Good night Finland — Lost century ahead…
--
This is my confirmation bias, should i move or stay? This is very cynical view on where Finland is heading. I am always prepping for the worst, it is my own little hobby, maybe it has something do by starting my investing journey studying religiously intelligent investor. It is all just puzzle for me, be it running a business, developing myself, investing, finding cryptos etc. 1+1. You fail, maybe learn something and move on. If you are annoyed by something, cut it out from your life be it work, annoying people or country where you live… Don’t get offended and i am not some douchebag who knows everything. I’m just literally puking my bad feelings here, sorry for that!
We are riddled today with zombie companies, zombie people and zombie countries… Finland is on its way to become a zombie. The current government is taking massive amounts of debt. It is not just this government, it’s from 2008 when the whole world economy got destroyed. I don’t also see any development in Finland that we will be one of the front running countries in the next decade where innovation and rapid change is celebrated. We are 5million people border state in EU, we should lead the charge in the industries of the future. We should have one of the best education systems in the world to stay competitive. Yes we had it all, but from 2008 its been a gradual demise. Feels like everybody is wishing it will get better, how it will get any better?
We will also have great opportunities to work from anywhere, this digitalization will simply not stop here… Sovereign individual goes where the incentives are and where the state is serving the people and not vice versa. I have a feeling that countries will be divided in the next decade for big winners and big losers. Looks like Finland is taking big L here, unemployed and forgotten youth and pensioners will stay?
Our deficit is growing rapidly, yeah we got the covid and now war… It is ok to take debt, if it goes to productive things. Yes we have to take more debt for our national defense, but where did the rest of the money go? Do i believe they promote innovation, sustainable growth & good incentives to work? Simple answer is no. Almost all my friends say that why bother? All the politicians? Every company? Why bother because governments don’t have to pay debts and the debt is not concern for us at least for 20–30y, everything should be fine? Finland is still very good place to live?
What a bout next generation? My kids? What kind of future they have here?
Subsidy economy
Our whole economy is becoming subsidy economy. Wanna work more? Let’s see if my daycare cost’s go up and what is my margin tax %, ok it makes zero sense to work more. I’m unemployed, should i try some part time job? Makes no sense because i lose my subsidies and i have to hustle with the city workers… So why bother… For the common good? Where is that spirit nowadays? I would do the same, system is what it is.
Most talented guys i have ever met in my life are doing either meaningless work or stuck in that “entry level” job, or went back to work in that “entry level” position. It just doesn’t make any sense to work hard and go beyond your capabilities. For what actually? What do you gain? More money? Better life? I thought these people are extremely stupid… They are the smartest ones in the room. If you have the sickness of entrepreneurial spirit, i am very sorry, i am trying hard to occupy my mind not to work more than 37,5h, it is extremely hard. Ridiculous to think that man in his prime age is writing this kind of puke here? I have 10x better skills than writing and thinking, but here i am wasting time. I had fucking 2 days out of work when my kid was born, i hate myself so much, i am not proud of it. How could i have been so stupid? Thanks for the incentives fuckers. I understand if you have that 7fig debt on your ass or you have to boast your ego… Just smile and play along.
Let’s see should i invest to hire more workers? Oh yea, you don’t by the way happen to have wage subsidies? Have you been unemployed “enough”? FYI i have never hired single person with this in mind and i also told to all city workers who approached me to go fuckthemselfs for offering me this… Best part is that they believe they are doing “good”. My competitors are taking full advantage of these, they are just sucking out everything they can, i was asking myself long time how can people cheat and take advantage of these subsidies! They are CHEATERS, well i am coming to an age where i am losing hope… It would be 100x simpler and easier just to cheat like everybody else… I am losing hope here, can’t you see? You get even subsidies for upgrading your webpage, what the fuck is this?
Good example are these covid subsidies, i sold my cars, did not pay any salary for myself, cut all cost’s to zero… zero subsidies… The companies who were managed very badly and that were on brink of bankruptcy anyways before covid were rewarded very handsomely by this. Makes me sick to my stomach to even think how badly this system was abused.
Should i do some renovations at home to improve my energy efficiency? Should i buy an electric car? Or hire a cleaner to help out? Oh yeah, let’s see if i have any subsidies/tax deductions left for this year, i apply for those! What the fuck!
Thank you for creating more ponzies and employing more useless public workers. Does it do any good for the tax payer? What’s the point? Lets just nanny everything?
LOST CENTURY AHEAD.
Public services
What do i actually get by paying taxes?
Nothing literally works. My wife had to wait for almost 2y to get to dental hygienist… I hear these anecdotal stories from everybody around me and there is “news” about this constantly how bad the public healthcare is and how it is not working.
