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journalist, and, like, someone striving for objectivity and all that, and

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and, um, and of course, it being her job, she then defended her own work,

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when she — her team, which had, um, been looking into

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what various well-known people had voted for when it comes to citizens' initiatives —

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like "Elokapina, Extinction Rebellion Finland, must be banned", this, um, "political strikes must be

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banned" and other such, like, emotionally charged, like,

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legislative initiatives. So, well, they did this kind of

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study and then skewered individual people who are, like,

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somehow in decision-making positions in society and, and who after all quite

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as citizens taking part in citizens' initiatives. Not

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not, say, as the CEO of some big company, or in any capacity

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other than as a citizen — and that's really the whole

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tone of the piece: 'well, who else did wrong,' and, and, and

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Salla then defended the piece on social media for a couple of days, and, um, I was left

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feeling a bit — I don't really want to get into that debate now — I was left

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feeling a bit down about it, honestly. Yeah, and then there were

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people calling in saying, 'aren't you ashamed, acting like some corporate CEO,

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wanting to shrink YLE.' I mean, what a radical opinion is that? I

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genuinely do want to cut the, um, 590 million euro

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budget of a market-distorting operator handing out free media content — cut it substantially. In my view

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that's basically a no-brainer. But then, the way people tried to

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fish out some kind of great sin — one figure apparently made a very

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priest-like public apology, but, like, hardly anyone else actually caved,

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and honestly I'm proud of that — good, good, good on those people, that

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good Finns, just like that. And in my view, this

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actually revealed that maybe the idea in that left-wing bubble had

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been that this would get people condemned, and then people who hold the wrong

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opinions would learn to keep quiet, like, at every political level, so that,

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you know, if you vote

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the wrong way, or, um, back the wrong causes, we'll expose you.

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So, quite the decent, 'cultural-

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revolution'-style leftist attack, um.

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Well, at least nobody's been carted off to Inari yet.

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No, not yet, no. But, um, let's go through a bit of your first full year

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in parliament. So, on this — my third episode of Paasipodi — you

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apparently had Anna Kontula on, so I guess the contrast is a bit different. What's it

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like — A, interviewing people like that, not on Rahapodi, and B,

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then being colleagues with them over there in parliament?

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Well, I'm, I'm, I'm a bit of an odd person in that sense, because I like

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um, different opinions — and especially when they're put forward or

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defended by people who, as a matter of genuine conviction, disagree.

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So, politics aside, and party politics aside — all

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these kind of, like, surface-level opinions, those aren't really that

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interesting. But then, on the other hand, the kind where people

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genuinely, strongly believe something — that, to me, and maybe

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even more so if they strongly disagree — that's

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— I have a curious nature, and I respect anyone who has

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a well-considered opinion at all, whatever that opinion

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looks like or however it's shaped. And, and, and

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Anna — I know her as the chair of the Committee for the Future,

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where I'm also a member myself, and she runs that job very

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exemplarily, and firmly, and wisely, and smartly. And, um, I got to

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comment on things for her new book too, which

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— by the way, it was really done in a very journalistically open way, in that

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yeah, and she keeps repeating that it's not — that it's the journalist's

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book, that she hasn't, in that sense,

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set any boundaries, or encouraged, or steered it in any way whatsoever,

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but, um, anyway — it was a good conversation, I'd recommend

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giving it a listen. We, we sadly got cut off in the middle again. We

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were just getting to the juicier part, like this communist-versus-

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market-liberalism divide in the conversation.

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Hopefully we'll get back to it, but overall, um,

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um, for people who like people, parliament is actually a pretty good

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place. Most of the people there are, um, pretty sharp.

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Then there are some others — you find people who are, you know, kind of

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fanatics, and with them you basically can't

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discuss anything at all, because they've already decided you're wrong, and you're, you're

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basically the devil's own spawn, and so on. So yeah, you do find maybe about

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a couple handfuls of those, and then roughly the same number of people

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whose, like, soul in political life has already

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burned to ash a long time ago. In other words, who no longer have any kind of their own

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vision, or sense of what's better, or how — like, trying to get good things for Finland,

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good outcomes for Finns — no, you're just, like, a completely political

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opportunist at every turn, in every sentence, and, and if

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you can grab one more crumb of political capital,

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you don't care one bit if you destroy somebody else's life. So, so, I mean, they're

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basically, like, broken inside. Yeah, you do find people like that. It's not really

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about that, though. But most of the people are just exactly as I said — decent.

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It took me about a year, in a way, to understand — to find in myself — that,

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okay, that a lot of people here actually do want to genuinely discuss

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things, and there's nothing to be ashamed of about it, that you [unclear]

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come to understand other points of view. Yeah, in this book there was also discussion

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among other things, about her relationship with Kimmo Kiljunen, who in turn was

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chair of the Defence Committee, of all things, I believe — which is, in a way, funny because

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personally I always feel like these Kiljunen- and Kontula-type figures — that Finland

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is completely missing that 'lustration' process — the vetting used to screen out old-regime sympathizers — that could have gotten people like that

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to shift their outlook a bit and pick up a little

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cognitive dissonance, because, like, basically everywhere else

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people like this were, at best, removed from office and publicly shamed,

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I'm not saying I want some kind of pillory, but somehow we missed out on

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that period when all the normal Western countries went through a kind of

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burst of self-reflection. But then, as such, when it comes to Anna Kontula,

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she does, she does reflect on herself pretty — pretty, in my opinion —

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objectively, extremely honestly,

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about what she is.

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So that lustration thing doesn't necessarily apply, in my opinion, or

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the need for it doesn't necessarily apply to her. But, but, I mean,

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well, it would at least apply to Kimmo Kiljunen. But, but I agree that

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overall in Finland it would be good to just

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realize and actually do the work of figuring out that

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Paavo Lipponen got 3 million euros

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in pipeline-consulting fees — and, um, has that actually been talked about much? And

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yeah, and then, but I mean, even more so, it's not really

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even about, like, Russian influence operations — I've

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had, for example, Esko Aho as a guest, who sat on Sberbank's board and

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who's basically now switched over to building relationships with China instead —

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smart guy. But, um, somehow, like, it just was never grasped, the

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sheer, senseless stupidity of Soviet communism, and, in a way,

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its bleak inhumanity, and, in every way, its complete lack of

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functionality compared with the market economy and capitalism

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— somehow that whole thing just never, ever got experienced in Finland. So

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we still have people today in the media, on the left, who

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genuinely believe in, say, a planned economy.

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So it kind of feels like that refreshing cold-water dousing

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that happened everywhere else through lustration — that has

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completely passed us by, right up to this day. So, well, I mean, if

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you think about it — if you follow the public media in Finland, then, then, well, roughly,

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on the surface an outsider could be left with the impression

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that, that, for Finns it isn't

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self-evident that the market economy — the market, the economy — is the very thing that

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has improved humanity's well-being the most significantly, and, and

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improved it overall, full stop, and all the other systems are some kind of

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something else entirely, and especially planned economies and communism and

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all the rest — those have left trails of destruction

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— and, and it's maybe a bit surprising: you end up having to — and this impression of mine

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comes from the fact that I feel like I somehow end up, in a way,

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even in my own role, having to defend something that is self-

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evident, that's, like, common knowledge basically everywhere else in the world, pretty much

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universally known — and I have to say that

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that's, like, very worrying. And the problem in my case is that, since

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I wasn't interested in politics before this, I don't have that kind of

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visibility, like, perspective on what this whole business used to be like before.

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So now I've, like, basically stuck my head straight into a wasp's nest, and

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it's a bit hard to say whether this — the number of stings coming my way —

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is actually normal, since I haven't done this before. But, but, um, yeah, yeah, I would be

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um, extremely worried

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in Finland about the fact that, that, um,

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everyone can have opinions, but not everyone —

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not even necessarily half the population — finds it self-

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evident what actually creates prosperity and well-being. And

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with all its imperfections, it's nonetheless the market economy that does — and

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— um — this is, in my opinion, a really strange,

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strange trait. This is an image that's just formed. It's not

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based on any research or anything. In my opinion, you can

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clearly see it — um, we have — well, I had this guy, Markus Holm,

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over from Switzerland, and he, by the way, was praising direct democracy. They had

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just been voting there on implementing this

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inheritance tax, and were against it — and there the threshold would have been 50 million francs,

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only above that would it even have started applying. Whereas here in Finland,

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the inheritance-tax threshold was just raised from 20 grand to 30 grand.

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Even that was too much communism for them, apparently. But then he'd calculated that

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our public sector is 159 billion euros, almost 60% of GDP, and private-sector

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employees, meanwhile, number just under 2 million — so that works out to 84

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thousand euros basically loaded onto the backs, in a sense, of that planned economy of ours, for us,

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for private-sector employees, in a way.

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And if you compare that to, say, the total wage bill, it's roughly

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the same size as all of Finland's earned income, um, including pensions. So,

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we have — and somehow the idea that this is totally fine, that there should be

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even more of it — whether that's the public sector's wage bill, or

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pensions, or social security, or, like, free-of-charge services,

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subsidized services, national defense — nobody

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even tries, in any way, to put that into perspective — that

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in Switzerland that same backpack is half the size of ours. So

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now that we have this right-wing government, and you came in via roughly the same

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route as, say, the Defence Minister — an old colleague of mine from RPS days, by the way — Elina

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Valtonen — and then Ville, well, Foreign Minister, and, um, so, so, 'Minister

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of War,' as it were, Trump-style — and then Ville Valkonen also came in

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partway through the term. Didn't you come in after Pekka Toveri?

