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All right, welcome to the Neuvottelijaklubi.

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With us are Otto Juote and senator Teräs .. Tere Sammallahti. Hey there.

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Greetings. Hi there. Hi.

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That Teräs Sammallahti, though.

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You're just being tested. It's a rhetorical technique called steelmanning

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Yeah, you're really getting roughed up a bit

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there and, um, usually that's more like strawmanning, yeah, but, um, my

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opinion is that people should actually do more steelmanning. Well, but you get used to it. It's

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nothing. Yeah, so, parliament is on summer break and but um

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the permanent secretaries are grinding away for government harmony. So

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the Finns Party's minister in charge, Ville Rydman, set off this kind of classic

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'off we go into summer' drama, where, um, he announced that

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the social-sector cuts are proceeding within his, um, ministerial limits, and these have even been agreed

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within the government, that these will go ahead, and not a single social-sector organisation will then

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get more than 10 million, though. This is a small relief, so, um, I understand

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that the minister in charge then even gets to make political decisions on these himself.

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This is talking about STEA, but STEA anyway, yeah, so, um, what do we

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think about this summer drama? Usually they're some kind of

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anti-racism campaign, at this point there's always this thing where

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Orpo digs up that government paper that has the anti-racism, um,

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promise. Right, right, well the Finns Party has a knack

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for always surprising people right before summer, like of course we'd manage fine without these too. But

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in itself this is a really interesting situation for me personally, in that on one hand

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I didn't really see in Rydman's

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um, criteria that he set. I think it's important here for everyone to understand two things.

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Nobody is backing away from the cuts that are being made to STEA funding

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right now. So the timeline is that the previous government moved

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these old Veikkaus profit funds over into the state's budget economy

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side, and then their nice idea was that this way you'd protect

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this, this old Veikkaus [unclear]

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from, like, the drop in Veikkaus fund returns, and, and I myself wondered about this

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logic, because it was of course totally obvious that since we'd been wading through

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[unclear] and the deficits are wild, so, so then that also needed to be targeted

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with savings, and of course as far as I'm concerned they could even stop looking at those funds entirely, those

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funds, but, um, that this government has now cut roughly 200 million euros

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from this STEA funding. Something like 195, I'd guess, was left now. And what this

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controversy is actually about is how minister Rydman has then, for these

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remaining funds, set these distribution criteria.

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Well, everyone can have their own opinion about those. In my opinion they're actually

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even a tiny bit too loose, like. Based on them you can distribute

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still terrifying amounts of money, like, all over the place, really, without

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any kind of impact assessments. And then some of us, meaning the National Coalition

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crowd, might have been worried about some other issues, but

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maybe this now, in my opinion, revealed all sorts of things about all sorts of

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parties, and maybe the most important thing to look at now is how

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totally panicked that old, old NGO-world really is, because now they

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don't actually know what's going to happen to their funding. But

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um, I expect Otto's much more sophisticated analysis, and we'll get back

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to those, those things that are actually important.

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Right, but maybe it, it could be that it's actually pretty raw and

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somehow, um, brutal. But, well, I mean, where that controversy

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came from — well, of course it's that [unclear], or whatever you want

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to call the Veikkauskratia now, isn't separable at all

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from the parties. So, I mean, why there was that kind of panic and

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panic and, um, this kind of foot-dragging — well that of course relates to

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the fact that really all of, um, well especially maybe the older

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government parties have their own cow in the ditch. They've got their own people in those,

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in those organisations, drawing a fat salary, and I don't know

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what Rydman actually did — he used his ministerial power

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exactly the way he's supposed to, in his own domain, and there's really

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nothing controversial about it. If he had increased some

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budget, or shuffled some money shadily into some pet cause of his own,

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the controversy wouldn't be nearly as big as it is from him going in so brazenly to

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cut, and actually the worst thing he

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did was set it up so that he basically forced everyone

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to show their cards. So he can keep saying, well, tell me now

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what, where the problem is — is it now some recreational fund from Folkhälsan, or

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um, do you have some refugee center somewhere that brings in nice rental income, so

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then the money, the money would just go, like, from [unclear] — money that just misses the mark, kind of, if a

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great, great organisation got a little less money

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so the reason it's such beautiful politics is exactly that

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in a way Rydman basically forces those opposing these cuts

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into a really awkward position. Well, I'll, I'll latch onto that. This is

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I mean, completely true, and, and in my opinion the right analysis — of course these

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government-harmony things, and, um, in the name of that, we still have

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almost a year of the road together, and a hell of a lot of big things, um,

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to handle, so it would of course be nice if things were handled more smartly

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behind the scenes there, but I agree that basically when the cards

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are forced out into the open, then citizens also have the chance

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to assess and weigh different politicians' and parties' own agendas, and in this

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case, of course, the political move was pretty successful. Although it

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has to be said that in this government, as far as I understand, not a single

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minister, regardless of party background, has had that kind of

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um, power to be able to get a

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200-million-euro pot and, and get to allocate it exactly however

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he himself wants. So it was fairly clear that

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other members of the Council of State also had something to say about these criteria besides, besides

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um, Ville, but I do believe Ville knew what he was doing, and in my opinion

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it was really quite a good and, um, important move, so we got to see

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a bit, actually, who yelped and who didn't. But I do have to

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say about these, these criteria themselves, that it was a bit of a clumsy

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move from Ville, then. And I understand it, like, from a communications standpoint,

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that, that, that now when they want to give the NGO hoarders

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money, like, and not toward frontline work, well in my opinion frontline work

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is kind of a nice idea from a messaging standpoint, that this is now the

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thing we're investing in, but frontline work itself doesn't automatically mean any

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results. Network marketing is frontline work too, but that doesn't produce any

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economic benefit to the nation, or any real benefit to anyone else either, really,

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does it. So that's why, in my opinion — I've been

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trying to say this elsewhere too, but I'd hope for it this way, that

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market-right actors in the — in the government, or the Council of State,

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or in the Council of State, or in a government party, would take the angle

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that these criteria should be significantly stricter and

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focus specifically on the results of the work. So if you have to hand out

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190-something million to these organisations, then at least you'd make sure

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that it goes to the most effective places, and, and this is where this

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Rydman criteria set doesn't really address it. So there could be

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something in it for everyone, if the criteria were actually thought through

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so that, that results and efficiency, um,

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were emphasized. But the fact that if Folkhälsan has like a billion euros

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in assets, then I do question a bit

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whether they need STEA support, and why they

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nee— Yeah, and I'd add here that

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well, um, these kinds of lobbying organisations whose only purpose

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is basically to recursively influence the system so that, um, they

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stay alive, or whatever it is, their sort of left-wing [unclear],

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well, well, that they're specifically being tried to excluded here, that in my

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opinion is totally healthy. Of course, of course. Right, and I mean, that

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like, like in a certain sense it sounds

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good, but doesn't, um, like, do these organisations actually accomplish anything

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any results whatsoever this way? And Wille — Rydman — didn't have, in my

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opinion, anything like a 200-euro pot that he was handing out — instead he

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saved taxpayers' money by cutting, in a way, activities which

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maybe aren't so important for the state's core functions in a situation

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where there's really little money. Finland is in debt and our indicators are pretty, pretty

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far into the red in quite a few respects. I'll push back a little. Ville, I mean, didn't

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save anyone's money or cut anything at all in this case — those are

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cuts that were decided back at the last budget session. So the whole

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Council of State, or the government parties, stand behind it as one, that

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roughly 200 million of these funds are being cut during this government term.

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But then this set of criteria — I mean, technically, with those criteria you could

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still probably hand out a few billion, like, in money

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to those in need. So in that sense I do think it's a little bit loose, that

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in my opinion a great goal for the government, or for the Council of State

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folks generally speaking, would be to narrow that fan, basically,

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narrow down what that money can actually be used for. Rydman, I mean,

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narrowed it significantly, but it should be narrowed

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significantly more. I feel like, um, yeah, well, okay, I mean it's probably

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technically, technically true, yeah, it comes down to, um, let's put it this way, that

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he directed, directed, basically, that money, um,

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to some extent toward narrower criteria, um, but it's [unclear]

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wrong in general to talk about any kind of civil-society org-

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-anisations at all — they're not civil-society organisations, they're part of

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the state. Because if, if basically year after year you operate on state

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funding, and, and even in such a pathological way that they've

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started, in a certain way, taking taxpayers' money

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from politicians, which they pay to communications agencies, which lobby

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on their behalf for them to get more money, and then

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this just spins around every year, and, and grows and swells. So in this

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like, well

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we don't have any — in Finland there's no civil society at all.

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Here people don't even really understand what that could mean. It's just

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this weird state-owned thing, basically an expenditure apparatus, and, um, I

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don't know, it's actually all the same to me — like, in some, some

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sense the targeting too — I actually think it's kind of nicer if the money gets used

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on some hand-waving, let's say, over in, um, frontline

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work, than paying some umbrella organisation's umbrella organisation some

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kind of pastry funding, just for the sake of some general

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um, fairness, even though, sure, sure, the whole thing overall is still

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massively undesirable, unjust as a starting point, basically, so

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if you're a civil-society organisation, then you [unclear] get any state

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have to say about that already. So, I mean, in the world there's this thing called NGO, meaning

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non-governmental organization, well, um, we don't even have a descriptive

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word like that at all — it's just, like, third sector, or organisation, or do-gooder

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thing, where, like, that fact gets completely erased — that specifically, the

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state doesn't put money into it. So specifically here then that

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isn't even questioned on any level at all, that this

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money comes entirely from, like, the state's taxpayer and debt pump. Um

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right, right, so it doesn't matter at all, and a word like that describes

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like, our nation's level of, like, socialism.