→ You just simply go to private.
Okay if you have the stomach to whine that you are in such a bad pain that you need emergency treatment, yes you still get that. Same is in every treatment , just take the pain killer is the message or you are literally close to dying you get the treatment. Again you get all the treatment if you have cancer etc, but would it not be 100x cheaper to have preventive measures? Okay, literally everyone has occupation healthcare or they have insurances for their kids to go private, but again why i pay for public healthcare? Nobody who actually works have time to even wait in the lines to get in… Few of my friends and family who live in smaller cities are on the other hand very happy, they get treatment very fast and healthcare generally works.
Try to get some permit to renovate your terrace? Or do whatever. You need a permit. How long that takes? And how nice are the people servicing there? Are they helping you? What a pain just to install some classes for balcony.
Tax services work excellent! 10/10 service, fast reliable, no queues when you call there, very flexible. They also answer all your questions and try best they can to help you pay more taxes. If you have any question relating to taxes just call them, very underrated service. Am i happy paying taxes? NO. The service still works and they help you.
The roads are in amusing shape, big holes everywhere. Drive through Baltic states and come to Finland, would you guess we have the shittiest ones?
Street lights are working.
Currently all the healthcare workers are on strike here in Finland, they demand a raise. The whole public sector is managed so badly it makes me sick. I want them to have bigger salary and better working conditions. Same goes for teachers, fireman's, children's daycare, police, social workers. I forgot many more, but the actual workers who are doing something good for Finnish citizens, 80% of public workforce sadly don’t do anything, they just suck the life out of everything they touch.
The salary demands are literally out of this world. This will create a self fulfilling shit show. Healthcare worker salary up → Everybody in public sector salary up. What then? Can you do 1+1? Who pays?
We should literally explode the whole system and build it again from the scratch. Now we are just adding more bureaucracy and useless little managers which are making things only worse for the tax payers and public service workers who actually do the work.
We have extremely awful nanny state.
LOST CENTURY AHEAD.
People & Work:
Our labor markets are stuck in 70’s. It will kill our competitiveness in the long run. Does any country in EU have such a shitty system? No. I am not against unions etc. Every entrepreneur knows that capable workers are everything for business, without them there would be no business. Problem is that the big companies and public sector does not give flying fuck about people working there…
- During covid i paid extremely good bonuses (even though the results were shit).
- Currently we do 1h shorter days and skip Friday whenever it is possible. Salary is the same, but they have more time for side hustles and to study something different or they can just chill. Yes my margins and results are bad now, but who cares, it will be taxed away anyway. Workers even don’t want more money!
→ Everybody more motivated, more healthier and generally feeling better.
Do i wanna hire more workers? No. It takes quite long time to train, it is extremely risky also especially after covid. 1–2 wrong recruitments can destroy the whole business. After 4months of hiring it is very difficult to fire anybody here. Constantly taking sick leave (i have 5 days with just self notice), these “freeriders” make it worse for everybody.
Cant also imagine myself working for the government or some big public company. They are extremely slow and mentality is generally “No everything is forbidden”. Full of nonsense micromanagement, useless meetings, useless traveling. I have tried working for state and big publicly listed company. Every morning i would rather jam a stick in my pee hole rather than go to work.
There is not also very exiting industries here, most of the white collar jobs will be also outsourced in the future anyways. Finland is still extremely nice place to be worker, top 10 for sure in the whole world. I just like to whine.
- Long holidays ++
- Work/life balance very good ++
- Mostly zero stress ++
- If you worked long enough, you can literally do zero work (at least in public) ++
I was very naïve at young age and i though i could have big impact and develop my work if i hustle and work hard. If i now would go to work in these jobs, i would focus 100% building some other business/studying etc. How long these zombie companies can stay solvent? If i take this route what i do then? I have literally zero skills after working 10y in this kind of job. Zombie companies will die in the long run.
Entrepreneurship in Finland
It is very easy and nice to start your journey as entrepreneur in Finland, it is still one of the best places in the world to start. You get all the support and subsidies too. This route is becoming extremely popular since the job laws are so strict so it is win win for everybody. You also escape from the pension etc ponziz which are a story for another day…
This is not for everybody and there is plenty of abuse and many people are nowadays forced to be entrepreneur. Not good… For eg platform economy companies force the workers to be entrepreneurs. These platform economy companies also pay 0% tax to Finland.
This is still one option for me to stay here. I would definitely fly solo here, sell my time or have some small business hustle where i can make a decent living. I have already tried the route of employing people around me, but it is very hard when it goes to +10 levels. The salary for yourself is actually very low if you count all the hours etc you do, you get compensated in the end if you manage to make exit. It is also very lonely road to take. Maybe i should then try to employ +50… Yeah solo it is. Or who knows, never say never!