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I came in after Toveri — literally following in 'Comrade' Toveri's footsteps there. So you

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came in a bit late to the party, so to speak — so you probably missed the opening celebrations,

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where the government program was being drafted. So does that affect your — have you

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have you caught up with my crowd here yet?

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Well, um, it's, like, a bad thing in terms of impact

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to come in mid-term, exactly because, um, for many reasons. One is that,

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at the start you have very intensive discussions, negotiations,

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in practice — and in that process you learn,

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you learn what's a difficult issue for each governing party, and

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what the arguments are. So you, you basically get a kind of fast-forward

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— okay, this is the crowd you're forming a government with, and, um, and here

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are the sore spots, and these aren't sore spots, and these are the things they want, and these

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work for us, and so on. That's one thing. Then the second

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layer is what's actually been decided overall, because since you

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were there taking part in making those decisions, and, and creating that

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government program, then, then, then you don't necessarily need to read

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the government program cover to cover, because — since you were there in those

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negotiations, you know what the deal is. Then the third thing is that,

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when the government program is being negotiated, and so on, then, in there,

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everyone's kind of arranging some positions for themselves, um,

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like, from within their own group and so on — committee seats, that sort of

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thing. Well, I'm not on a single, like, Finance Committee,

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any committee dealing with the economy, as a member — instead I sit on all sorts of

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other committees, which are perfectly good committees too, but it's

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clear that when I got to sit in as a substitute on the Finance Committee,

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it was kind of like, well, okay, now I — now I, like, now I'm

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among my own people, or rather in my own subject area. Now there's a lot

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I can contribute. But, but since I wasn't there at the start, I didn't get those

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seats, and nobody wants to give them up, because they're, like, important,

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and a vantage point, and so on. So, um, that's just kind of how it stays, and, and

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all this leads to you having to come up with your own ways

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of influencing things. So maybe, actually, let's take this one thing about committees —

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um, I thought it was a completely absurd event, this so-called 'leaning' — 'Nojailugate.'

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So, um, tell us what happened here with the leaning incident involving Krista Kiuru and your committee.

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I, I remember — it was, I just, like, woke up one day to, um,

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this story, and I just had to go write, like, this ridiculous

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crap myself, that, um, you're not exactly, like, the furthest thing from someone who

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harasses women, or leans over them as a tall guy, or however

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they tried to, like, spin it — I thought it was totally, uh—

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it wasn't — Krista made it clear in that piece that, um,

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actually, Krista backed me up through this whole mess

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I have to give her credit for that. So, what this was actually about was,

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we'd been sitting there for 17 hours straight. I mean, 17 hours.

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Mm. Time burned again.

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Well, that was Krista's fault, wasn't it? Well, that burned up a day and a half of

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the night. If, like, on top of that,

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you drag things out endlessly — that's what's called

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filibustering. In other words, it's basically deliberate obstruction in practice —

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something the opposition can engage in. And, um, I had other committee business and

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stuff like that, and all this work just got put on hold, and all

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these things — since I was brand new, I was already pretty stressed

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to begin with, but, in that sense, I tried, from the substitute's bench there

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in the committee, to get things done while I was sitting there on standby,

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stopping the opposition from marching, so to speak, out

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in front of the cameras to say 'we can't continue this discussion, blah blah blah,' because

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if we have full ranks, we can keep the meeting going, and, and

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then get things done — because if the opposition walks out, we can just make,

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like, endless decisions in a short amount of time. So it's this kind of

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committee maneuvering, this whole thing that was going on at STV — the Social Affairs and Health Committee — and I was an extra there,

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as a substitute member,

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keeping the governing party's ranks full. And then, um,

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um, then, well, it was one of those days again where we'd been sitting for 17

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hours, and, um, then I thought, well, this is a whole new sport for me, but if I

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were on a board — some company's board — I would give

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a pretty strongly opinionated,

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honest, openly candid speech. Like, 'this is total crap, that'

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what does it matter, like, what does it matter whether we discuss this now or

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the opposition discusses this matter, because the governing-party members have already

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said, like, no, this isn't going to fly. So we're just burning

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time, basically. And that was really on the same level as any

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board work, whether that's a company's board, or the Finnish Economists' association's

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board, or wherever. So there wasn't, in my own opinion,

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anything all that strange about it, but, um,

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in politics, this kind of theater gets performed. So then certain, um,

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opposition-party representatives acted all outraged, and 'never,'

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and, and used this kind of superlative language, and, um, and so on, but

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it was really just totally normal, like, 'hey, come on, let's actually

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stop this rambling and get decisions on the table' — I mean,

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we all know what this game is. It was that kind of

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thing. And then, um, after a while, I moved back to the substitute's bench.

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The actual member came in to STV, and, um, then, then this one

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politician there — um, when they were having some discussion about things, she again

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got, um, outraged, and she said, 'I can't'

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accept this,' and blah, blah, blah. And then I said — I remarked

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from the substitute's bench, 'well, but you're in the opposition,' like — and that was all

285
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I said, but, like, in parentheses, meaning, of course, if there are good points,

286
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we'll take them on board — but since the governing parties have said these

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aren't going to fly right now. Mm.

288
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So what does it matter what your opinion is, and what happens to you, or, like, what

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does or doesn't suit you, because you're in the opposition.

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And it was obvious that it was filibustering. In my opinion it should

291
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be obvious to everyone that the context was filibustering. Well, exactly

292
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that. And, I mean, the same goes the other way too — if I'm in the opposition next

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term, if I even get re-elected at all, and so on, then I too

294
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would understand this. So, that, um, that — it's, like — I'd

295
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suggest, 'hey, could we think of it this way' — and then the governing parties say no, fine.

296
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Then it's pointless for me to keep dragging it out. But anyway,

297
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this particular person then got outraged — like, really went

298
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into orbit right there. A former minister, and, um, and I, I, I

299
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was, like, taken aback by it — like, 'did you maybe misunderstand something, what

300
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did I' — I just said that, since you're in the opposition, that's

301
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all — everyone gets that you're in the opposition and this is filibustering —

302
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how can you be that upset about it? And then when there was a break, I didn't

303
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notice that all the governing-party members had left the room.

304
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Mm. I was left in that room with only the opposition-party members. I

305
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hadn't even thought to be wary of a situation like that.

306
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Mm. And then, there, I went up to

307
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the end of the table, where Krista Kiuru was sitting — this one person, and another, and, and,

308
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um, and, and I'm standing on the other side of the committee table, which is 2

309
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meters wide, and then there are chairs on top of that, so it's really about three meters

310
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away. And I was coming over there, like, hey, um,

311
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'is everything okay, because now, now you probably misunderstood something, since you

312
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got so worked up like that.' That's what I was about to say,

313
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but I didn't get a single word out before this person said,

314
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'I'm not talking to you.' And then I was just, like, 'what the

315
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[bleep] is going on?' Like that. And then the other person picked it up and

316
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started narrating the situation, like, 'you come over here acting in a threatening manner.'

317
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And I was just, like, 'seriously, what—

318
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what's happening here?' That's when I, that's when I started to realize that

319
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some kind of narrative was being written here. Yeah, that's when the, like, warning lights

320
00:24:44,080 --> 00:24:48,000
came on. I thought, 'some narrative is being written here that isn't going to be [unclear] —'

321
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friendly to some left-wing journalist's column.

322
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Anyway, so I said to the other person, who was claiming that I'd

323
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acted threateningly, I said, 'hey, don't, don't blow this thing up,

324
00:25:00,039 --> 00:25:03,880
this situation.' That's not quite proper Finnish, but that's just what I happened to say. I

325
00:25:03,880 --> 00:25:08,640
say that word exactly, and, um, and I left that situation

326
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and I said, I think, as I was starting to get a bit heated at that point, that

327
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'damn, what a clown.' Those were all the things I said

328
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in that situation. And then, when the meeting continued,

329
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the one who'd been so shocked then went and shared that shock

330
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with the whole, whole committee. And, um, and at that point I then

331
00:25:34,080 --> 00:25:38,640
got to say something, like, 'hey, seriously, I was actually about to come over

332
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and apologize, since you got so upset about the fact that I'd said that,

333
00:25:41,960 --> 00:25:46,679
well, since you're in the opposition' — that's the sentence I said that got

334
00:25:46,679 --> 00:25:51,640
her so worked up. And, um, and at that point Krista Kiuru

335
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gave her own remarks, in her capacity as chair, saying, yeah,

336
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of course she understands people can experience situations differently, and so on,

337
00:26:01,039 --> 00:26:05,880
'but I, sitting right here between the two of you,

338
00:26:05,880 --> 00:26:09,120
from where I was sitting, it certainly looked like Paasi was coming over

339
00:26:09,120 --> 00:26:13,640
to apologize to the whole committee — and this'

340
00:26:13,640 --> 00:26:19,000
'is common knowledge.' Okay, fast forward. So then,