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I'll second the two great remarks before mine, because any viewer

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who hasn't yet read the excellent book called Veikkauskratia

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— the term Otto just used a moment ago — should read it. Then you'll

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understand how this racket works. And exactly that mechanism Otto just described,

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where politicians are allowed to give taxpayer mon—

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-ey to organisations there, which then buy advocacy work from these kinds of

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influence agencies, which then lobby politicians, and so there,

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in the ad — or influence agencies, as well as in the org-world,

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as well as of course then in parliament too — in all of them politicians

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occupy the most important positions, which, I mean, in my opinion is very

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clever. Sounds healthy, right, and then all of this is called

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civil society. Exactly what you said, that this is

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a completely perverse situation, that taxpayers' money is feeding this

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endlessly circulating, circulating, um, deus ex machina,

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which is then still called by a name that in no way could

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call this an agency. I've called these state-organisations, but in no

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case are they civil-society organisations — they operate as sta—

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or socialism. But would that itself maybe come from that, sort of, that

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MP org- from this Veikkaus monopoly, when, basically,

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for decades this idea was built up that a Finn always

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wins, and actually it's a bit honorable to play that, like, negative-expected

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value game — I mean, I mean, um, Veikkaus, some lottery or the like —

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and then it was made to feel good, because you're basically, like, a little bit supporting those, um,

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good organisations out there, which help those, um, a bit, like,

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yourself and other dumb poor people, um, and basically then when this got erased

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out of the middle of this, when this Veikkaus, Veikkaus's, like, um,

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money-distribution apparatus, which was, I mean, still a lasting system. There you at least had to

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basically end up directly at some Veikkaus circles, so I could

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get my hands on that billion. Now that it's basically been made to vanish, poof,

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well, well, then, um, somehow this thing has stuck around, so that nobody

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realized the magician has no clothes, or however that metaphor goes,

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and that it's basically just a pure income transfer from

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the taxpayer's cash, but nobody, somehow, with the old

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momentum, disputes this. Now the government made a pretty, um, clever move, or

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a slick, or good, um, Veikkaus reform, in that it only kicks in

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after the elections — apparently in Sweden, Sweden they made this mistake, that

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back when, ages ago, this state monopoly was fixed, like,

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in Veikkaus, well that was right before the elections, so people got to

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then build their whole campaign war chest out of it. Well, so the advertising there got

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out of hand. We have tried, yes, to remove those, those mistakes from the law,

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because over there in Sweden digital advertising just totally exploded

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right in your face — you couldn't see anything else but some Betsson and

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and other stuff. But, um, back to this, this Veikkauskratia thing, well, well, just—

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what you said about it earlier, and it comes out in the Veikkauskratia book too,

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the fact of how this lobbying activity has worked before — that previously

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um, they lobbied, basically — SOSTE and STEA have been the gatekeepers,

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which have then been in very close contact with Veikkaus's people

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and, and then there are things like — I mean, think about it, there's been

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at Veikkaus some kind of, like, lotto lodge, that's been running

220
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all year round. They've been shuttling these, like, specifically politicians have been

221
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shuttled there to be lobbied, and all sorts of other things, so basically this has been going on —

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the heavyweight-category finale happens there at the Levi cabin. There's like different, but this

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has been described — that there's a middleweight-heavy category. Yeah, right, right, so, like,

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basically there are big deals, that then youth organisations' rep— political

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youth organisations and other beneficiaries', like, groups get flown out for a week

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off somewhere there to Lapland to live it up on shared money, and then they

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emerge from there as, like, staunch defenders of the racket, and they've

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seen the light about how incredibly important the work there, like,

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[unclear] and everyone else does, so, in my opinion,

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as long as the sauna photos don't come out, as long as they don't, right, and apparently

231
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there apparently were, um, girls there too, yeah

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[unclear], and apparently at some point it came out that these were, I mean, lavish

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— I mean the way people were hosted there was, like,

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lavish. Some youth-org intern had gone, you see, and posted on Insta or

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somewhere, and then it started to come out — I'll just say here that, that

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I'm not trying here to whitewash, basically, the racket's actions —

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in my opinion it's extremely awkward regardless of party, and of course there are

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National Coalition people too in these organisations, and organisations' organisations,

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like, running that roulette wheel. And then the fact that even if from parliament

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there's a reaction, or from that organisation of organisations, from whichever organisation,

241
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there's such a strong reaction to the fact that in a situation where we have

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like a chronic state-finances deficit of over 10 billion euros,

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people start, like, griping about, well, now they're taking from us, and now just think

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democracy apparently ceases to exist, civil society,

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welfare services, everything's been run into the ground because STEA funding has

246
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been cut in half. Yeah. As I recall, we don't, we don't

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have — we can't afford democracy. That's just a cold fact. It has to be faced with

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some kind of, like, I don't know if it's enlightened autocracy or some sort of

249
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short-term junta, so we get some [unclear]. Which won't come to Finland anymore

250
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enough. So it's totally clear, if you want to get out of this somehow, um,

251
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but that Argentina model, basically, well that

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window already closed. But this is heading in the right direction anyway,

253
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in that, well, if earlier we had a system where adjustment pensions

254
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for MPs were endless, and you could basically go off skiing on your pension

255
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and still do side gigs, um, possibly right alongside it at worst. Now

256
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we noble MPs decided that then, basically,

257
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well, we still get these adjustment pensions, but after us

258
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it's the deluge, so, so, so. Well, but Tere is already in this suffering

259
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category, in that you have this kind of quick, roughly two-year window, annoyingly

260
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fast. So then give the boomers still one more, uh—

261
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quickly disappear and fall into the void, but then that falling into the void

262
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of course this has been this org-world, um, which is actually a brilliant

263
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framing, which has been attacked really hard over on A-studio — that you're not allowed to

264
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say 'racket,' that this is noble work. No 'racketeering.' It's a perfect

265
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word. I mean it describes — in my opinion [unclear] gets upset. Don't use

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that word. Well, but I'll use it anyway, like, it's, it's

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a good descriptive word. They don't like it over at the National Coalition.

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There it's just going every which way and all over the place and whoosh, and

269
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someone whines. I mean even right now someone

270
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at National Coalition is watching this, probably like [unclear], and can barely get a word out of their mouth,

271
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just tears streaming. But since there's this kind of off-ramp, where you

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then get to, um, potentially earn like ten thousand euros

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a month just shuffling papers around like that, and, um, that doesn't change.

274
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So taxpayers still pay for your job, like, even in parliament, and, um,

275
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possibly the work drops to a fraction — meanwhile these superstars are

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gone from the private sector, basically, like,

277
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from everything — they have brilliant ideas. They just go to waste there

278
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founding organisations, like unicorns, even right now. This, this is my point

279
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specifically — that when basically your safety net gets taken away, meaning your

280
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dumb decisions directly come back to bite you in your post-parliamentary

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reality, that in your self-made and political

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world you should get some kind of market-economy gig, whereas before it

283
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used to be that it didn't matter at all, that you could totally crap on

284
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the system, completely, like, completely into socialism, and there was always that saving

285
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raft. Either the, um, adjustment pension, or then these lovely, um, paper-

286
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shuffling posts there at the racket's core, um, preferably in leadership roles,

287
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so you don't have to do anything at all. Right, right, so basically when those get removed,

288
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well, well, this is actually really healthy. Then a small kind of

289
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small, like, steering effect starts to appear. Should I maybe build this

290
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society for the purpose that I'll manage here after this, like, [unclear]

291
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afterwards. Right. But isn't this pretty logical? Or

292
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I mean, somehow I think of it this way, that I'm not panicking at all

293
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about what's next. Though it does worry me a little.

294
00:19:54.679 --> 00:19:59.080
Well, no, but I mean I do — I'll find a job. It's not like — I have 15

295
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years of experience in the field. I'm not worried in any way. Of course,

296
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having put in years of work for this job, it would of course be a shame then

297
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if this ends after just one term. So that's pretty clear

298
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as a matter, but there's nothing — my financial or mental well-being doesn't

299
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depend on whether I get elected in the next election or not.

300
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Which of course should be everyone's situation, but unfortunately it's not,

301
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as, as we all know. But I will address this, um, this word 'racket' a bit

302
00:20:26.720 --> 00:20:31.320
more, as to why — don't say, don't use that w—

303
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-ord, and in my opinion that's totally, totally valid criticism, that, um,

304
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in practice, since good work is being

305
00:20:39.320 --> 00:20:43.280
done in that organisation anyway, some people find it uncomfortable that the whole

306
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civil-society-org field, or at least the part of it receiving this support,

307
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gets basically branded with some word. And of course it's true that many

308
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people, say, staffing some mental-health helpline

309
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as a volunteer, surely do much more meaningful work than many

310
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people, say, in a leadership role on a fat salary at organisations of organisations.

311
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So I don't know how, how you'd even address that group of people, then, who give their own

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time to civil society, like, genuinely, and do that

313
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volunteer work. But I am fairly convinced that

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not a single organisation like Kulta ry, or SOSTE, or Fingo, is

315
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needed in that eq— equation for it to work properly.

316
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But well, this is of course just my kind of very idealistic worldview. Right, and

317
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I mean, I've long pushed for the idea that Finland would need

318
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a market signal, because our, like, basically

319
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second-best jobs are like state jobs, and the best jobs are

320
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the ones where you sell something to the state. You do some project, say, a national

321
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flagship project. But then into the politician's and the elite's life

322
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some uncertainty creeps in that isn't wanted there. Yeah,

323
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it, it could be that there, um, you'd have to, have to swap the pastry

324
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for some [unclear] croissant, and but, and, and I mean

325
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sure, like, that class defends itself, but

326
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I'm not at all sure that any kind of tweaking or

327
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cutting or adjusting actually helps all that much. It just doesn't

328
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pay off, often, like, the effort for an individual politician. Because there

329
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you'd need much bigger structural reforms. I mean, you

330
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can already see now that if some kind of Mickey Mouse, um,

331
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targeting is done somewhere, then you've got, like, half, half of society out there

332
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shouting somewhere, or it looks like all the communications agencies out there

333
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are running some campaign. They say there's some granny

334
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dying because of the project, and, um, and children are being abused. So when here, like,

335
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Vertti now gets given some kind of — I don't know, I think he ended up laying

336
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himself off somehow on behalf of the whole country, and it's just, like, um

337
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because there's this kind of, like, taxpayers are in a much worse

338
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position, and actually politicians too, to some extent, tied into that system, because

339
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basically it's worth their while to go there every day, sort of greasing palms, and

340
00:23:03.200 --> 00:23:07.320
flying off to Levi and talking about how this is really important.

341
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that, um, we're doing this kind of valuable work. Look, even here there's this

342
00:23:10.799 --> 00:23:15.200
volunteer. Like over there, that's — that person does volunteer stuff. Who

343
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can say that maybe someone doesn't benefit from that after all. Who knows? Maybe.

344
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It might not be, or it could even be harmful, but at least it looks

345
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good. And so there, like, sure, completely

346
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consciously and deliberately, it gets muddled — that kind of

347
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association gets created, as if, like, the umbrella organisations' umbrella organisations'

348
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umbrella federation, and its international secretary, and, and their sort of

349
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PR work were the same thing. Of course it's not.