Youth and education
Covid-19 was prime example how our youth is treated here. Nobody gives a fuck, they just wanna take care of themselves and give up on the future. This attitude is getting extremely toxic here. “I just take care of myself”. Oh you are jobless, go to work or kill yourself. It does not matter if we destroy all the service industry workers future “they are monkeys they can do something else” “go drive wolt”. It is ok as long as it does not affect me is the general consensus here when the shit hits the fan. This mentality is showcased nicely how our kids/youths are taken care.
Only thing where government officials have managed to do some cuts? From education and daycare. Our whole vocational school system got destroyed, house builders cant even use screwdrivers nowadays… Let’s blame the youth when we cut their funding to zero and let 16y old study by themselves…
Let’s kill all the research and make our universities shit.
Let’s kill our teachers by giving them 40+ student sized classes.
No resources, no nothing… “Just survive” Who cares does not affect me now.
We have 15y old boys who cant read. (been school still for 9y).
We have nice inclusion strategy where the main goal is to make everything suck equally.
Let’s lock them, let’s destroy their future, let’s make them suffer. This seems to be the message.
There are horrible anecdotal stories popping up all around me, how the school staff are feeling bad, how the students are feeling bad and nothing really works… I also hear little bit better news from smaller cities where the class sizes are smaller and staff is highly motivated.
The results don’t lie, we used to be the number 1 in schooling. All the countries around the world tried to do the same. We were so proud of this system, why we wanna destroy it? It is still “ok”, but like i said it is not enough for Finland, we need it to be the best in the world if we wanna stay competitive in the long run.
Well again the world is developing fast and covid pushed also digital schooling for next level and it will only get better in the future. The schooling system would be just “for fun” if the development is this. I want all the kids around the world to have all they keys to the future, learn the skills to build wonderful things and make the world better place. What skills they learn now in school? There is so much stuff to learn from the internet, you literally get all the classes from the best universities around the world for free. Do you even need this old system in the future? I think kids in near future would learn much more from home… It also gives plenty of opportunities for sovereign individuals if the schooling is 10x better in the magical internet than it is locally.
My suggestions for the future.
- Complete tax revamp, better incentives and more tax revenue.
Yes we don’t have much room for tax cuts, but we can make the whole taxation system more efficient. Finnish people are extremely happy to pay taxes it amuses me every time, let’s abuse that too. Currently we introduce tax hikes or new taxes which are completely useless and harmful. For example “exit tax” Move out from Finland and get taxed if you made gains here. This tax is extremely costly to follow and all the expats who have some braincells will not come to Finland, this will only create more bureaucracy. Does this tax create more tax revenue in the long run? No. We have plenty of similar taxes. We could get so much more tax revenue by unleashing our full potential by making the whole system more simpler and build it with better incentives.
I am not investing here anything and i am tempted to try out how for eg living in Portugal goes, 10% tax is some good carrot to lure in highly motivated workers. Let’s get lazy and stay mediocre for ever, let’s see where that takes us…
→ Create also tax incentives for the smartest people in the world to come here.
2. Explode the current public sector completely. Make it work, make it more efficient. It will be extremely hard and painful, but we have to do it.
3. Reform the whole labor markets. We need more flexible and dynamic markets to survive in the future. Do we all wanna be zombies in the future?
4. Invest more to schools, make it world best again. Our youth are currently extremely sick, we need to invest in them and help them. It will become 10x more expensive if we just let them rot.
Something has to be done the current path is taking us to the road where IMF will step in and do the cuts for us, then Finland won’t even be that “ok” place to live.
What i should do?
I have already ran my business to almost down, it will die in the near future if i don’t invest in it. Why would i? I ask everyday myself should i invest in it? I need only one good reason to do so, even just glimmer of hope of little bit better future. I love this country, i don’t wanna leave here. Either way i have come to conclusion that i have to change something. Firstly to figure out some business/job that i can do 100% from home/everywhere around the world.
- Stay in Finland. We would move to a smaller city, where we can be little bit more sovereign. Living cost’s are way lower compared to Helsinki. lots of nature etc. People generally more friendlier and nicer (just don’t tell you are from Helsinki). Very nice to raise kids. Will this be best for the kids in the long run?
- Move abroad. More opportunities, better incentives 10% tax for EG in Portugal Lissabon, very hot place now to move and living costs are also rising there very fast. There are plenty of places where sovereign individuals are flocking, it will be the future. Majority of the works can be done online so why stay in countries where governments are taxing you to death and you get very little return?
Finland is still one of the best places to live, but i am little bit worried where we are heading.
Stay safe and stay hard! ❤