341
00:26:19,000 --> 00:26:24,000
at some point, about a week — a week later — there was

342
00:26:24,000 --> 00:26:26,799
Independence Day right in between and something like that, and then,

343
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on Independence Day, so, um, so,

344
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Paula Risikko called me — um, the deputy speaker of parliament,

345
00:26:37,159 --> 00:26:41,320
the deputy speaker — and, um, said that right now

346
00:26:41,320 --> 00:26:46,679
the media's cooking up some kind of soup. And, um, then, on Monday, the next day,

347
00:26:46,679 --> 00:26:51,120
well, then the media was, like, all over me, since we were doing this STV

348
00:26:51,120 --> 00:26:57,960
business again. And, um, there was this Helsingin Sanomat reporter, who'd

349
00:26:57,960 --> 00:27:02,720
been trying to reach me, and I said, well, it took a little while before

350
00:27:02,720 --> 00:27:07,399
we ended up in the same place, and, and she then did the interview, and she

351
00:27:07,399 --> 00:27:11,120
asked me things like, roughly, 'what's your shoe size, are you this or that,' and blah,

352
00:27:11,120 --> 00:27:16,399
blah, like, some completely pointless stuff. And, um, and then I went and

353
00:27:16,399 --> 00:27:22,240
sat back down in committee again, and then within, like, 5 to 10 minutes

354
00:27:22,240 --> 00:27:29,279
she had already published the piece, in which, um,

355
00:27:29,360 --> 00:27:34,000
it was claimed that I had threatened a female individual,

356
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and she hadn't actually asked me about that at all

357
00:27:40,399 --> 00:27:45,360
when she interviewed me five minutes earlier — instead, she, she had

358
00:27:45,360 --> 00:27:50,159
already written the piece in full, clearly, because it came out just like

359
00:27:50,159 --> 00:27:56,159
snap — bang, and there were just some pointless comments of mine in it, like, blah-blah-blah,

360
00:27:56,159 --> 00:28:02,919
and, and that was the only thing in this whole mess that, um, back then, and

361
00:28:02,919 --> 00:28:09,159
even now, um, it goes beyond my sense of justice, that — that it was really, yeah,

362
00:28:09,159 --> 00:28:14,120
really embarrassing on YLE, on that live TV, how it went, in

363
00:28:14,120 --> 00:28:17,240
my own opinion. For some reason my throat just completely seized up. I couldn't

364
00:28:17,240 --> 00:28:21,600
get a word out. I don't even know who was interviewing me. It was a really confusing

365
00:28:21,600 --> 00:28:26,919
situation. It was really embarrassing. Of course I was mortified.

366
00:28:26,919 --> 00:28:36,880
Um, and, um — could I have lived without that storm? Well, maybe. On the other hand,

367
00:28:36,880 --> 00:28:41,440
it was really instructive, so I, like—

368
00:28:41,440 --> 00:28:45,760
to be honest about it, I wouldn't trade away a single day of it. But in there

369
00:28:45,760 --> 00:28:52,000
was this, this kind of fabricated claim — a smear campaign — which Helsingin

370
00:28:52,000 --> 00:28:58,159
Sanomat took part in, and which never got corrected at any point, even though I did

371
00:28:58,159 --> 00:29:02,279
everything I could to get it corrected. That article has been corrected

372
00:29:02,279 --> 00:29:07,039
eight times, but, um, not on that particular point.

373
00:29:07,039 --> 00:29:12,039
So that was the story. And maybe, coming back to why

374
00:29:12,039 --> 00:29:18,240
this was, all the same, such a good experience — it's that I

375
00:29:18,240 --> 00:29:23,919
um — I was a five-month-old politician at that point, four maybe,

376
00:29:23,919 --> 00:29:29,600
and I really learned a lot from that whole batch of events. First of all, that

377
00:29:29,600 --> 00:29:35,880
the National Coalition Party's modus operandi is to throw you under the bus. In other words, they want —

378
00:29:35,880 --> 00:29:42,600
if someone supposedly messes up, then, um, they want to cut that

379
00:29:42,600 --> 00:29:48,360
MP loose from it, or rather cut themselves — the party — loose from that

380
00:29:48,360 --> 00:29:53,120
scandal. So that's the first thing that gets done.

381
00:29:53,120 --> 00:29:57,880
So they put out — issue a statement saying, yeah,

382
00:29:57,880 --> 00:30:01,880
'this person behaved badly. We've had a serious talk. We've said that

383
00:30:01,880 --> 00:30:08,000
this is really, really stupid,' and the party, which has nothing to do with this business —

384
00:30:08,000 --> 00:30:14,120
and, um, Paasi regrets it, or this person regrets it and is truly remorseful, and it's

385
00:30:14,120 --> 00:30:19,200
really stupid, and this will never happen again — but this has nothing

386
00:30:19,200 --> 00:30:24,039
to do with the National Coalition Party in any way. And this, even though we'd had

387
00:30:24,039 --> 00:30:29,080
a really good, good mutual conversation with the group leader at the time,

388
00:30:29,080 --> 00:30:33,840
then, all the same, like, my own group,

389
00:30:33,840 --> 00:30:40,919
the National Coalition MPs' group, supported me like crazy through all sorts of

390
00:30:40,919 --> 00:30:47,679
channels — hugs in the hallways, encouragement, messages of support

391
00:30:47,679 --> 00:30:53,720
by email, this and that. Um, some people were on X defending me, coming out over this

392
00:30:53,720 --> 00:30:56,720
tabloid-headline stuff.

393
00:30:58,000 --> 00:31:03,279
So this kind of oddity, this kind of discrepancy — that the public

394
00:31:03,279 --> 00:31:06,799
party throws you under the bus, while your own people support you like crazy — but, like,

395
00:31:06,799 --> 00:31:12,679
preferably not visibly. The Finance Minister supported me publicly,

396
00:31:12,679 --> 00:31:18,559
along with a few other Finns Party MPs. That support

397
00:31:18,559 --> 00:31:24,159
meant, of course, an absolute hell of a lot in that moment.

398
00:31:24,159 --> 00:31:29,600
But also other party members — I mean, MPs —

399
00:31:29,600 --> 00:31:34,960
cheered me on, the ones who'd actually been through the same situation themselves. I mean, that's really

400
00:31:34,960 --> 00:31:40,799
a situation every journalist ought to get to experience.

401
00:31:40,799 --> 00:31:46,440
because it's, it's quite the pressure cooker when it just won't let up, and, and,

402
00:31:46,440 --> 00:31:54,240
um, and, and, um, you're ashamed of the publicity that comes out of it,

403
00:31:54,240 --> 00:31:59,760
and words get put in your mouth that were never there. They distort things

404
00:31:59,760 --> 00:32:04,799
without a care, and it's quite the

405
00:32:04,799 --> 00:32:10,639
defamation package, especially in this case, on that

406
00:32:10,639 --> 00:32:16,679
front, since this is a very stigmatizing thing — um, namely that I

407
00:32:16,679 --> 00:32:21,799
'threatened some female individual' in the line of work, or in general —

408
00:32:21,799 --> 00:32:24,519
well, that's just complete bullshit.

409
00:32:24,519 --> 00:32:28,760
That's how it is, in my opinion. It's, um, like a textbook

410
00:32:28,760 --> 00:32:32,240
cancellation attack, and they try to slap on that kind of permanent label. And that's

411
00:32:32,240 --> 00:32:35,399
why I myself immediately hit back, like, on X, with a

412
00:32:35,399 --> 00:32:38,639
supportive statement, because it was just so blatantly obvious that it was

413
00:32:38,639 --> 00:32:41,960
this kind of, um, orchestrated attempt to slap a certain

414
00:32:41,960 --> 00:32:46,960
brand of stigma onto you. And I have to keep going — that then, then this

415
00:32:46,960 --> 00:32:50,919
is how the media operates — remember now, this isn't opinion,

416
00:32:50,919 --> 00:32:55,080
this is first-hand knowledge. And the media then operates

417
00:32:55,080 --> 00:32:59,679
in such a way that, first of all, the reason Helsingin Sanomat ran that kind of story

418
00:32:59,679 --> 00:33:04,000
was, of course, that if the story had been that National Coalition's Paasi pounded

419
00:33:04,000 --> 00:33:09,760
his fist on the table and, like, gave the opposition a talking-to,

420
00:33:09,760 --> 00:33:14,399
then every one of my voters would've been thrilled, totally, like, absolutely,

421
00:33:14,399 --> 00:33:18,279
'wow, that's our guy,' like, really great.

422
00:33:18,279 --> 00:33:23,840
So they had to get some kind of stigmatizing, negative crap into it,

423
00:33:23,840 --> 00:33:30,159
so that the story wouldn't turn out that way. That's why this setup got put in there. Yeah.

424
00:33:30,159 --> 00:33:34,519
But that was, in my opinion, pretty transparent. And then, like, what the media then

425
00:33:34,519 --> 00:33:40,080
does is — Hufvudstadsbladet then picked that story up

426
00:33:40,080 --> 00:33:43,720
from there and ran a whole piece based on just that. Mm.