350
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And then because they basically have that, or they've arranged for themselves,

351
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a mechanism where they can take taxpayers' money through politicians

352
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and lobby politicians, saying, hey, we need more organisation

353
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funding — so there's this kind of public-choice problem here, that

354
00:23:57.720 --> 00:24:01.440
in practice, for us as individual citizens, it doesn't

355
00:24:01.440 --> 00:24:04.720
pay to oppose these. So even when we basically win that scrap,

356
00:24:04.720 --> 00:24:08.400
we've saved like a couple euros a year, while Vertti has made those tens of

357
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thousands every month. Mm, mm

358
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and then he just lays himself off, when out of this comes another Social Democrat

359
00:24:13.080 --> 00:24:14.760
government. Yeah. But I don't understand how these

360
00:24:14.760 --> 00:24:18.159
get defended, like — somehow, I mean, once again in my opinion the

361
00:24:18.159 --> 00:24:21.760
problem is that the national economy gets misunderstood, that as if

362
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this kind of investment, meaning income transfer — totally pure socialism, somehow,

363
00:24:27.799 --> 00:24:31.880
creates something positive for the economy. That of course destroys the

364
00:24:31.880 --> 00:24:36.440
original, um, owner's, um, wealth, and resources, and ability

365
00:24:36.440 --> 00:24:40.039
to operate in the market. It gets transferred somewhere then, and then, um, that, and then

366
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people make up stories like this — sometimes the effect is five times the investment,

367
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or something, like, basically, where there's not a shred of logic in it, like,

368
00:24:46.720 --> 00:24:49.880
in the first derivative of the thinking, and usually it just gets worse

369
00:24:49.880 --> 00:24:52.960
from there in the second derivative, when people start, like, hallucinating about how this

370
00:24:52.960 --> 00:24:56.880
effect works with this money, and what, what nerve, that you

371
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still live in this, like, the most heavily taxed in world history, like,

372
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socialism, meaning Finland, and then they still dare to say that their work

373
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is important, like, well, just as if people's money basically doesn't

374
00:25:11.039 --> 00:25:15.279
matter to them. We're probably like, sort of, going along with it, sort of, at home, sort of,

375
00:25:15.279 --> 00:25:19.399
like, yeah, right, that we won't take the kids to the beach this summer, like,

376
00:25:19.399 --> 00:25:23.360
yeah, it's like, damn good that this umbrella organisation got saved because of this,

377
00:25:23.360 --> 00:25:26.799
this work is being done, it's worth waking up, like, [unclear] over there,

378
00:25:26.799 --> 00:25:30.760
this is, in my opinion — I'll get a great derivative out of this, and maybe, maybe Sami will get

379
00:25:30.760 --> 00:25:35.240
some clip out of this, who knows, but on this — as to who is, or for whom,

380
00:25:35.240 --> 00:25:40.880
each thing ultimately matters — well, in Finland there are about 100,000 organisations,

381
00:25:40.880 --> 00:25:44.640
registered associations of this kind, according to PRH, um,

382
00:25:44.640 --> 00:25:46.760
and last year I'd be willing to ban

383
00:25:46.760 --> 00:25:52.960
— so, and last year 724 associations or organisations got this

384
00:25:52.960 --> 00:25:58.600
STEA support, and now we're being led to believe that if these 724 organisations don't

385
00:25:58.600 --> 00:26:03.200
stay in on this racket and don't get taxpayers' money, then democracy

386
00:26:03.200 --> 00:26:08.080
dies, welfare services die, civil society dies. So how

387
00:26:08.080 --> 00:26:13.159
insulting this kind of talk is to almost all of those other 100,000 organisations, and

388
00:26:13.159 --> 00:26:17.399
their volunteers, those people who pay membership dues so that the

389
00:26:17.399 --> 00:26:21.159
organisation can operate and do everything. So how insulting this kind of talk is

390
00:26:21.159 --> 00:26:24.880
toward them — as if their activity has no significance

391
00:26:24.880 --> 00:26:29.120
for civil society, for democracy, for any services, but it's

392
00:26:29.120 --> 00:26:33.320
only this elite of elites here in these 724

393
00:26:33.320 --> 00:26:36.480
organisations, which live off taxpayers' money. In my opinion that's

394
00:26:36.480 --> 00:26:39.720
irresponsible. Maybe we could move on now to another

395
00:26:39.720 --> 00:26:46.080
topic. I've been, um, waging this kind of long simmering war, um,

396
00:26:46.080 --> 00:26:51.320
with another, um, gentry, which I call sweater economists. They're

397
00:26:51.320 --> 00:26:54.360
often in that kind of organisation, which gets state support, and, um, then they

398
00:26:54.360 --> 00:26:57.799
write these kinds of, um, papers, which then say that this kind of

399
00:26:57.799 --> 00:27:03.240
extra socialism is vital for the national economy and for gross domestic product growth,

400
00:27:03.240 --> 00:27:07.840
and they use terms like, say, hysteresis, that, um,

401
00:27:07.840 --> 00:27:11.720
there might be delays when that money gets shoveled toward the public sector

402
00:27:11.720 --> 00:27:15.240
side, but then good things still happen from it, they do happen,

403
00:27:15.240 --> 00:27:17.640
and they happen with a delay, but they happen anyway. Is that a bit

404
00:27:17.640 --> 00:27:23.159
like trickle-down? But yeah, it's this kind of left-wing trick— trickle, trickle

405
00:27:23.159 --> 00:27:28.799
down, that, um, that it's like a really potent, um, and in my opinion for that

406
00:27:28.799 --> 00:27:32.520
witch doctors are needed. It does this kind of

407
00:27:32.520 --> 00:27:36.279
yeah, but those mechanisms are, like, basically — say the magic words and do certain

408
00:27:36.279 --> 00:27:40.880
rituals, and then sometimes the economy arrives. Yeah, those mechanisms are, um, they're not

409
00:27:40.880 --> 00:27:44.360
microeconomic mechanisms, they're macroeconomic mechanisms, those big

410
00:27:44.360 --> 00:27:49.399
lines, a bit, um, there's a bit of, um, how should I say, um,

411
00:27:49.399 --> 00:27:53.480
Hegelian spirit to it, in that, um, the thread goes: when a left-wing, um,

412
00:27:53.480 --> 00:27:58.519
guy says, um, public spending and socialism, and to the common, um,

413
00:27:58.519 --> 00:28:03.000
purse, and, um, income transfers and Gini coefficients, then beautiful things happen —

414
00:28:03.000 --> 00:28:07.000
meaning GDP growth. And then, just as an aside, Statistics Finland put out

415
00:28:07.000 --> 00:28:12.559
a kind of, um, revision blog post, in which the headline is that actually

416
00:28:12.559 --> 00:28:16.480
Petteri Orpo's government's, um, growth last year wasn't actually the

417
00:28:16.480 --> 00:28:21.760
0.2 that was first guessed off the lottery machine — it's actually 0.8, and then

418
00:28:21.760 --> 00:28:27.919
it was mentioned kind of as a side note that, um, well, initially for 2024 they guessed −0.2, two—

419
00:28:27.919 --> 00:28:32.960
well, well, it turned out to be, um, 0.9, so, um, here we're already getting into some pretty, pretty tough

420
00:28:32.960 --> 00:28:37.200
like a 1.1% error, downward like that, for the right-wing government's, um,

421
00:28:37.200 --> 00:28:41.880
first year, and 0.8% then for the right-wing government's second year,

422
00:28:41.880 --> 00:28:45.320
but then nothing was said about this, um, Marin government's term, for which also

423
00:28:45.320 --> 00:28:50.519
adjustments were made, like. So, um, I calculated that one too, um, or from the same

424
00:28:50.519 --> 00:28:55.480
one dug it up, that the first announcement was for 2023, meaning in the transition year,

425
00:28:55.480 --> 00:29:02.519
it was first supposed to be minus 1, it's actually −1.3, three, so it was pulled 0.3% downward. 22

426
00:29:02.519 --> 00:29:08.120
was supposed to be 2%, um, it actually turned out to be 0.8 — this Marin government's

427
00:29:08.120 --> 00:29:12.519
um, last term, so it was pulled 1.2% down from that first guess, and

428
00:29:12.519 --> 00:29:17.840
then also, um, 21 [2021] there was this kind of, um, Marin's party, corona boom, extra

429
00:29:17.840 --> 00:29:21.919
year, when they spread out, like, from 400 billion of overspending

430
00:29:21.919 --> 00:29:26.880
the big part of it, like — it was supposed to be 3.3, but that too ended up being just 2.7%, so

431
00:29:26.880 --> 00:29:30.200
that too got pulled downward. I haven't heard these anywhere, specifically these

432
00:29:30.200 --> 00:29:34.679
downward revisions to Marin's Social [Democratic] government's, um, GDP series. Not

433
00:29:34.679 --> 00:29:38.279
anywhere. Now there's a bit of this celebration going on, that actually the right-wing government has

434
00:29:38.279 --> 00:29:42.399
actually gotten a bit of growth after all. Right, and that's wild, given all that.

435
00:29:42.399 --> 00:29:47.320
You have to immediately, like, question it when you think about what kind of hurrahs Marin's

436
00:29:47.320 --> 00:29:51.240
government got back when it was spreading around that corona support, and even, like,

437
00:29:51.240 --> 00:29:55.399
the sweater economist would surely, if they'd been honest with the public,

438
00:29:55.399 --> 00:30:00.399
have said, okay, that when Europeans, and of course North Americans, and

439
00:30:00.399 --> 00:30:05.000
central banks all over the world, like, fired that, that fiat money, like,

440
00:30:05.000 --> 00:30:09.760
with a cannon around the world in the name of stimulus, then you get some effect, but

441
00:30:09.760 --> 00:30:13.320
we can see it in our own, like, employment and GDP figures, that first

442
00:30:13.320 --> 00:30:17.640
we went up at a terrifying pace thanks to corona support, and then when the stimulus money

443
00:30:17.640 --> 00:30:22.440
ran out, or it went into some Italian window-mafia guy's pocket, then

444
00:30:22.440 --> 00:30:26.919
we ended up, like, coming down, and now we're heading back up again out of that

445
00:30:26.919 --> 00:30:31.679
pit. So maybe this is some kind of pattern — these four, four-

446
00:30:31.679 --> 00:30:36.840
year stretches here now, one after another. And it's good to, like, realize, um, that

447
00:30:36.840 --> 00:30:41.039
Juhani Huopanen, as I understand it, the Finns Party's kind of these

448
00:30:41.039 --> 00:30:45.880
brains behind the economic calculations there — in my opinion had done quite a good

449
00:30:45.880 --> 00:30:49.799
[unclear], advanced math,

450
00:30:50.279 --> 00:30:55.360
almost-graduated business-school trader, and it was, in my opinion, um, that, that

451
00:30:55.360 --> 00:30:59.760
basically having the government term start and end at the, like, last

452
00:30:59.760 --> 00:31:04.200
or first and last, like, budget decisions — that, in my opinion, is

453
00:31:04.200 --> 00:31:08.480
like more logical than starting it from the election — from election

454
00:31:08.480 --> 00:31:13.360
to election. And, and compared to that, well, well, the numbers are pretty, pretty ugly

455
00:31:13.360 --> 00:31:19.960
to look at for socialism, and, um, quite a lot better for this, our

456
00:31:19.960 --> 00:31:25.080
pseudo market economy that we're currently, currently doing

457
00:31:25.080 --> 00:31:29.679
so, I mean, I don't know, isn't it roughly, like, for the last 20

458
00:31:29.679 --> 00:31:32.480
years Finland's economy hasn't really actually grown much at all, that it's