427
00:33:43,720 --> 00:33:48,159
And that's how it then got chained around, through this

428
00:33:48,159 --> 00:33:53,279
whole media landscape, and, and, and, um, they managed to produce

429
00:33:53,279 --> 00:33:57,760
this kind of tabloid-level thing, which then shows up everywhere. That's just how it is,

430
00:33:57,760 --> 00:34:01,799
in that sense. It's probably good, by the way, that you also now have your own

431
00:34:01,799 --> 00:34:06,120
media outlet, so you can go through these things there on Paasipodi. I mean,

432
00:34:06,120 --> 00:34:10,280
for me too, people have very rarely tried to cancel me. One time it was

433
00:34:10,280 --> 00:34:13,119
close, and I just took that whole issue and brought the person on as a guest the next

434
00:34:13,119 --> 00:34:17,399
week, and it just fizzled out from there. So in that sense I find it — and that was

435
00:34:17,399 --> 00:34:21,560
a good idea of yours, taking over that parliament podcast studio,

436
00:34:21,560 --> 00:34:26,280
so, at that point, maybe a tip for others too, that, that it works. But

437
00:34:26,280 --> 00:34:30,679
if we go now with roughly the assumption that, since the government program

438
00:34:30,679 --> 00:34:33,879
had already, like, been sealed by the time you basically stepped into the parliament chamber,

439
00:34:33,879 --> 00:34:37,760
then I'll give you the right to still be a bit of an

440
00:34:37,760 --> 00:34:40,800
outsider and critical of this government program. So let's start

441
00:34:40,800 --> 00:34:45,639
think about the sequencing of it. So, so, in my opinion, this is, of course —

442
00:34:45,639 --> 00:34:48,679
the right-wing government has, for the most part, done good things, but in my

443
00:34:48,679 --> 00:34:55,040
opinion this has been sequenced completely wrong. So, for example, now that during 2026

444
00:34:55,040 --> 00:34:59,320
the big tax cuts are coming, why weren't they done right

445
00:34:59,320 --> 00:35:02,920
at the start, so that we'd already have their effect baked in and we'd have gotten

446
00:35:02,920 --> 00:35:06,320
economic growth right away? That's, in my opinion, maybe the biggest mistake,

447
00:35:06,320 --> 00:35:10,599
that they waited this long, and that at the start this kind of easy, easy

448
00:35:10,599 --> 00:35:17,240
lever for impact was left unused. That's a good question. I don't know why not,

449
00:35:17,240 --> 00:35:21,920
but, but maybe here it's, like, good to quickly recap a certain

450
00:35:21,920 --> 00:35:25,640
political reality that I've, that I've come to realize.

451
00:35:25,640 --> 00:35:31,560
Mm. And it was this — that, um, before a government is even formed,

452
00:35:31,560 --> 00:35:34,880
every party writes up a kind of wish list of what, what

453
00:35:34,880 --> 00:35:38,119
they'll bring into the government program, if one day

454
00:35:38,119 --> 00:35:41,760
we get there. Mm. Then, once that moment comes, of okay,

455
00:35:41,760 --> 00:35:46,839
'now we're putting together a government,' then an individual politician's

456
00:35:46,839 --> 00:35:50,920
wish lists have already been melted into the party's wish list, where they've

457
00:35:50,920 --> 00:35:55,920
already been watered down and turned into compromises once already. And then

458
00:35:55,920 --> 00:36:02,359
the parties negotiate among themselves, which waters it down even further —

459
00:36:02,359 --> 00:36:07,720
combining the different positions into some kind of best-possible mix,

460
00:36:07,720 --> 00:36:11,480
from the point of view of all the parties. That's really the whole point.

461
00:36:11,480 --> 00:36:18,119
And out of that comes this great, mighty government-program document, in which

462
00:36:18,119 --> 00:36:23,960
everything's written down — it's the book. It's like the Bible. Everything's written into it,

463
00:36:23,960 --> 00:36:32,520
all the goals, pretty much — well, how do I put it — not exactly at a general level,

464
00:36:32,520 --> 00:36:37,960
but they're put in there nonetheless. And once that's been settled,

465
00:36:37,960 --> 00:36:44,640
then, then the government sets out to implement that program, and

466
00:36:44,640 --> 00:36:50,000
the minister posts get handed out — different people become ministers —

467
00:36:50,000 --> 00:36:54,040
and then the items from that government program that belong to a

468
00:36:54,040 --> 00:36:58,240
particular ministry, or a minister's role, or duties —

469
00:36:58,240 --> 00:37:02,920
those then get broken down into work at that ministry, and then they

470
00:37:02,920 --> 00:37:08,040
write — they write up some draft,

471
00:37:08,040 --> 00:37:12,960
and consult, or request statements on that draft. Then they fold those

472
00:37:12,960 --> 00:37:16,680
statement responses into, into that government bill, which

473
00:37:16,680 --> 00:37:22,400
then goes to committees — to the relevant committee, say

474
00:37:22,400 --> 00:37:27,400
the Transport and Communications Ministry's bills go to the Transport and

475
00:37:27,400 --> 00:37:32,079
Communications Committee, and there they hear from, say, 60, 70, 80

476
00:37:32,079 --> 00:37:37,560
experts, and a response is drafted, and then the bill goes

477
00:37:37,560 --> 00:37:41,200
back to the ministry, and then the ministry takes whatever it takes

478
00:37:41,200 --> 00:37:45,760
from those comments, writes it into the government bill, and then, then it goes to

479
00:37:45,760 --> 00:37:49,240
its first vote. And that's, like, the fastest round this whole thing

480
00:37:49,240 --> 00:37:54,200
can possibly go through — but that's the process, and it takes time.

481
00:37:54,200 --> 00:38:00,280
Um, but anyway, so, um, this is what then gets ground through the mill. You've got

482
00:38:00,280 --> 00:38:06,240
the government program, the Bible, and then you just start grinding through these

483
00:38:06,240 --> 00:38:09,560
laws one by one. And at the start, nothing happens, because everything's still

484
00:38:09,560 --> 00:38:13,599
stuck in the ministries, and then they start coming to the committees. There

485
00:38:13,599 --> 00:38:18,760
the amount of work starts to grow, and, and then in the plenary chamber they start

486
00:38:18,760 --> 00:38:23,160
voting these things through at an accelerating pace. And

487
00:38:23,160 --> 00:38:27,560
really, the only thing being done here is

488
00:38:27,560 --> 00:38:32,079
implementing the government program — trying to race through it as

489
00:38:32,079 --> 00:38:36,800
fast as possible, because on any given day the government could fall, and then the whole

490
00:38:36,800 --> 00:38:42,839
thing collapses and that's it. It's game over, and at that point the

491
00:38:42,839 --> 00:38:49,760
government program becomes toilet paper, and the whole thing has to reset to zero, and, well,

492
00:38:49,760 --> 00:38:53,319
in principle, the things that are already in the pipeline might still get

493
00:38:53,319 --> 00:39:01,000
through, but, but as a rule, no. And that's basically the setup, and that's why

494
00:39:01,000 --> 00:39:06,480
I've come to state that, that, well, that politics —

495
00:39:06,480 --> 00:39:12,720
um, meaning democracy, I mean, means that if you have, if

496
00:39:12,720 --> 00:39:17,440
you've got the Finns Party, National Coalition, Christian Democrats, and the Swedish People's Party all agreeing, for example, on the same

497
00:39:17,440 --> 00:39:23,119
thing — like, 'damn it, let's cut business subsidies

498
00:39:23,119 --> 00:39:27,880
in half. Now, goddammit, now we show who's boss. Now we're going to make a

499
00:39:27,880 --> 00:39:32,640
clean break from these do-nothing previous governments.' Everyone's

500
00:39:32,640 --> 00:39:36,280
unanimous. Okay, fine, let's do it that way. I'm not saying that's exactly what happened, but,

501
00:39:36,280 --> 00:39:39,240
just as an example. But then once you start looking at

502
00:39:39,240 --> 00:39:45,200
things line by line, then one item works for one party, but not for another.

503
00:39:45,200 --> 00:39:49,359
One cut doesn't suit the Swedish People's Party, another doesn't suit the Christian Democrats, a third doesn't suit

504
00:39:49,359 --> 00:39:55,800
the National Coalition, a fourth doesn't suit the Finns Party. And then that 50% cut target

505
00:39:55,800 --> 00:40:01,200
shrinks, in practice, down to some kind of, like, size, some

506
00:40:01,200 --> 00:40:07,240
laughably small amount. And that's how it is with

507
00:40:07,240 --> 00:40:13,640
everything — that's what democracy is, and it means that even if

508
00:40:13,640 --> 00:40:18,520
a governing party — or, I mean, the Prime Minister's party —

509
00:40:18,520 --> 00:40:22,319
has clear goals, wants certain things, it's still not

510
00:40:22,319 --> 00:40:29,119
an absolute ruler. This, this is — this is, well, this — this hits

511
00:40:29,119 --> 00:40:34,560
this, this fact, this reality — it hits pretty much everyone out there,

512
00:40:34,560 --> 00:40:37,560
except, like, the experienced politicians, because they never had

513
00:40:37,560 --> 00:40:42,200
that kind of assumption to begin with. But sometimes it feels like the professional politicians don't

514
00:40:42,200 --> 00:40:48,800
even understand that — like, even National Coalition voters, in a way,

515
00:40:48,800 --> 00:40:52,200
assumed that if we now say we're going to stop living on debt, that

516
00:40:52,200 --> 00:40:55,359
actually means that during this government term we'll cut

517
00:40:55,359 --> 00:40:58,920
enough that it actually stops.