459
00:31:32.480 --> 00:31:36.880
been on a respirator, more or less. And then I looked at, like,

460
00:31:36.880 --> 00:31:40.919
for example the Ministry of Finance's, um, economic forecasts for the following year, because when you look at them

461
00:31:40.919 --> 00:31:46.639
year by year, well, well, um, when you add them up, Finland's gross national income

462
00:31:46.639 --> 00:31:50.000
or gross domestic product should be, like, if I remember right, about a quarter

463
00:31:50.000 --> 00:31:54.840
bigger than it actually is. So I don't know if the problem is entirely with the

464
00:31:54.840 --> 00:31:59.399
sweater economists either, because the Ministry of Finance has traditionally been considered

465
00:31:59.399 --> 00:32:03.600
kind of, like, at least a somewhat responsible body, in that

466
00:32:03.600 --> 00:32:08.480
they don't basically, like, go quite so wild, maybe, as, um, this sweater

467
00:32:08.480 --> 00:32:12.279
economist clique, that

468
00:32:12.279 --> 00:32:15.000
probably there's somehow, behind it, the fact that the fundamentals

469
00:32:15.000 --> 00:32:17.639
just don't want to be talked about, because it's somehow too depressing and too

470
00:32:17.639 --> 00:32:22.200
bleak — how, how bad the situation actually is — that there really isn't

471
00:32:22.200 --> 00:32:26.760
probably any growth coming, um, unless something really radical

472
00:32:26.760 --> 00:32:34.080
happens, and probably it won't, because our, our, um, in this

473
00:32:34.080 --> 00:32:38.240
extraction machinery, like, those who've tied their interests to it,

474
00:32:38.240 --> 00:32:43.720
various, among others the gentry, um, are still getting out of it this kind of

475
00:32:43.720 --> 00:32:48.080
large personal benefit. So for example that GDP growth is a pretty, pretty

476
00:32:48.080 --> 00:32:51.760
poor metric, because it doesn't necessarily actually tell you

477
00:32:51.760 --> 00:32:55.279
whether, say, an ordinary Finn's standard of living has somehow improved, or

478
00:32:55.279 --> 00:32:58.399
worsened. Because it could very well be that a pretty big

479
00:32:58.399 --> 00:33:04.919
part of that GDP growth is because, say, large numbers of, um,

480
00:33:04.919 --> 00:33:08.120
we could call it, say, labor-based immigration, are brought here, but that

481
00:33:08.120 --> 00:33:11.240
could very well be net-negative for the national economy

482
00:33:11.240 --> 00:33:15.080
and that causes, say, the fact that

483
00:33:15.080 --> 00:33:18.760
there are tenants in apartments, and then all sorts of integration work can be done

484
00:33:18.760 --> 00:33:23.720
and other org busywork. It can show up as that kind of GDP growth, so from this

485
00:33:23.720 --> 00:33:28.559
kind of thing — like Neev Parvini has written this kind of 'humanitive easing'

486
00:33:28.559 --> 00:33:32.639
thesis. So it goes roughly like this, that when

487
00:33:32.639 --> 00:33:38.919
central banks print M1, well, well, um, then that inflation growth

488
00:33:38.919 --> 00:33:42.519
can, can be curbed by just taking in a lot of immigration. Of course

489
00:33:42.519 --> 00:33:45.679
its long-term effect can be, like, terrible, but in the short

490
00:33:45.679 --> 00:33:49.880
term it can look like GDP is growing. Then some

491
00:33:49.880 --> 00:33:55.159
mister prime minister might then declare, look, our, our, um,

492
00:33:55.159 --> 00:33:59.320
witch-doctor tricks are working, the indicators are now in the green.

493
00:33:59.320 --> 00:34:03.600
I'll grab onto that a bit — in that sense of course you could think that,

494
00:34:03.600 --> 00:34:07.360
well, are these forecasting institutes of ours even any good in the first place, so what should we

495
00:34:07.360 --> 00:34:10.679
ultimately think of their forecast — because it's a totally crazy

496
00:34:10.679 --> 00:34:14.280
idea, no economist actually forecasts any economy at all. I mean that

497
00:34:14.280 --> 00:34:18.320
historians don't forecast history, or future history either. I mean

498
00:34:18.320 --> 00:34:21.520
that, that, that just isn't the kind of project that's possible.

499
00:34:21.520 --> 00:34:24.720
There's always that caveat, that as long as everything, like, basically at the edges stays

500
00:34:24.720 --> 00:34:28.159
the same — but they never do stay the same. Of course not, because the world is a dynamic

501
00:34:28.159 --> 00:34:31.280
place where things happen. Well yeah. And then especially when you see

502
00:34:31.280 --> 00:34:35.720
from those figures that even years after their, like, actual outcome, they

503
00:34:35.720 --> 00:34:38.240
still get refined by whole percentage points in some

504
00:34:38.240 --> 00:34:41.800
direction, which in my opinion is just too big a range at this

505
00:34:41.800 --> 00:34:46.000
point. As a forec— as a forecast it would probably be, like, quite

506
00:34:46.000 --> 00:34:50.480
good, since the range — well, they always give those sensitivity ranges in there — but, but already

507
00:34:50.480 --> 00:34:54.839
like, say, four years later you're still, like, like,

508
00:34:54.839 --> 00:34:58.240
off by whole percentage points, way off — that's a bit, a bit

509
00:34:58.240 --> 00:35:02.079
worrying, like, what's our, like, better metric, since GDP,

510
00:35:02.079 --> 00:35:04.920
as Otto's saying here, is a pretty poor one

511
00:35:04.920 --> 00:35:09.280
and you can pump it up in quite a few ways. We've pumped it up precisely by taking on

512
00:35:09.280 --> 00:35:13.720
debt money — what matters is what that debt gets used for. Is it used for, um, immigrants'

513
00:35:13.720 --> 00:35:17.720
integration and various social services, or is it done like

514
00:35:17.720 --> 00:35:21.880
in Eastern Europe, where they build some roundabouts, and, and, um, intersections

515
00:35:21.880 --> 00:35:25.960
or some stretches of railway out into the middle of [unclear] with some EU mon—, and then

516
00:35:25.960 --> 00:35:28.800
pretend that a huge amount of good stuff has been produced. Right,

517
00:35:28.800 --> 00:35:31.480
— I've thought that the mafia could in a certain way be better, that Finland

518
00:35:31.480 --> 00:35:35.079
would need one, because right now we just have this one giant

519
00:35:35.079 --> 00:35:39.400
intertwined public sector, which together defends its own interests, and, and

520
00:35:39.400 --> 00:35:43.160
um, its privileges against the people, so there'd at least be some kind of

521
00:35:43.160 --> 00:35:46.079
basically a third. Well, at least the mafia counts its own

522
00:35:46.079 --> 00:35:49.599
money and is reasonably upfront about it. Now that we're on these macro-

523
00:35:49.599 --> 00:35:53.000
sweater-economist bashing, let's bash a bit more. I mean, I actually

524
00:35:53.000 --> 00:35:57.520
happen to have quite a lot of non-sweater-economist friends, and here

525
00:35:57.520 --> 00:36:01.160
there's, um, I mean there's a measurement problem here and a methodology problem —

526
00:36:01.160 --> 00:36:04.880
meaning Statistics Finland, which in itself, I mean, um, I don't want to undermine

527
00:36:04.880 --> 00:36:09.079
public trust too badly, but it isn't exactly some, um, pinnacle of

528
00:36:09.079 --> 00:36:13.119
objectivity either — that first GDP forecast uses these very

529
00:36:13.119 --> 00:36:18.720
crude, um, signals, which overweight this, um, socialism.

530
00:36:18.720 --> 00:36:21.880
So, say, that public consumption spending gets overweighted in that

531
00:36:21.880 --> 00:36:25.599
signal, and then when these, like, real economists, um, the

532
00:36:25.599 --> 00:36:29.119
microeconomists, use this kind of nowcasting, meaning they look at the

533
00:36:29.119 --> 00:36:33.319
real signal there, um, in the real world, in actual economic

534
00:36:33.319 --> 00:36:36.160
flows, they see that this, like, is very biased, this

535
00:36:36.160 --> 00:36:40.400
first signal. And it's not that — well, at Statistics Finland, of course, it's slow

536
00:36:40.400 --> 00:36:44.200
work to go prompt the, um, AI there to make better

537
00:36:44.200 --> 00:36:47.960
models, so, um, you have to be forgiving toward them, that they're doing

538
00:36:47.960 --> 00:36:52.040
their very best there, um, in that, that modeling, and it always, like,

539
00:36:52.040 --> 00:36:55.359
these fail exactly toward the socialism side, this, this signal, and

540
00:36:55.359 --> 00:36:59.119
so I don't mean it badly, like — we do have certain established metrics,

541
00:36:59.119 --> 00:37:03.520
purchasing power, and, and GDP, and others, but there should be

542
00:37:03.520 --> 00:37:07.520
so many of those metrics that when you do that analysis you'd be able to tell these

543
00:37:07.520 --> 00:37:11.160
signals apart from each other. So, for example, our purchasing power has grown now

544
00:37:11.160 --> 00:37:17.119
for three years running, but I do think you should be able to

545
00:37:17.119 --> 00:37:22.400
somehow create a metric where, for example, the public

546
00:37:22.400 --> 00:37:26.200
sector's, like, catastrophically large pay-raise programs have been removed,

547
00:37:26.200 --> 00:37:31.079
which the municipal employer, for example, like, completely against all reason, like,

548
00:37:31.079 --> 00:37:35.200
commits to and just gives in to, just like that. So we can't just

549
00:37:35.200 --> 00:37:40.200
pretend that our purchasing power has grown in a healthy way, if

550
00:37:40.200 --> 00:37:44.040
like, the public sector's total payroll grows 10 percent in just a few

551
00:37:44.040 --> 00:37:50.359
years, for example. So, so it's not, like, it's not on a sustainable, sustainable footing. And

552
00:37:50.359 --> 00:37:54.880
then when we get real metrics and the right kind of analysis, then

553
00:37:54.880 --> 00:37:59.560
we're, like, exceptionally — without exception — wrong about everything

554
00:37:59.560 --> 00:38:05.000
we're trying to do here. Yeah. And there, I mean, this Juha Majanen

555
00:38:05.000 --> 00:38:09.480
um, um, spoke, in my opinion, um, whether by accident or on purpose, the truth

556
00:38:09.480 --> 00:38:12.839
to Hesari — well, um, said that it's totally possible that the public sector

557
00:38:12.839 --> 00:38:17.200
could be changed by 2031, um, into an AI-based one, and this is of course

558
00:38:17.200 --> 00:38:21.599
like, wonderfully, right around, probably, that, um, Lindtman... Orpo's, like, um,

559
00:38:21.599 --> 00:38:26.640
first government's, um, term end, so really, really, really close to when

560
00:38:26.640 --> 00:38:30.119
it'll be really interesting to see whether the next government programme then

561
00:38:30.119 --> 00:38:33.880
shows this kind of vision, that the whole public sector's 159.4 million

562
00:38:33.880 --> 00:38:37.720
public — entirely fused total expenditure, like, um, gets AI-ified like that,

563
00:38:37.720 --> 00:38:44.359
like, radically, and 700,000, um, public employees', um, tasks, um,

564
00:38:44.359 --> 00:38:48.800
get replaced, like, to a significant extent, um, by this kind of AI system,

565
00:38:48.800 --> 00:38:52.319
but, but I mean that's just — I mean AI is just going to be the next

566
00:38:52.319 --> 00:38:55.680
sort of administrative ideology. Yeah, it's going to be the next miracle machine. It's

567
00:38:55.680 --> 00:39:02.520
going to be, like, um, a carbon target, or some, some, um, sustainable-development

568
00:39:02.520 --> 00:39:07.280
program, or, or whatever, whatever, like, basically those crazes have been

569
00:39:07.280 --> 00:39:11.720
in recent years. So the point isn't, I mean, that those jobs would start being

570
00:39:11.720 --> 00:39:15.960
streamlined with that AI, of course, but rather they basically sell their own

571
00:39:15.960 --> 00:39:20.240
bloat with the fact that they have some kind of AI-transition

572
00:39:20.240 --> 00:39:23.839
budget, and money has to go into this now, and then there, like, somehow with a totally

573
00:39:23.839 --> 00:39:27.319
straight face they explain how Ritva is now basically teaching the AI

574
00:39:27.319 --> 00:39:31.240
to fill out that form, and there's probably still something, like,

575
00:39:31.240 --> 00:39:34.760
some separate thing needed, meaning, meaning in practice it means that

576
00:39:34.760 --> 00:39:38.200
you need a lot of consultants to tailor that, like,

577
00:39:38.200 --> 00:39:41.680
working product into a little, little less functional one, so that, so that it can be

578
00:39:41.680 --> 00:39:45.640
adapted to some of these really demanding civil-society-org,

579
00:39:45.640 --> 00:39:49.000
minister, and civil-servant needs, which, which

580
00:39:49.000 --> 00:39:54.880
no superintelligence could ever, like, manage. AI — the public sector's AI-tool

581
00:39:54.880 --> 00:39:59.760
most important metrics include, for example, equality and gender impacts,

582
00:39:59.760 --> 00:40:03.800
so those need to be looked at a bit first, and then you can decide

583
00:40:03.800 --> 00:40:08.359
whether it's worth streamlining or not. On the other hand it's also good to remember that it's

584
00:40:08.359 --> 00:40:11.960
extremely important that the AI also understands Swedish.

585
00:40:11.960 --> 00:40:13.480
That's — well, but I can

586
00:40:13.480 --> 00:40:16.319
and that it doesn't too openly reveal, basically, about that system

587
00:40:16.319 --> 00:40:21.400
to citizens. Well, but with this speech I can declare that, um, my Samantha AI is both

588
00:40:21.400 --> 00:40:24.640
um, presumed-female as well as Swedish-speaking, this original, this

589
00:40:24.640 --> 00:40:29.119
part of the population. So, I mean, this is basically how it should be done, that those agents

590
00:40:29.119 --> 00:40:32.520
that get brought into that system, they replace those headcount numbers, those

591
00:40:32.520 --> 00:40:37.200
inefficient types, those 700,000, so that every single, um, person, who from there

592
00:40:37.200 --> 00:40:41.359
can be replaced and then go do productive work in the market economy, is

593
00:40:41.359 --> 00:40:45.520
that, um, system's primary goal. I'm probably pulling, pulling, pulling

594
00:40:45.520 --> 00:40:50.040
the rug out from under my own feet, but when I think about an average

595
00:40:50.040 --> 00:40:54.560
parliamentary committee starting, like, a morning or afternoon

596
00:40:54.560 --> 00:40:57.880
committee session, it's pretty depressing to think about

597
00:40:57.880 --> 00:41:00.839
that kind of thing in summer. Yeah, it is depressing to think about.

598
00:41:00.839 --> 00:41:06.720
It's better thinking about it. It's — there are — you sit through those meetings, it's

599
00:41:06.720 --> 00:41:10.160
depressing to think about during the session period too. So in that sense this

600
00:41:10.160 --> 00:41:13.359
holiday season isn't any more remarkable, but I mean, I think about it this way,

601
00:41:13.359 --> 00:41:17.040
that most of the work we do, sitting there in meetings and

602
00:41:17.040 --> 00:41:20.920
so on, could be, like, streamlined really, really

603
00:41:20.920 --> 00:41:26.000
into short meetings, where you then get the core points — and imagine,

604
00:41:26.000 --> 00:41:31.119
if there were some AI agent that an MP could spar with, say,

605
00:41:31.119 --> 00:41:35.280
on these, um, expert statements, and dig a bit, like,

606
00:41:35.280 --> 00:41:38.960
into the logic behind them or other things — but right now the idea is that

607
00:41:38.960 --> 00:41:44.480
we read those 50 expert statements, and, and internalize them, and make from them

608
00:41:44.480 --> 00:41:47.760
then a very thorough analysis, based on which we then act,

609
00:41:47.760 --> 00:41:52.520
but I have to say this here, um, in between — well, I mean, when there was the corona crisis's

610
00:41:52.520 --> 00:41:56.880
like, first wave, when, um, exactly that Wuhan, um, virus, or whatever it

611
00:41:56.880 --> 00:42:01.920
is now — correct me here if I'm wrong — well, um, at its worst, basically

612
00:42:01.920 --> 00:42:05.440
the whole country was shut down, and Uusimaa was under lockdown — well, but I was invited to this

613
00:42:05.440 --> 00:42:08.599
parliamentary Finance Committee, from where, [unclear], I thought, now let's put in

614
00:42:08.599 --> 00:42:11.920
the best analysis here, that a systemic crisis might be near, and

615
00:42:11.920 --> 00:42:15.119
um, the whole system might, like, collapse, and here are, like, my

616
00:42:15.119 --> 00:42:21.640
contingency plans, um, how, say, um, could, could be done, say, now, um,

617
00:42:21.640 --> 00:42:27.760
from various, um, that, um, [unclear] center, you'd already ordered several

618
00:42:27.760 --> 00:42:31.960
[unclear] — I just took care of it today, here's this, um, shooting-related stuff

619
00:42:31.960 --> 00:42:34.720
is here, and then I went and proudly presented it,

620
00:42:34.720 --> 00:42:38.960
then, and, um, then, um, then next to me there was one, one guy, whom I

621
00:42:38.960 --> 00:42:42.720
— um, I heard, a professor — and then he, um, mentions as an aside in his own

622
00:42:42.720 --> 00:42:46.359
presentation that, well, we have this payday-loan legislation here, um, that

623
00:42:46.359 --> 00:42:49.640
should be advanced — and then I watched in horror as the whole room

624
00:42:49.640 --> 00:42:53.480
chattered, discussed for basically an hour that [ __ ] payday-loan legislat-

625
00:42:53.480 --> 00:42:56.800
-ion's current state, rather than, basically, the systemic crisis's

626
00:42:56.800 --> 00:43:00.640
possible solution. So, so, um, that was, like, a shock to me. To go

627
00:43:00.640 --> 00:43:07.680
this way maybe hits a little too close to home here. Sami, there's no such thing as 'the system.'

628
00:43:08.680 --> 00:43:13.119
Don't talk like that — the crisis affects citizens, and the system is completely

629
00:43:13.119 --> 00:43:19.640
safe. There's nothing to worry about here. Finland will manage just fine — Finns won't.

630
00:43:19.640 --> 00:43:23.440
And I mean, like, why would you, Tere, want to streamline something that's already basically, like,

631
00:43:23.440 --> 00:43:26.920
net-negative work? So is there a risk

632
00:43:26.920 --> 00:43:31.400
with how this is a good idea, that the damage gets done faster.

633
00:43:31.400 --> 00:43:35.839
That's actually a really good point. But maybe on this economic signal still, I mean, here,

634
00:43:35.839 --> 00:43:40.680
while we're describing this — well, um, the May economic signal has been very

635
00:43:40.680 --> 00:43:45.359
positive. The first quarter was solidly in the black, and so from this

636
00:43:45.359 --> 00:43:49.240
year — I can, even though I'm not a sweater econom-munist, still

637
00:43:49.240 --> 00:43:52.680
venture a guess that this'll turn out to be a really good, like, um, gross domestic pro—

638
00:43:52.680 --> 00:43:57.640
-duct year. And that's going to be awkward, awkward, like, in an election year,

639
00:43:57.640 --> 00:44:02.720
then, um, next year, meaning, um, where that thing everyone hates comes in, um,

640
00:44:02.720 --> 00:44:07.079
the corporate tax cut too, 18, and still some of these dynamic

641
00:44:07.079 --> 00:44:10.680
changes are still, like, coming, coming into effect, so how are we now

642
00:44:10.680 --> 00:44:13.640
going to frame this as — well, but back during Marin's time, that

643
00:44:13.640 --> 00:44:17.680
growth was better, and yet, I mean, um, everyone got a fairer share, and

644
00:44:17.680 --> 00:44:23.040
you could spend more, and the system could be kept, um, stable, and yes

645
00:44:23.040 --> 00:44:26.800
corporatism, and, um, tripartite bargaining now, um, should

646
00:44:26.800 --> 00:44:30.640
be brought back more strongly. So, um, well, this'll be quite interesting to see

647
00:44:30.640 --> 00:44:32.800
whether this turns into a bit of a final sprint

648
00:44:32.800 --> 00:44:38.359
from the right-wing government. So tell, tell — you, as the only intelligent person in the room,

649
00:44:38.359 --> 00:44:43.520
how do we, how do we sell citizens on the situation where

650
00:44:43.520 --> 00:44:47.640
all the, um, all the statistics point more or less northeast. I mean

651
00:44:47.640 --> 00:44:51.480
despite, of course, the fact that our problems certainly haven't in any

652
00:44:51.480 --> 00:44:54.920
case been solved anywhere close yet, and, and by many metrics

653
00:44:54.920 --> 00:44:57.480
we're in a really bad situation.