518
00:41:00,160 --> 00:41:05,040
So, so, like, and hopefully we can still get it to stop, but

519
00:41:05,040 --> 00:41:11,280
but, um, and, and so on. But I think we're about to run short on time here, and, and

520
00:41:11,280 --> 00:41:15,160
on this — but I still have to get in one more thing here, like a kind of

521
00:41:15,160 --> 00:41:21,640
in defense of that, still — when this sitting

522
00:41:21,640 --> 00:41:25,880
Orpo government was being put together, first they reportedly sat for four, five weeks

523
00:41:25,880 --> 00:41:30,040
listening to experts, so that everyone got the same

524
00:41:30,040 --> 00:41:35,359
picture of the situation. And then it was decided they'd take

525
00:41:35,359 --> 00:41:41,800
the kind of measures these experts wanted. Do everything,

526
00:41:41,800 --> 00:41:45,960
make enough adjustments. If the adjustments aren't enough, then adjust

527
00:41:45,960 --> 00:41:51,280
more, and set up a growth working group,

528
00:41:51,280 --> 00:41:56,880
and, damn it, throw in everything. And then, once that growth working group was set up,

529
00:41:56,880 --> 00:42:01,880
something came out of it. And they'd also, as requested,

530
00:42:01,880 --> 00:42:05,040
asked for measures, um, from lobbying organizations and

531
00:42:05,040 --> 00:42:10,040
citizens and everyone possible. All 601 growth-oriented

532
00:42:10,040 --> 00:42:17,000
measures are being put into production. 601 of them.

533
00:42:17,000 --> 00:42:22,319
And it takes two — two hours, 45 minutes to read every single one through. Paasipodi,

534
00:42:22,319 --> 00:42:29,880
episode 25, if I recall — I read through those 601 growth decisions. It took 2 hours,

535
00:42:29,880 --> 00:42:36,319
45 minutes. I mean, an insane number of decisions.

536
00:42:36,319 --> 00:42:41,880
And as for these cuts, the whole time — since the goalposts have kept

537
00:42:41,880 --> 00:42:46,079
moving away, economic growth hasn't come, and they've kept tightening the screws,

538
00:42:46,079 --> 00:42:51,079
cutting, adjusting more — and now, when it comes to the 10 billion,

539
00:42:51,079 --> 00:42:56,880
has enough been done? If you ask me, no — they should have done

540
00:42:56,880 --> 00:43:03,559
twice as much. But, but, in that light, if I had been that same

541
00:43:03,559 --> 00:43:09,079
prime minister way back when — well, I'm a bit the type who always takes

542
00:43:09,079 --> 00:43:13,559
a bit — I think I know how to put myself in proportion to

543
00:43:13,559 --> 00:43:17,559
the experts' comments, and I know that experts typically pull

544
00:43:17,559 --> 00:43:21,559
a bit toward the conservative side — if things are bad, they'll say it's not

545
00:43:21,559 --> 00:43:25,280
quite as bad as it really is; if things are good, they'll say it's not

546
00:43:25,280 --> 00:43:30,960
quite as good as it really is. Um, so I'd have liked to

547
00:43:30,960 --> 00:43:34,720
aim for — if I'd been the one deciding, I would've aimed for

548
00:43:34,720 --> 00:43:39,440
a bit more in cuts, to get a margin, a safety margin. Now

549
00:43:39,440 --> 00:43:45,000
this thing will surely get pulled right up to the wire, right to the finish line, and we'll get whichever way

550
00:43:45,000 --> 00:43:47,119
it shakes out. Yeah. But maybe my question,

551
00:43:47,119 --> 00:43:51,359
still, is, um, about that tax timing thing. You've also had

552
00:43:51,359 --> 00:43:56,680
as a guest Elias Erämaja — our chief economist, so to speak — and, um, on that

553
00:43:56,680 --> 00:44:01,880
right at the start of the government program we had this kind of discussion

554
00:44:01,880 --> 00:44:06,000
about the fact that here in Finland, we had, back then, and even still — a couple of days

555
00:44:06,000 --> 00:44:09,520
before this recording — the world's second- or third-highest top

556
00:44:09,520 --> 00:44:14,079
marginal tax rate. And there was just this incomprehensible kind of debate

557
00:44:14,079 --> 00:44:18,440
over whether we could even remove that solidarity surtax — two percentage points —

558
00:44:18,440 --> 00:44:21,040
and, like, we couldn't. And that felt completely

559
00:44:21,040 --> 00:44:25,240
incomprehensible, that we couldn't even start there — whereas now, again,

560
00:44:25,240 --> 00:44:30,760
in 2026 we're bringing that top marginal tax rate down from 59 — a completely insane level —

561
00:44:30,760 --> 00:44:36,319
down to something like 52, which is [still] an insane level. Not a completely insane level, but still

562
00:44:36,319 --> 00:44:39,920
anything over 50 is just crazy. So, so this is something that should

563
00:44:39,920 --> 00:44:43,480
have been done right away, because it would obviously have been the most effective

564
00:44:43,480 --> 00:44:46,920
measure. And in a way I just, like, don't understand why it wasn't

565
00:44:46,920 --> 00:44:50,319
front-loaded right at the start, this — the single most effective thing. I can't say why, but I

566
00:44:50,319 --> 00:44:53,200
do know this: that whenever you cut taxes, the

567
00:44:53,200 --> 00:44:57,160
money has to be found from somewhere — except that, in a way, there's

568
00:44:57,160 --> 00:45:00,319
a small delay before it comes back through that dynamic effect, because

569
00:45:00,319 --> 00:45:04,640
if you're really — I mean, taxes are always disincentive taxes, so you

570
00:45:04,640 --> 00:45:08,200
get less of whatever you tax more. And if you're taxing

571
00:45:08,200 --> 00:45:11,440
at the world's third-highest level on something, then you're probably going to get

572
00:45:11,440 --> 00:45:15,800
the world's third-lowest amount of that thing — that is, earned income. And, like, that's really

573
00:45:15,800 --> 00:45:19,720
how it obviously plays out. I just don't get how stupid

574
00:45:19,720 --> 00:45:23,880
that debate was — and maybe, in the government's defense, on A-Studio, Sixten

575
00:45:23,880 --> 00:45:28,880
Korkman and, um, Patrizio Lainà, everyone was going on about how it could possibly

576
00:45:28,880 --> 00:45:33,359
be that Finland — one of the world's six highest-tax-rate

577
00:45:33,359 --> 00:45:37,319
countries — could even consider lowering that tax rate here at all —

578
00:45:37,319 --> 00:45:41,000
the whole debate was just totally insane, about how we

579
00:45:41,000 --> 00:45:45,319
could possibly replace the disappearing tax revenue, because otherwise it's the end of the world. We've

580
00:45:45,319 --> 00:45:48,760
somewhat gotten past that now, and maybe now, in its defense,

581
00:45:48,760 --> 00:45:54,119
now that, in a way, this year, '25, has been really bad, then next year, once

582
00:45:54,119 --> 00:45:59,599
those effects fully kick in on income tax, and the 13.5%

583
00:45:59,599 --> 00:46:04,280
VAT cut also kicks in partially, then, then I'm actually pretty

584
00:46:04,280 --> 00:46:08,240
optimistic about 2026 — that we'll have growing domestic

585
00:46:08,240 --> 00:46:13,000
demand, tax revenue will come from that, and we still have that shockingly huge

586
00:46:13,000 --> 00:46:17,000
backpack — 84,000 euros per citizen in public consumption spending. That backpack

587
00:46:17,000 --> 00:46:20,800
definitely needs to be lightened. But on the private side, we've got

588
00:46:20,800 --> 00:46:26,160
quite a lot of investable purchasing power now, and the stock market's also risen,

589
00:46:26,160 --> 00:46:30,319
in '25, by something like 35% here. Okay. But foreigners own almost all of that.