654
00:44:57.480 --> 00:45:00.480
But yeah, I have thought a bit that Finland does need, every once in a while,

655
00:45:00.480 --> 00:45:04.200
those good-news stories too. We've talked so many times about, like,

656
00:45:04.200 --> 00:45:08.559
the '90s buzz, and how good the vibe was back then, and, and, like,

657
00:45:08.559 --> 00:45:13.960
that get-things-done spirit, and so on and so forth. And I think that when Finns

658
00:45:13.960 --> 00:45:18.520
should of course get, like, into jobs, but also, like, through that work, like,

659
00:45:18.520 --> 00:45:22.880
see what, what function that work actually has, and what that standard-of-living

660
00:45:22.880 --> 00:45:26.760
growth and everything else was, which back then, in the late nineties and at the turn of the millennium,

661
00:45:26.760 --> 00:45:32.280
was seen. But, but how do we sell this idea to this new generation, which

662
00:45:32.280 --> 00:45:36.480
hasn't maybe, in their own adult life, seen any kind of economic growth at all. They don't

663
00:45:36.480 --> 00:45:40.400
necessarily feel that with work you get, like,

664
00:45:40.400 --> 00:45:44.200
more stuff, which of course is, is a lie in itself. Of course you always get, through work,

665
00:45:44.200 --> 00:45:48.160
better things for yourself, but who — well, someone gets it, but in Finland it's not necessarily

666
00:45:48.160 --> 00:45:52.559
the worker whose funds get redirected to someone else, but, but yeah it

667
00:45:52.559 --> 00:45:56.839
usually does produce something. I don't — and I'm maybe not entirely sure whether

668
00:45:56.839 --> 00:46:01.480
it was, in the end, that work-voucher thing, [unclear] Martinen's work voucher, and, and Espoo

669
00:46:01.480 --> 00:46:06.480
[unclear], basically Loinen's growth [unclear], basically that was, that was where

670
00:46:06.480 --> 00:46:10.559
the turnaround started. That was basically when we started, like, believing again, and then

671
00:46:10.559 --> 00:46:15.520
Finland's national economy's [unclear] started, like, crawling down that, like, downhill

672
00:46:15.520 --> 00:46:19.680
in that, like, direction. Don't, don't now, don't keep putting me in these tight

673
00:46:19.680 --> 00:46:26.559
spots. On your side — hey, hey, 'I want to believe' — I, um, Neuvottelija studio

674
00:46:26.559 --> 00:46:31.800
um, is offering this kind of, um, summer voucher, um, to someone — you can sign up. Mm

675
00:46:31.800 --> 00:46:33.559
come on, come on now, Finland, rise up, this.

676
00:46:33.559 --> 00:46:37.319
Come on, the guy's taken it, the guy's grabbed the employment [voucher]. Isn't there some

677
00:46:37.319 --> 00:46:40.240
socialist money here too, in my opinion, that belongs to me as well — doesn't it come

678
00:46:40.240 --> 00:46:44.839
from the state, this, this, still, still, like this, like this — well, um, okay, well, it's worth applying for.

679
00:46:44.839 --> 00:46:48.440
Yeah, I mean, I'm not, I mean, I'm not saying there isn't, isn't basically some kind of

680
00:46:48.440 --> 00:46:51.960
these kinds of, like, psychological, macroeconomic, some kind of, like,

681
00:46:51.960 --> 00:46:56.359
market spirits that Keynes talks about. So sure, there could probably, like, be

682
00:46:56.359 --> 00:47:00.000
like, psychological effects, but in my opinion it's somehow

683
00:47:00.000 --> 00:47:02.400
let's say, it feels a bit, like, suspicious, that the growth would be

684
00:47:02.400 --> 00:47:05.240
somehow, like — the obstacle to it is that we've gaslit Finns

685
00:47:05.240 --> 00:47:08.920
enough. That you all must now believe that the economy is growing. Growing, like,

686
00:47:08.920 --> 00:47:13.200
what if it does grow — that it grows. It grows if you believe. You all don't believe

687
00:47:13.200 --> 00:47:18.200
enough. That's why you're all so poor. So, so, I mean, that belief in the

688
00:47:18.200 --> 00:47:22.599
economy, in a certain way, like, comes from those, um, changes in

689
00:47:22.599 --> 00:47:26.319
circumstances. People notice it in their own lives — that someone gets a raise, someone

690
00:47:26.319 --> 00:47:32.200
gets a job, someone makes a good deal. The fact that housing—

691
00:47:32.200 --> 00:47:35.079
Well, I don't know, Finland is of course, um, a problematic country, since we don't have

692
00:47:35.079 --> 00:47:39.160
any other wealth besides, basically, our apartments that have been pumped full of empty value —

693
00:47:39.160 --> 00:47:42.559
our flats. So I don't know if that's actually a great signal, but let's say

694
00:47:42.559 --> 00:47:46.880
it this way, that economic activity probably shows up in people's everyday lives, if it

695
00:47:46.880 --> 00:47:51.400
exists. So, kind of, basically, now let's hope for hope, sort of, and

696
00:47:51.400 --> 00:47:55.680
trust in trust, and, and now you're not allowed to say anything unpleasant, because otherwise

697
00:47:55.680 --> 00:47:59.640
somehow people's collective psyche breaks, and then they no longer dare to

698
00:47:59.640 --> 00:48:05.000
go to Tokmanni to buy that juicer, and just order it from Temu instead. So

699
00:48:05.000 --> 00:48:09.400
so, so it's probably not really the problem so much as the fact that, that the fundamentals

700
00:48:09.400 --> 00:48:14.880
are actually pretty much hell. Our birth rate is something like 1.25.

701
00:48:14.880 --> 00:48:19.599
That's totally abysmal. That's actually the biggest problem in our whole country.

702
00:48:19.599 --> 00:48:23.720
Compared to that, it's a bit odd that it's not talked about. Um, and then the fact that

703
00:48:23.720 --> 00:48:27.960
our best people, like, keep leaking away all the time. That gets masked somewhat by the fact

704
00:48:27.960 --> 00:48:32.040
that we're, like, constantly taking in, like, lower-productivity and

705
00:48:32.040 --> 00:48:36.160
lower-skill labor from abroad. But what doesn't get counted in the statistics is that

706
00:48:36.160 --> 00:48:41.280
the best ones leave us — the ones who have, have, like, um, founded companies

707
00:48:41.280 --> 00:48:45.160
or could found ones, who are highly educated. And that — it could

708
00:48:45.160 --> 00:48:49.799
at worst be permanent, because, um, as much as, basically, Finland and

709
00:48:49.799 --> 00:48:53.720
Finns — as much as I do like them — in this kind of objective sense

710
00:48:53.720 --> 00:48:58.280
we have pretty few, like, competitive draw factors,

711
00:48:58.280 --> 00:49:02.319
so, so if there are any, they're probably, like, exactly for those, those Finns who

712
00:49:02.319 --> 00:49:04.680
have been [unclear] their whole life. Right, right.

713
00:49:04.680 --> 00:49:08.760
Well, no, not for those who like an easy life. I mean, sure, Finland in many

714
00:49:08.760 --> 00:49:12.640
ways is a paradise, but people specifically need to be made to

715
00:49:12.640 --> 00:49:15.880
believe. And I, I totally agree with this analysis, that

716
00:49:15.880 --> 00:49:20.240
trust in the future comes from what you see around you, not from the fact that

717
00:49:20.240 --> 00:49:23.760
Tere goes around the country telling people there's hope now, and that you now have to, like,

718
00:49:23.760 --> 00:49:28.200
trust things. It really comes from normal everyday experience, and

719
00:49:28.200 --> 00:49:32.400
if you don't have safety in your everyday life, or if you don't have a job, or in your circle

720
00:49:32.400 --> 00:49:35.680
people are suffering or something else, then you probably don't have that trust

721
00:49:35.680 --> 00:49:41.040
and belief in the future. Here I had Samantha crunch this a bit while you were talking, there were a couple

722
00:49:41.040 --> 00:49:46.359
couple of theses, well, um, actually, um, people with foreign backgrounds have been leaving

723
00:49:46.359 --> 00:49:52.480
Finland more now than, um, native Finns — and then, um, they're not

724
00:49:52.480 --> 00:49:55.839
— I mean there's, um, this elite that leaves, and basically those really

725
00:49:55.839 --> 00:49:59.160
high-productivity types. [unclear]. But then this second thesis

726
00:49:59.160 --> 00:50:02.119
also, that [unclear] would have drained away — well, here's

727
00:50:02.119 --> 00:50:06.440
actually, um, it could always be credit due to this government too, it was

728
00:50:06.440 --> 00:50:11.119
back then, um, back during the Oulu, Oulu, um, abuse cases, it was, um,

729
00:50:11.119 --> 00:50:14.839
closer to 30 percent, that Islamist, um, share of the group — well now it's

730
00:50:14.839 --> 00:50:19.319
gone down to nearly 20 percent anyway, so this, basically, this Islamization has

731
00:50:19.319 --> 00:50:23.480
like, um, decreased, or been brought under control, or whatever word you want to use.

732
00:50:23.480 --> 00:50:26.960
should maybe be closer to zero percent, but maybe now we're getting

733
00:50:26.960 --> 00:50:30.880
— so are we going deeper into the immigration debate here, or into whatever

734
00:50:30.880 --> 00:50:34.400
else, but, um, we still have a million things in this country

735
00:50:34.400 --> 00:50:38.240
that should, like, be twisted into the right position. For example, that thing Otto

736
00:50:38.240 --> 00:50:41.319
referred to earlier — the fact that when a person works, how

737
00:50:41.319 --> 00:50:44.960
much of the value they add through their own work actually ends up, like, in their own pocket,

738
00:50:44.960 --> 00:50:48.359
how much goes to feeding the system, how much goes to

739
00:50:48.359 --> 00:50:52.280
taxes, and, um, the side costs the company pays, like our

740
00:50:52.280 --> 00:50:57.200
pension contributions, and, and everything else. So this is, like, one hell of a big

741
00:50:57.200 --> 00:51:02.760
issue. Same thing with the conditions for entrepreneurship and starting a business — it's a total

742
00:51:02.760 --> 00:51:07.480
terrible tragedy, that, that I keep hearing from all over the place, that, that

743
00:51:07.480 --> 00:51:10.799
like, extremely successful serial entrepreneurs have moved

744
00:51:10.799 --> 00:51:15.200
their assets either to our southern neighbor, or then straight off to somewhere like Switzerland

745
00:51:15.200 --> 00:51:18.599
or somewhere else, and they then operate from there,

746
00:51:18.599 --> 00:51:23.480
well, this kind of thing shouldn't be allowed to happen. Well, inheritance tax, gift tax,

747
00:51:23.480 --> 00:51:29.920
corporate tax, um, the taxation of work and entrepreneurship, whatever dividends, or, um,

748
00:51:29.920 --> 00:51:33.160
unlisted companies' dividend taxation,

749
00:51:33.160 --> 00:51:37.440
um, keeping it as is, or in some way even supporting it — the tax system's

750
00:51:37.440 --> 00:51:42.280
harmonization, dismantling the universal applicability of collective agreements,

751
00:51:42.280 --> 00:51:45.599
removing employment protection — like, a million other things that could

752
00:51:45.599 --> 00:51:49.720
be done a hell of a lot better in Finland, and, and then even though it

753
00:51:49.720 --> 00:51:53.960
of course looks, to your average person, like they're being scared

754
00:51:53.960 --> 00:51:56.720
by the — I mean, the barely-alive trade union movement's

755
00:51:56.720 --> 00:52:00.280
— even though its communications machinery is tuned to an absolute peak, and

756
00:52:00.280 --> 00:52:04.200
scaring people with these, these scenarios of how terrible things will happen

757
00:52:04.200 --> 00:52:09.640
if any power at all is taken away from Hakaniemi, and then once we're living

758
00:52:09.640 --> 00:52:13.920
through this now, after this government's own labor-market reforms,

759
00:52:13.920 --> 00:52:18.720
the aftermath already, nobody even remembers what changes have ultimately

760
00:52:18.720 --> 00:52:24.079
been made here, except in Hakaniemi's communications, that, that we should just, like,

761
00:52:24.079 --> 00:52:27.599
just goddamn push it, like a public prosecutor, and, and do even

762
00:52:27.599 --> 00:52:31.640
more, and get people, people to somehow, like, understand that

763
00:52:31.640 --> 00:52:36.079
change is basically a necessity, or else we hit rock bottom first. So, well,

764
00:52:36.079 --> 00:52:40.559
like you said at the start, Milei versus — what's then the next

765
00:52:40.559 --> 00:52:44.559
step from there. Right, and I mean maybe there's some kind of,

766
00:52:44.559 --> 00:52:48.839
because in my opinion the right's basically fantasy isn't the general strike,

767
00:52:48.839 --> 00:52:54.319
it's the IMF fantasy — that, that, these are, like, that's also a paternalism fantasy,

768
00:52:54.319 --> 00:52:58.640
that someone comes and basically nurses Finland's national economy back into shape. That

769
00:52:58.640 --> 00:53:02.799
idea, that someone would basically do something themselves here — that's

770
00:53:02.799 --> 00:53:07.160
somehow foreign also to that, like, basically right-wing politician too, that then we

771
00:53:07.160 --> 00:53:10.280
just, like, drift into some kind of paternalism. Our job is to fine-tune

772
00:53:10.280 --> 00:53:14.240
the margins in such a way that some credit rating agency stays somewhat

773
00:53:14.240 --> 00:53:16.960
like, satisfied enough that our, like, national-debt bomb doesn't

774
00:53:16.960 --> 00:53:22.359
blow up in our hands. So, so, I mean, I have — well, like,

775
00:53:22.359 --> 00:53:25.079
let's say I have, like, marginally,

776
00:53:25.079 --> 00:53:28.119
at the bottom of my pocket, sympathy for politicians who basically try

777
00:53:28.119 --> 00:53:31.920
in parliament to change these things, because the ordinary citizen doesn't see

778
00:53:31.920 --> 00:53:37.960
what kind of, like, minefield they're operating in the middle of, and what, like,

779
00:53:37.960 --> 00:53:41.920
basically with limited limbs they're getting by there, because

780
00:53:41.920 --> 00:53:45.760
well, yeah, in elections of course you have to LARP that now the country's affairs

781
00:53:45.760 --> 00:53:50.000
will be fixed, and firmly, like, we're just going to get things done — and then there, sure,

782
00:53:50.000 --> 00:53:54.200
you notice pretty quickly that, well, actually not much gets done, and you don't have much

783
00:53:54.200 --> 00:53:58.119
in the way of, like, powers, especially, like, as a first-term MP, so

784
00:53:58.119 --> 00:54:06.720
it's more like, um, some kind of, like, a stolen, like,

785
00:54:06.720 --> 00:54:10.720
cake being sold on the street, more than the thing where you're issuing

786
00:54:10.720 --> 00:54:14.720
some commands there. And then when our, our powers have been signed away for so

787
00:54:14.720 --> 00:54:17.960
long to various structures, which aren't under any kind of democratic

788
00:54:17.960 --> 00:54:22.720
like, control, then often that parliamentary institution

789
00:54:22.720 --> 00:54:25.920
unfortunately acts as a kind of pressure, like, valve, where you can direct

790
00:54:25.920 --> 00:54:31.280
all that, like, dissatisfaction, and, and anger, and bitterness, which, which

791
00:54:31.280 --> 00:54:34.960
is in itself quite justifiably, like, legitimately felt,

792
00:54:34.960 --> 00:54:39.799
but unfortunately that same institution has, like, over the decades, like,

793
00:54:39.799 --> 00:54:43.839
basically given away its own power to such an extent that these kinds of

794
00:54:43.839 --> 00:54:47.319
big structural reforms are pretty much impossible.

795
00:54:47.319 --> 00:54:52.079
at least as long as we're, like, committed to some kind of, like,

796
00:54:52.079 --> 00:54:55.480
rule of law, which in practice now means that the system is

797
00:54:55.480 --> 00:54:59.559
locked into whatever position it's in, and it can't really be changed much, unless someone

798
00:54:59.559 --> 00:55:04.359
is willing, basically, like, to just say, well, we're not going to follow that,

799
00:55:04.359 --> 00:55:09.200
that, um, now, now this is over, that this model is driving into a wall, and that's just, like,

800
00:55:09.200 --> 00:55:11.799
totally crazy to be on board with then.

801
00:55:11.799 --> 00:55:16.640
I'll, I'll soften this a bit. I mean someone's going to get a juicy

802
00:55:16.640 --> 00:55:20.319
clip out of this when Otto says the rule of law should be abolished, but I, I

803
00:55:20.319 --> 00:55:24.839
believe I know what you're referring to there, because I run into it both as a council member and

804
00:55:24.839 --> 00:55:28.799
as an MP constantly, and earlier as a wellbeing-county council member, that

805
00:55:28.799 --> 00:55:32.559
there's some reform that needs to get done, and it's been, like, weighed with the politicians

806
00:55:32.559 --> 00:55:37.799
and it gets brought to the table, and the first thing the civil servant or the presenting official

807
00:55:37.799 --> 00:55:42.039
says is that it can't be done. And then when you ask why not, well, it's the law or

808
00:55:42.039 --> 00:55:45.359
an EU directive that forbids it — and then after that it's purely and

809
00:55:45.359 --> 00:55:49.480
solely up to the politicians whether it happens or not. And, and if

810
00:55:49.480 --> 00:55:53.799
politicians take that power for themselves, which is rightfully theirs, and they push that

811
00:55:53.799 --> 00:55:58.599
reform through, then it eventually turns out it wasn't the law or

812
00:55:58.599 --> 00:56:02.079
the EU directive that was preventing it in any way, but it was in practice just

813
00:56:02.079 --> 00:56:08.480
the official's own personal opinion, and, and a certain kind of political

814
00:56:08.480 --> 00:56:14.119
will lurking behind it, that, um, this, like, or was about to, like,

815
00:56:14.119 --> 00:56:18.319
water it down. And this is something that far too many Finns unfortunately don't see — that

816
00:56:18.319 --> 00:56:22.920
how goddamn thick a brick wall you constantly have to bang your

817
00:56:22.920 --> 00:56:26.520
head against out there. Sure, it's of course not just about civil servants — there are of course

818
00:56:26.520 --> 00:56:30.960
cross-cutting interests too, and, and like you said, a first-term

819
00:56:30.960 --> 00:56:34.039
MP who, say, wasn't involved in the government negotiations,

820
00:56:34.039 --> 00:56:38.480
their ability to influence things is, like, fairly marginal.

821
00:56:38.480 --> 00:56:41.960
I just got incredibly lucky that this happened to be a government with

822
00:56:41.960 --> 00:56:46.799
National Coalition, the Finns Party, and, and a couple of small parties, like, LARPing as bourgeois parties,

823
00:56:46.799 --> 00:56:53.079
whose, like, shared inter— interest group, well, well, um, whose

824
00:56:53.079 --> 00:56:57.359
shared agreement gave us a government programme that fits really well, like, with my political

825
00:56:57.359 --> 00:57:00.880
profile, and we've even mostly gotten it through, too.

826
00:57:00.880 --> 00:57:06.599
I wonder if, um, here — if I ponder Otto's thought here for a bit —

827
00:57:06.599 --> 00:57:09.200
well, um, we're kind of, like, a bit Slavic too, in that we'd have

828
00:57:09.200 --> 00:57:14.480
a bit of a wish, that since there's this, um, good tsar and bad boyars thing, meaning

829
00:57:14.480 --> 00:57:19.119
the boyars are, like, the civil-servant racket, and then the tsar is good — and sure, Putin

830
00:57:19.119 --> 00:57:22.400
isn't much of a 'good tsar' right now, but generally speaking the people have

831
00:57:22.400 --> 00:57:25.079
trusted, like, that dictator-like power — well, we

832
00:57:25.079 --> 00:57:28.319
in Finland have kind of spoiled this with the presidential institution, in that the good

833
00:57:28.319 --> 00:57:31.079
president does things there, but really they don't have, like, any power. None

834
00:57:31.079 --> 00:57:35.160
at all. And then again that, um, next level, meaning this prime minister, is somehow

835
00:57:35.160 --> 00:57:39.400
like a stale, um, figure, who right now isn't hugely sympathized with, so

836
00:57:39.400 --> 00:57:43.599
should this be brought into this, um, at the start — basically that kind of Rydman-style

837
00:57:43.599 --> 00:57:47.280
thinking. Meaning the minister in charge starts being like, well, I'm making decisions now,

838
00:57:47.280 --> 00:57:51.640
I'm doing this Kela stuff with a pretty strong political mandate, and from there, like,

839
00:57:51.640 --> 00:57:55.079
we might get some public respect, since we're somehow such sheep in this

840
00:57:55.079 --> 00:57:59.319
collectivism. Well, that way, in that sense too, technically it should

841
00:57:59.319 --> 00:58:04.160
like, be taken. Well, okay. Probably nowhere in our system was it thought that

842
00:58:04.160 --> 00:58:08.319
a minister uses absolute power in his own administrative branch, but you could

843
00:58:08.319 --> 00:58:12.319
think that if a minister had this kind of ability to decide, quite

844
00:58:12.319 --> 00:58:16.319
unilaterally or autocratically, about what, say, gets brought out from his ministry,

845
00:58:16.319 --> 00:58:22.559
then that would be totally fine, as long as the committee also had, like,

846
00:58:22.559 --> 00:58:26.799
this kind of autocratic power to step over that minister too. But right now this whole thing

847
00:58:26.799 --> 00:58:29.799
actually works in such a way that, in fairly good mutual understanding,

848
00:58:29.799 --> 00:58:32.960
first the government programme gets negotiated, negotiated.