590
00:46:30,319 --> 00:46:34,119
It doesn't, it doesn't rain down here domestically, because we've

591
00:46:34,119 --> 00:46:39,400
also had ownership destroyed, among other things, by that kind of wimpy decision not to bring in

592
00:46:39,400 --> 00:46:45,040
a Swedish-style inheritance-into-capital-gains tax setup instead. So from that,

593
00:46:45,040 --> 00:46:52,040
big minus for us. But, um, now it feels like — well, I mean — let's actually put up

594
00:46:52,040 --> 00:46:56,000
this classic chart here — I posted it for fun on LinkedIn, because one other

595
00:46:56,000 --> 00:47:02,520
acquaintance was just criticizing this — the wealth trend since 2024: Finland's

596
00:47:02,520 --> 00:47:10,760
risen from something like 75 grand up to 150,000 euros; Sweden, from around 80,000

597
00:47:10,760 --> 00:47:15,839
euros, has risen to 300,000 per adult, after that inheritance-tax-into-capital-gains-tax

598
00:47:15,839 --> 00:47:19,359
reform. So really, that much more wealth has genuinely

599
00:47:19,359 --> 00:47:24,000
flowed into Sweden — doubled, compared to us — such that on that wealth,

600
00:47:24,000 --> 00:47:27,599
the capital-gains tax collected from sales made on it would be, like,

601
00:47:27,599 --> 00:47:31,440
would be many times more than that measly 1.2 billion of ours that

602
00:47:31,440 --> 00:47:33,520
comes in here in Finland. We're not

603
00:47:33,520 --> 00:47:36,800
— that's not where that money would come from. We're not exactly of one mind on this

604
00:47:36,800 --> 00:47:41,200
matter, of course not. Well, yeah, but I mean these two — these are two big

605
00:47:41,200 --> 00:47:45,280
minuses for the right-wing government. Taxes two years too late, or

606
00:47:45,280 --> 00:47:49,640
a year and a half too late. And then, um, that inheritance-tax opportunity

607
00:47:49,640 --> 00:47:53,240
got postponed, like, possibly until after a 'blue-red' coalition era — National Coalition plus the Social Democrats — so, six

608
00:47:53,240 --> 00:47:55,599
years down the line. And even the marginal-tax cut has

609
00:47:55,599 --> 00:48:00,720
gotten a mile-long outcry over it. Yeah, yeah. But that's the same kind of

610
00:48:00,720 --> 00:48:04,920
'Krista Kiuru leaning'-style noise that just comes out of that crazy press,

611
00:48:04,920 --> 00:48:10,359
and it's, it's exactly the same thing — that these dynamic effects are just

612
00:48:10,359 --> 00:48:16,559
obvious, and, and there shouldn't really be two ways about it. But, but, well, I've been thinking

613
00:48:16,559 --> 00:48:20,280
now, of course — especially, this right-wing government would certainly

614
00:48:20,280 --> 00:48:24,040
gladly cut earned-income tax to, say, a flat 25 percent

615
00:48:24,040 --> 00:48:27,720
— well, that's actually what foreign workers get, expats get, that is,

616
00:48:27,720 --> 00:48:31,119
yes, all the experts who come to Finland,

617
00:48:31,119 --> 00:48:35,480
and expats — meaning returning Finns too — get 25%

618
00:48:35,480 --> 00:48:40,599
withholding tax for the next seven years.

619
00:48:40,599 --> 00:48:46,640
But, but anyway, the point here again is that, of course,

620
00:48:46,640 --> 00:48:53,079
this sitting government would of course have cut taxes across the board — all sorts of

621
00:48:53,079 --> 00:48:57,559
pointless taxes, VAT, whatever systems, straight to the ground — if it didn't have to worry

622
00:48:57,559 --> 00:49:04,520
about the fact that the deficit — it can't, it has to shrink at the same time, and it certainly

623
00:49:04,520 --> 00:49:08,680
shouldn't be growing. And yet, still, these decisions from the previous

624
00:49:08,680 --> 00:49:15,119
government keep feeding, um, this kind of

625
00:49:15,119 --> 00:49:20,559
mess and chaos and bad, growing problems during this government term. So,

626
00:49:20,559 --> 00:49:23,839
for example, a simple thing like this:

627
00:49:23,839 --> 00:49:29,680
interest expenses were 0.8 billion under the Marin government, and now they're 3.2 billion

628
00:49:29,680 --> 00:49:34,400
today. That's the same amount the Finnish taxpayer lost in the Uniper deal.

629
00:49:34,400 --> 00:49:38,760
3.2 billion — and in four years' time it'll be five.

630
00:49:38,760 --> 00:49:42,920
I mean, just think — and I have to mention, in a Rahapodi episode with Alexander

631
00:49:42,920 --> 00:49:49,040
Herlin, we went through how removing the interest-rate hedge — the derivative —

632
00:49:49,040 --> 00:49:55,359
and replacing the collateral position brought costs from the debt. So, so, um,

633
00:49:55,359 --> 00:49:59,280
somewhere, some numbskull decided, during the Marin government, over at the

634
00:49:59,280 --> 00:50:05,119
State Treasury, to drop this — or, or rather, to keep going with this

635
00:50:05,119 --> 00:50:08,920
floating-rate funding, when it could have — so, concretely, what this was about was

636
00:50:08,920 --> 00:50:12,880
that there was, quite concretely — the state had issued

637
00:50:12,880 --> 00:50:18,720
a bond that generated 50 million euros a year for Finland. That

638
00:50:18,720 --> 00:50:24,240
was a guaranteed income, because — since it's discounted and so on — you know,

639
00:50:24,240 --> 00:50:29,920
that's the whole deal: 50 million gets paid to Finland for having taken out that loan.

640
00:50:29,920 --> 00:50:35,720
Finland doesn't pay — Finland gets 50 million. I mean, it's the same as if you went and

641
00:50:35,720 --> 00:50:41,160
took out a million-euro mortgage for yourself, and you got paid 50 grand a year

642
00:50:41,160 --> 00:50:45,200
for having taken out that loan. That's the situation it was. And then there'd been

643
00:50:45,200 --> 00:50:50,160
some strategy for the last 15, 17 years that had actually served

644
00:50:50,160 --> 00:50:55,559
well, right up to the point when rates came down — it had served well. So,

645
00:50:55,559 --> 00:51:00,680
you convert that fixed rate — variable rate — into a short-term rate via a swap,

646
00:51:00,680 --> 00:51:04,760
through a swap arrangement. And somehow the light hadn't gone

647
00:51:04,760 --> 00:51:08,359
on at that point, when rates were negative, like, 'wait a second,

648
00:51:08,359 --> 00:51:13,599
maybe we should rethink this interest-rate strategy of ours.' And that's why they went

649
00:51:13,599 --> 00:51:17,760
with the old playbook and swapped that — and, as luck would have it, it turned out

650
00:51:17,760 --> 00:51:22,920
so unfortunately that rates just went and rocketed straight through the roof

651
00:51:22,920 --> 00:51:27,839
just a few months later, basically. It was just this

652
00:51:27,839 --> 00:51:31,880
unbelievable cluster[bleep]. So, and, well, in that, they took the long end

653
00:51:31,880 --> 00:51:37,920
and converted it to short, right when this yield curve was about to rise — so that's

654
00:51:37,920 --> 00:51:39,960
— actually, I've got a one-month

655
00:51:39,960 --> 00:51:43,319
Euribor rate on my own mortgage, and I've actually been happy with it, even during these rising periods, because over

656
00:51:43,319 --> 00:51:47,359
time it's been lower. But then, um, there's a further twist here: when you

657
00:51:47,359 --> 00:51:50,720
swap into it, since that curve has started rising up from negative territory,

658
00:51:50,720 --> 00:51:56,000
you then have to put up, um, put up collateral for

659
00:51:56,000 --> 00:52:00,160
that derivative that's sitting at a loss, and you have to finance that too. So now

660
00:52:00,160 --> 00:52:03,640
these sins of the past, like — and these State Treasury people still go around

661
00:52:03,640 --> 00:52:06,319
somewhere, like, giving talks or remarks, where they say

662
00:52:06,319 --> 00:52:10,440
that historically this has generated 8 billion, but then, on top of that,

663
00:52:10,440 --> 00:52:15,720
they don't count this, like, realized loss, nor the derivative's

664
00:52:15,720 --> 00:52:20,079
collateral-position funding cost. So,

665
00:52:20,079 --> 00:52:23,520
whenever you interview the State Treasury, ask them straight up whether

666
00:52:23,520 --> 00:52:26,280
these have now been factored into that financing cost — please don't

667
00:52:26,280 --> 00:52:29,880
just talk about those past interest savings, but about the whole

668
00:52:29,880 --> 00:52:35,160
mess of a position. And now we've got, tucked away, a growing national debt whose

669
00:52:35,160 --> 00:52:40,040
interest costs are rising, and where, in a way, risk management could fail, and

670
00:52:40,040 --> 00:52:46,000
then, on top of that, our credit rating — the whole financing security — rests on 98%

671
00:52:46,000 --> 00:52:50,119
foreign bondholders. So this State Treasury hasn't even

672
00:52:50,119 --> 00:52:53,160
done the least little bit of thinking about how we could get at least some of this

673
00:52:53,160 --> 00:52:56,559
national debt financed domestically. Unlike pretty much every other

674
00:52:56,559 --> 00:52:59,079
country in the world — like, say, Italy and others that are

675
00:52:59,079 --> 00:53:03,559
among the crisis countries — they've been trying forever to

676
00:53:03,559 --> 00:53:08,200
direct their debt-servicing at home too. Some restless host of the Rahapodi podcast, um, he

677
00:53:08,200 --> 00:53:14,280
went, back then, in the era of negative interest rates, shouting all the way on YLE,

678
00:53:14,280 --> 00:53:19,760
that we should take out 100 billion in loans. Negative interest rate — so

679
00:53:19,760 --> 00:53:25,040
really invest it in something productive, that is —

680
00:53:25,040 --> 00:53:28,880
and that's how I think about it: let's make Finland an

681
00:53:28,880 --> 00:53:34,440
superpower of entrepreneurship, let's make everything possible. Or, then again, under the Marin government it would have

682
00:53:34,440 --> 00:53:39,319
just raised the discretionary 20 billion of spending

683
00:53:39,319 --> 00:53:43,960
to 80 billion. And, um, of course with the wrong decisions

684
00:53:43,960 --> 00:53:45,880
you get the wrong outcome. And it would've just been called

685
00:53:45,880 --> 00:53:49,920
a 'future investment,' when it's really an income transfer to left-wing

686
00:53:49,920 --> 00:53:53,240
friends, basically. Do stupid things, win stupid prizes.

687
00:53:53,240 --> 00:53:55,119
But, um, yeah, yeah. But there's the actual

688
00:53:55,119 --> 00:54:00,680
analysis — that locking in a fixed rate with a big principal did exactly this.

689
00:54:00,680 --> 00:54:05,880
Right. Yeah. And, and they basically took out a hundred-year fixed-rate loan, which they

690
00:54:05,880 --> 00:54:08,319
then paid back in two years. Mm.

691
00:54:08,319 --> 00:54:15,480
If I recall, 40 percent — 40 cents on the euro. Yeah, they took that euro and then paid off the whole

692
00:54:15,480 --> 00:54:18,880
thing — that's basically how it is, because, I mean, this exact

693
00:54:18,880 --> 00:54:23,520
State Treasury situation — we've got this, um, this loss-making

694
00:54:23,520 --> 00:54:27,480
swap position that has to be capitalized, whereas the state could otherwise just buy

695
00:54:27,480 --> 00:54:30,200
that loan back from the market at a lower price, so

696
00:54:30,200 --> 00:54:33,680
somehow, I mean, we really do have some terrible

697
00:54:33,680 --> 00:54:38,839
financial journalists, honestly. But, but now maybe let's get back to this, your

698
00:54:38,839 --> 00:54:43,280
National Coalition, um, government-position thing. Okay, you're

699
00:54:43,280 --> 00:54:46,920
a backbench MP, but now the home stretch is starting. So we've

700
00:54:46,920 --> 00:54:51,079
hopefully got this stock-market-discounted

701
00:54:51,079 --> 00:54:56,839
recovery year coming, where these tax cuts, and, um, partial

702
00:54:56,839 --> 00:55:02,160
interest savings start lifting the national economy's incentives

703
00:55:02,160 --> 00:55:06,440
to recover. Construction has been hammered down

704
00:55:06,440 --> 00:55:09,680
flat to the ground, so it feels like there ought to be room

705
00:55:09,680 --> 00:55:12,040
to bounce back. Hopefully. Domestic demand has been

706
00:55:12,040 --> 00:55:15,680
somewhat scared down too, so in principle you could actually well afford

707
00:55:15,680 --> 00:55:19,000
— like, before this, at lunch, we actually treated ourselves to a proper

708
00:55:19,000 --> 00:55:25,520
diet Pepsi here — a bit of that everyday-luxury kind of consumption.

709
00:55:25,520 --> 00:55:29,920
But, um, it still kind of bugs me that there hasn't been

710
00:55:29,920 --> 00:55:35,559
any heavier lifting done — that on the spending side, 159 billion in public

711
00:55:35,559 --> 00:55:40,760
consumption spending — well, it's easy for me, it's easy for me to say, yeah, if it had been

712
00:55:40,760 --> 00:55:43,039
up to me — right?

713
00:55:43,039 --> 00:55:45,559
But you remember now, what I

714
00:55:45,559 --> 00:55:48,720
think, or even if I had been — had been prime minister — that wouldn't

715
00:55:48,720 --> 00:55:51,160
mean it would actually happen, because

716
00:55:51,160 --> 00:55:54,640
all the governing parties would have to be unanimous on that

717
00:55:54,640 --> 00:55:59,160
matter. But if you were to ask me now, with the benefit of hindsight,

718
00:55:59,160 --> 00:56:02,039
I'd say they should have originally cut —

719
00:56:02,039 --> 00:56:07,839
front-loaded those cuts, as was the plan, but more aggressively front-loaded —

720
00:56:07,839 --> 00:56:12,920
with the idea that these cuts would not only remove

721
00:56:12,920 --> 00:56:19,280
the growing debt accumulation, but would also make it possible to finance those

722
00:56:19,280 --> 00:56:24,680
tax cuts. In other words, cut enough that we're able to

723
00:56:24,680 --> 00:56:30,079
cut — to lower taxes. So, through cuts, we first remove

724
00:56:30,079 --> 00:56:33,960
and cut enough that the debt accumulation stops, and then, on top of that,

725
00:56:33,960 --> 00:56:40,799
even more, so we can get taxes lowered. And

726
00:56:40,799 --> 00:56:44,400
now, we have lowered taxes, but unfortunately we're still having to cut

727
00:56:44,400 --> 00:56:48,160
more, because all sorts of surprises keep coming from the right and

728
00:56:48,160 --> 00:56:54,440
the left. But I do have to say that, yes, the Orpo government —

729
00:56:54,440 --> 00:57:01,079
honestly, every single thing that's been done has been the right decision.

730
00:57:01,079 --> 00:57:06,480
Maybe the timing should have been different. Maybe they should have been a bit bigger,

731
00:57:06,480 --> 00:57:10,160
but, I mean, all of these — and I think it's kind of crappy that,

732
00:57:10,160 --> 00:57:15,599
that in the view of economics nerds, the IMF, and

733
00:57:15,599 --> 00:57:19,160
everyone else, they've all agreed — 'hey, great, you're

734
00:57:19,160 --> 00:57:24,839
cleaning up this mess' — and then economic growth just doesn't show up, and the

735
00:57:24,839 --> 00:57:28,640
goalposts move again, and then you do more, and more, and more.

736
00:57:28,640 --> 00:57:32,440
But what that leads to is that, in the political arena, it looks,

737
00:57:32,440 --> 00:57:37,839
in the eyes of voters, like, 'ah, the targets aren't being met' — they just aren't

738
00:57:37,839 --> 00:57:43,760
being reached. In other words, living on debt just can't be stopped,

739
00:57:43,760 --> 00:57:49,559
and, um, story after story keeps coming out that's

740
00:57:49,559 --> 00:57:54,720
negative for the average Finn. It's a bit like — if you're doing, if you

741
00:57:54,720 --> 00:57:58,720
have to reduce headcount at some company,

742
00:57:58,720 --> 00:58:04,119
you let go of enough people all at once, so that you don't create

743
00:58:04,119 --> 00:58:09,880
that kind of, like, drip-feed layoff spiral, that kills

744
00:58:09,880 --> 00:58:17,039
the whole team's motivation. So it's extremely important that,

745
00:58:17,039 --> 00:58:23,079
you take the whole batch [unclear] and clear the table

746
00:58:23,079 --> 00:58:29,200
properly in one go, so that it's definitely enough — and then, with the remaining crew,

747
00:58:29,200 --> 00:58:34,960
you sincerely set out to save the company, come rain or shine,

748
00:58:34,960 --> 00:58:39,880
and, with kind of that same mentality, they should have cut enough,

749
00:58:39,880 --> 00:58:45,680
quite a bit too much, honestly, so that they wouldn't need to come back to these

750
00:58:45,680 --> 00:58:50,920
cuts ever again during this particular government term,

751
00:58:50,920 --> 00:58:56,720
and, and, all at once, like that. And what puzzles me, as a layman — and this is because

752
00:58:56,720 --> 00:59:00,640
again, I don't understand — I'm not a professional politician. Maybe someone

753
00:59:00,640 --> 00:59:05,400
like that could give a sensible answer to this, but it's that, when

754
00:59:05,400 --> 00:59:10,680
we had that Murto growth working group, why didn't we have

755
00:59:10,680 --> 00:59:15,000
some other person's — say, an organizational-cleanup — cuts working group,

756
00:59:15,000 --> 00:59:19,160
a super-expert cuts working group on trimming down organizations.

757
00:59:19,160 --> 00:59:24,160
So we have 4,200 organizations in Finland that get money from the state. They don't raise

758
00:59:24,160 --> 00:59:29,280
a single cent themselves, and, and there are

759
00:59:29,280 --> 00:59:34,880
— vacations, I mean, organizations that exist purely to organize vacations,

760
00:59:34,880 --> 00:59:40,799
and, and there are political — um — organizations. There are also

761
00:59:40,799 --> 00:59:45,280
organizations that do genuinely important work, like Aseman Lapset [a children's charity]

762
00:59:45,280 --> 00:59:49,720
for example, or something similar. But there are also, like, 15

763
00:59:49,720 --> 00:59:54,400
of them doing, in principle, basically the same things,

764
00:59:54,400 --> 00:59:59,039
so, so this whole organizations thing, and then business subsidies — these are exactly the kind of

765
00:59:59,039 --> 01:00:02,960
things that absolutely should have — I mean, they should have gone through the whole

766
01:00:02,960 --> 01:00:09,039
budget, in its entirety, line by line, and dug into every single line,

767
01:00:09,039 --> 01:00:13,640
asking, 'wait a second, could this be merged with something else?