849
00:58:32.960 --> 00:58:37.680
Then, within the Council of State, the details of individual legislative initiatives or

850
00:58:37.680 --> 00:58:41.559
bill proposals get negotiated before it's sent out for comment. Then, after the comment

851
00:58:41.559 --> 00:58:44.680
period, or after the comments, it gets negotiated again, and at that

852
00:58:44.680 --> 00:58:47.480
point, when it comes to us in the committees, most of those

853
00:58:47.480 --> 00:58:50.680
details are more or less, like, locked in place, even though

854
00:58:50.680 --> 00:58:55.839
we, like, always have the chance to communicate with the minister in charge, and

855
00:58:55.839 --> 00:59:00.559
and, um, the Council of State's people — well, well, basically

856
00:59:00.559 --> 00:59:04.000
this system of ours has gotten a bit, a bit perverted, in that technically

857
00:59:04.000 --> 00:59:07.920
the committee no longer has the power today that it was originally

858
00:59:07.920 --> 00:59:11.920
meant to have. That reminds me of Otto's, like, legendary episode about Krista

859
00:59:11.920 --> 00:59:15.599
Kiuru, that sometimes the system can, even at the committee level,

860
00:59:15.599 --> 00:59:19.760
show its power. Well, yes, if you, if you greedily use

861
00:59:19.760 --> 00:59:23.960
the, um, procedures and, um, everything else to your advantage, then, then

862
00:59:23.960 --> 00:59:27.599
you can definitely do it this way, but, but, um, then you're not exactly in high

863
00:59:27.599 --> 00:59:31.000
demand. No, but I mean, if you all think about

864
00:59:31.000 --> 00:59:34.119
it this way — Finland, for example, became independent, like, against

865
00:59:34.119 --> 00:59:36.520
the law, back in the day. Mm.

866
00:59:36.520 --> 00:59:42.039
And then you could think that with these kinds of systems, that, like,

867
00:59:42.039 --> 00:59:45.880
over time they get old, that all sorts of, like, buildup

868
00:59:45.880 --> 00:59:50.200
and, and coding errors and other things accumulate — was it Tacitus who said

869
00:59:50.200 --> 00:59:55.520
that the more laws, the more corrupt the state. So, so I'm not sure that

870
00:59:55.520 --> 01:00:01.520
that apparatus can still, like, be fixed from within its own rules, so to speak,

871
01:00:01.520 --> 01:00:07.280
so, so if, if there's a visible situation where the whole, whole system

872
01:00:07.280 --> 01:00:12.880
is, like, driving into a wall, completely, then I guess, hopefully, someone, someone

873
01:00:12.880 --> 01:00:17.240
at some point raises a hand and is like, hey, like, what if we don't

874
01:00:17.240 --> 01:00:21.520
follow this after all, like, what, what if we just

875
01:00:21.520 --> 01:00:26.319
like, stop following this — mm — like, what if we just decide Finland doesn't

876
01:00:26.319 --> 01:00:30.000
— we don't, say, declare, like, we, we don't apply the equality principle, that

877
01:00:30.000 --> 01:00:34.039
we favor Finns, because this is Finns' nation-state, and they're

878
01:00:34.039 --> 01:00:37.960
basically, in that sense, more important to us than the rest of the world's people,

879
01:00:37.960 --> 01:00:42.520
because they just are, and we decide it that way, or, we remove certain

880
01:00:42.520 --> 01:00:47.039
kinds of protected categories, so the law applies to everyone the same way. Now

881
01:00:47.039 --> 01:00:49.599
no special extra needs for any particularly sensitive group, some kind of their own

882
01:00:49.599 --> 01:00:53.640
own special, um, law, but, um, the law is the same for everyone. Put

883
01:00:53.640 --> 01:00:57.799
— or, like, you enact, say, a flat tax, and

884
01:00:57.799 --> 01:01:02.119
then, like, if you don't have — to these, um, constitutionally defined, um,

885
01:01:02.119 --> 01:01:04.839
rights — the funds, then there just isn't, then it just doesn't get implemented

886
01:01:04.839 --> 01:01:08.119
but since the alternative is that this system drives into a wall,

887
01:01:08.119 --> 01:01:11.000
it's not the kind of thing where it'd be — it'd be nice, or, well, in theory it would be

888
01:01:11.000 --> 01:01:13.079
possible, but since in practice it isn't,

889
01:01:13.079 --> 01:01:17.160
everyone knows it, nobody dares say it out loud, and I — and that's scary

890
01:01:17.160 --> 01:01:20.839
yeah, yeah

891
01:01:20.839 --> 01:01:23.720
right, but I mean this is — and I'm not longing for any kind of

892
01:01:23.720 --> 01:01:26.440
leader principle, but I mean at least honesty, in my opinion that would be

893
01:01:26.440 --> 01:01:30.359
like, appropriate. Well, this, this — well, on the other hand that's what we're doing here,

894
01:01:30.359 --> 01:01:34.280
informing the public, like, about what situation we're ultimately in, but

895
01:01:34.280 --> 01:01:39.680
but clearly, um, a certain kind of crisis awareness is something we

896
01:01:39.680 --> 01:01:43.640
still lack. I mean, if we go back to, like, the start, say, like, these

897
01:01:43.640 --> 01:01:47.799
these STEA cuts — well, right now we're basically fighting over how some 200

898
01:01:47.799 --> 01:01:52.400
million gets divided up. Not hugely relevant to the big picture, but

899
01:01:52.400 --> 01:01:55.240
what if they weren't divided up at all? Mm.

900
01:01:55.240 --> 01:01:59.240
So could that be, like, an option — or, like, you were talking about the law — well, I've sometimes

901
01:01:59.240 --> 01:02:03.039
thought, what if, say, this — what's it called — the Church Act.

902
01:02:03.039 --> 01:02:07.440
What if you just, like, pulled your suspenders up and said this doesn't exist anymore. What's

903
01:02:07.440 --> 01:02:12.119
the worst that could happen? I've sometimes pondered this kind of thing, that

904
01:02:12.119 --> 01:02:16.799
would there be time to go through — maybe Samantha could go through it for us for the next episode, like,

905
01:02:16.799 --> 01:02:19.760
which laws would technically be the kind that could simply

906
01:02:19.760 --> 01:02:22.960
just be removed. So, like, a zero-based-budgeting spirit.

907
01:02:22.960 --> 01:02:27.240
Yeah. And in that idea of Otto's, I mean this certain kind of, like, national

908
01:02:27.240 --> 01:02:31.119
whether we call it now rationality or selfishness, its

909
01:02:31.119 --> 01:02:35.279
universalism, meaning, like, equality of starting points, not equality of outcomes,

910
01:02:35.279 --> 01:02:39.319
so that you don't spend, like, a huge amount of, like, energy on chasing

911
01:02:39.319 --> 01:02:43.200
some kind of, like, outcomes for specific interest groups or minorities

912
01:02:43.200 --> 01:02:46.760
or for this or that, and the entire, like, system's, like, resources just go into

913
01:02:46.760 --> 01:02:50.720
how to, like, shuffle things around a bit there, like, pilfer a bit, and, um, just

914
01:02:50.720 --> 01:02:53.839
try to create, like, that baseline, where everyone is, like, basically

915
01:02:53.839 --> 01:02:57.119
universally the same — but specifically at that nation-state level,

916
01:02:57.119 --> 01:02:59.640
so that you're not out there trying to save the whole goddamn world, that

917
01:02:59.640 --> 01:03:05.279
well yeah, this reminds me — this maybe relates to AI, all this, so

918
01:03:05.279 --> 01:03:09.319
I talk to people, or especially with people in the public sector, like,

919
01:03:09.319 --> 01:03:13.480
about whether there's, like, any room for savings anywhere, and if I ask, well,

920
01:03:13.480 --> 01:03:18.480
could we get 10 percent — like, do you think in your work you can see that kind of 10%

921
01:03:18.480 --> 01:03:21.799
like, savings, how you could use your time more efficiently, or could leave

922
01:03:21.799 --> 01:03:26.960
some unnecessary thing undone — and the typical answer is that it's at least 20 percent.

923
01:03:26.960 --> 01:03:29.079
Mm. So let's think, if we now

924
01:03:29.079 --> 01:03:30.960
have the social and healthcare syst-

925
01:03:30.960 --> 01:03:36.200
-em, it's that productive work — you can't replace it with AI, if

926
01:03:36.200 --> 01:03:41.119
um, that work shouldn't have been done in the first place. So if, um, at the state level,

927
01:03:41.119 --> 01:03:47.119
whether it's now 36 billion or 37 billion, that social-and-health-side, like, pot of

928
01:03:47.119 --> 01:03:55.039
funding, then 10% of that, um, is, well, 3.6 or 3.7, whichever you want, or

929
01:03:55.039 --> 01:03:59.720
if you look at the state level, a bit under 92 billion euros, then that's almost

930
01:03:59.720 --> 01:04:04.160
our entire deficit right there with that ten percent. So what if here we now just

931
01:04:04.160 --> 01:04:08.520
simply did it this way, that, that let's say five years' time

932
01:04:08.520 --> 01:04:13.000
for all organisations to adapt to this change, that now we're saving this country

933
01:04:13.000 --> 01:04:17.960
from, like, inevitable bankruptcy, and, and, um, you don't do anything fun, that

934
01:04:17.960 --> 01:04:21.599
we give a bit more, like, free rein to take those AI tools and reorganize

935
01:04:21.599 --> 01:04:25.160
things, and remove, say, those employment protections in between, so that

936
01:04:25.160 --> 01:04:29.319
we get all the troublemakers and others out of the ministry, and then just, like,

937
01:04:29.319 --> 01:04:33.599
see what happens. So politicians don't need to be there explaining that now

938
01:04:33.599 --> 01:04:38.599
this, this decision has to have these kinds of gender impacts, or these kinds of

939
01:04:38.599 --> 01:04:42.599
child impacts, but that now, goddammit, we simply save this country

940
01:04:42.599 --> 01:04:46.079
from complete economic catastrophe, and after that we can think about, like, other

941
01:04:46.079 --> 01:04:49.039
things. Good. Um, I'd still propose, though, that

942
01:04:49.039 --> 01:04:52.960
I have to say this IMF fantasy tickles me too, so I'd propose that

943
01:04:52.960 --> 01:04:56.799
we go into this a bit more in the inner circle, discuss briefly about the IMF coming

944
01:04:56.799 --> 01:05:00.279
to take — I'll just handle it, well, I know, I know, but

945
01:05:00.279 --> 01:05:04.279
I'll tell you some hard truths quietly now — this turns me on, turns me on a bit, so

946
01:05:04.279 --> 01:05:08.240
let's have one more short discussion about this IMF fantasy — so, thank you, Tere

947
01:05:08.240 --> 01:05:13.240
Sammallahti and Otto Juote, see you on the Sisäpiiri side, and let's fantasize

948
01:05:13.240 --> 01:05:17.000
about the IMF, which comes and saves us with an iron grip,

949
01:05:17.000 --> 01:05:23.119
maybe through the troika, the troika. Thanks. Thank you, thank you.