768
01:00:13,640 --> 01:00:17,720
Can we shrink that group that way? Is this totally

769
01:00:17,720 --> 01:00:22,400
pointless?' And if you'll allow me,

770
01:00:22,400 --> 01:00:27,920
um, here I do sincerely hope — of course nobody's hoping for anything else —

771
01:00:27,920 --> 01:00:33,160
that we get economic growth going now, and this thing takes off like a shot from a cannon,

772
01:00:33,160 --> 01:00:38,280
and so on. But we'd also need — what, what has puzzled me the whole time,

773
01:00:38,280 --> 01:00:41,960
and was actually the reason I went into politics, I can say quite sincerely, is this

774
01:00:41,960 --> 01:00:50,680
lack of crisis awareness. We've got health-and-social-services spending, interest costs, and defense spending

775
01:00:50,680 --> 01:00:57,200
inevitably rising. Interest expenses, because — well, I won't say who's to blame.

776
01:00:57,200 --> 01:01:00,799
Health-and-social-services spending, because Finns are aging. Even though of course we can

777
01:01:00,799 --> 01:01:06,079
make things more efficient by changing how we operate, it's still

778
01:01:06,079 --> 01:01:10,039
growing regardless. You can't really, as a baseline, cut it

779
01:01:10,039 --> 01:01:14,640
all that dramatically, given the assumptions we have about how well

780
01:01:14,640 --> 01:01:19,559
we take care of people in Finland. Then there's defense spending —

781
01:01:19,559 --> 01:01:23,520
that's obviously rising too, of course, because we have a neighbor that's once again thrown itself

782
01:01:23,520 --> 01:01:30,480
onto a war footing. That's 36 billion out of the state's 90

783
01:01:30,480 --> 01:01:34,480
billion euro budget. That means that if

784
01:01:34,480 --> 01:01:38,760
we needed to cut — they should have originally, should have cut that 20

785
01:01:38,760 --> 01:01:43,039
billion — that 20 billion

786
01:01:43,039 --> 01:01:49,119
would have needed to be aimed at whatever's left over once health-and-social-services,

787
01:01:49,119 --> 01:01:53,520
interest, and defense spending are left untouched.

788
01:01:53,520 --> 01:02:01,480
That 20 billion out of the remaining 53 billion — that hurts. That hurts like hell.

789
01:02:01,480 --> 01:02:07,200
I mean, that's the massive figure with which we wouldn't have

790
01:02:07,200 --> 01:02:12,039
adjusted by just ten — we'd have cut that 20.

791
01:02:12,039 --> 01:02:18,880
That's what it would have taken to actually get the, um, debt accumulation stopped,

792
01:02:18,880 --> 01:02:24,960
and at that point there wouldn't even have been a single tax cut in the bag yet.

793
01:02:24,960 --> 01:02:30,200
But just think, if I'd been Petteri Orpo, and I'd gone

794
01:02:30,200 --> 01:02:34,760
into the Council of State and proposed something like this to, say, Anders Adlercreutz,

795
01:02:34,760 --> 01:02:40,920
or Essayah, or — well, Riikka might actually have been fairly on board with it, but, but

796
01:02:40,920 --> 01:02:45,359
still, still, I mean, it's really just, like,

797
01:02:45,359 --> 01:02:49,599
that's just pure political suicide. They wouldn't just say no — they'd say, 'have you

798
01:02:49,599 --> 01:02:54,279
taken the wrong medication for breakfast?' No, no, there's just no way it would have

799
01:02:54,279 --> 01:03:00,079
happened. But that's what should have been done. Why? Well, because if

800
01:03:00,079 --> 01:03:05,520
the opposite happens from what we're all hoping for — that we get peace in Ukraine —

801
01:03:05,520 --> 01:03:11,000
then these hardliners — professional military men with a general's

802
01:03:11,000 --> 01:03:16,200
rank — they say it'll be about two years

803
01:03:16,200 --> 01:03:21,680
before, um, Putin tests NATO's Article Five — meaning, if one NATO

804
01:03:21,680 --> 01:03:25,359
country gets attacked, then, in effect, you're attacking against all the countries, and

805
01:03:25,359 --> 01:03:30,359
everyone comes to help. And on this, Helena Petäjistö just

806
01:03:30,359 --> 01:03:35,319
wrote her latest column on MTV3 about this exact topic,

807
01:03:35,319 --> 01:03:41,400
which is also based on these same hardliners' assessments, and

808
01:03:41,400 --> 01:03:46,920
so on. It describes exactly that — some small place gets taken, say, Narva,

809
01:03:46,920 --> 01:03:51,440
which is right there on the border, and then people discuss, well, maybe if it stays

810
01:03:51,440 --> 01:03:55,440
just at that, then it's not such a big deal. And France wouldn't really be interested in

811
01:03:55,440 --> 01:04:00,240
going off and raising hell. Like, are we really going to risk a third world war, and

812
01:04:00,240 --> 01:04:04,480
Trump might not either. Like, hell, we're not about to, over some backwater village or

813
01:04:04,480 --> 01:04:09,839
anything, go start a third world war. And, and, um, and

814
01:04:09,839 --> 01:04:13,839
then the next attack comes at some other point, some other small backwater village, and

815
01:04:13,839 --> 01:04:17,839
smaller, smaller, smaller — and the goalposts just keep getting moved a little

816
01:04:17,839 --> 01:04:22,119
further forward, and that's how this plays out. So we're living in this kind of

817
01:04:22,119 --> 01:04:25,520
reality right now, unfortunately,

818
01:04:25,520 --> 01:04:35,400
and here in Finland we're bickering over whether state culture subsidies —

819
01:04:35,400 --> 01:04:42,000
culture subsidies, whatever they're called, subsidies going to culture — whether they can

820
01:04:42,000 --> 01:04:46,400
be cut by 3%. Mm. For third-sector organizations,

821
01:04:46,400 --> 01:04:51,119
where there's, like, overlap — just 3%.

822
01:04:51,119 --> 01:04:54,279
Mm. And what happens? Out of that comes, of course,

823
01:04:54,279 --> 01:05:00,760
an almighty uproar, because there are, um, like-minded journalists — Helsingin Sanomat and

824
01:05:00,760 --> 01:05:05,039
Yleisradio full of them — and it gets scrapped. Mm.

825
01:05:05,039 --> 01:05:12,279
And this is, like — this is really, like,

826
01:05:12,279 --> 01:05:19,200
the perfect picture of political cowardice [unclear]. Mm. So, so, I mean, in no way does

827
01:05:19,200 --> 01:05:23,880
that mean anything. Just think, if I were to cut — say you were a salaried employee, and I

828
01:05:23,880 --> 01:05:28,000
said, 'hey, listen, sorry, but I'm cutting your salary by 5%, because

829
01:05:28,000 --> 01:05:33,400
times are tough right now — can you live with it?'

830
01:05:33,400 --> 01:05:38,440
Well, would you, like, would you throw — would you throw

831
01:05:38,440 --> 01:05:43,319
yourself on the floor and throw some kind of screaming tantrum over it? Well, no,

832
01:05:43,319 --> 01:05:47,359
of course not — I'd go code some AI productivity tool, and through that boost in productivity,

833
01:05:47,359 --> 01:05:49,440
my salary could get restored back to the same level.

834
01:05:49,440 --> 01:05:50,599
Right, exactly,

835
01:05:50,599 --> 01:05:53,319
that works too. Yeah. But this is the level we're operating at right now.

836
01:05:53,319 --> 01:05:58,119
So, shouldn't we still wrap this up on a positive note of expectation,

837
01:05:58,119 --> 01:06:01,960
that if the stock market has now risen that 35 percent, that's some kind of

838
01:06:01,960 --> 01:06:06,680
forecasting instrument. Um, well, the stock market also rose over 100% in Argentina, which

839
01:06:06,680 --> 01:06:11,640
managed to stabilize its economy and generate GDP growth —

840
01:06:11,640 --> 01:06:16,319
so, in my opinion, let's take that most recent figure of 7.7%. So

841
01:06:16,319 --> 01:06:18,480
that comes to mind [unclear], so, so

842
01:06:18,480 --> 01:06:23,559
let's take this now as a kind of positive omen, and believe that we've got

843
01:06:23,559 --> 01:06:27,799
some good growth years coming, and the dynamic effects kick in a bit ahead of schedule, and

844
01:06:27,799 --> 01:06:33,799
the state's finances also start stabilizing a little. So I wish everyone a good

845
01:06:33,799 --> 01:06:38,680
2026 — all our listeners, viewers — and thank you for coming on,

846
01:06:38,680 --> 01:06:42,440
Martin Paasi. I suggest we have one more short conversation, just among ourselves,

847
01:06:42,440 --> 01:06:47,760
about the guests you've managed to line up on Paasipodi. Of course,

848
01:06:47,760 --> 01:06:52,720
besides me — I've apparently been, by far, the most-featured guest in

849
01:06:52,720 --> 01:06:58,599
the entire history of humankind — you're the only guest who's come on three

850
01:06:58,599 --> 01:07:01,520
times, basically. So it's definitely worth going to listen to those [unclear].

851
01:07:01,520 --> 01:07:04,680
I mean, I haven't even held back — I've ranted even more there than I do here,

852
01:07:04,680 --> 01:07:08,319
so I'd say these guest appearances are fun in that sense, because, because you get to

853
01:07:08,319 --> 01:07:12,880
be even a bit more colorful than here on my own home turf.

854
01:07:12,880 --> 01:07:15,440
Thanks for this, and see you on the inner-circle side —

855
01:07:15,440 --> 01:07:18,880
bye bye.