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What could possibly go wrong?
by Mike Gray
On the Mises Daily weblog, Kaj Grüssner of Finland tells us that, while everything looks great on paper, the reality is different:
Government-run education — “One might think it great that there are so many places of higher learning in a country with so few inhabitants, a proof that its people are educated and civilized. Few things could be further from the truth. …. with higher education so accessible, it lures thousands of people every year to go for a degree, even though they have no business in the world of academia. This produces a great number of bachelors, masters, and PhDs who don’t have any value on the job market because they studied literature, art history, religious studies, or something like that. In many cases, they didn’t choose their major because they actually thought it would give them a job; they chose it because it seemed fun or interesting, or it was easier to get into than law school or medical school.
“Unemployment among educated people has become a chronic problem. The other side of the coin is that Finland has long had an acute shortage of people with trade skills: carpenters, plumbers, mechanics, and so on — people who can actually provide a valuable service. The shortage has, predictably, driven up prices and prolonged delivery.”
Government-run health care — “Like the other Scandinavian countries, Finland has universal healthcare. This is one of the things many like to boast about. However, the healthcare system is bad even by the standards of universal healthcare. …. Any country that wants a universal healthcare system should not look to Finland for an example to follow. One of the real tragedies of this fiasco is the fact that Finland has some of the best private hospitals in the world, but because of our universal healthcare, very few Finnish citizens ever get to benefit from them.”
Government taxation and overspending — “As a tax consultant, I am frequently engaged in legal battles with the tax authorities, representing my clients and trying to protect their rights. In these fights, I encounter the arrogance, and in some cases the sheer malevolence, of the taxman, completely uncensored. I never cease to be amazed by the ignorance and the callousness of this particular department of the state.
“As a rule, the tax authorities don’t care about the law, in the rare event they even know it. Not only that, but it is clear from the way they act that they consider every penny to be their money, and may only be retained by the taxpayer at their discretion.
“…. The increasing deficits and national debts are not the result of a shortage of tax revenues. In Finland, the maximum marginal income-tax rate for individuals is over 50 percent. A value-added tax is levied on all goods and services at every level of production. The tax rate of normal consumer goods and services has recently been raised from 22 to 23 percent. As in the United States, there are a great host of other taxes and duties levied on everything under the sun. What has brought the Finnish welfare state close to fiscal calamity is its ever-increasing government spending.”
Grüssner’s conclusion: “The Finnish welfare state comes at a price we can’t afford.” His entire article is here.
Kaj Grussner is a junior tax adviser who graduated from business school in 2007. He grew up on the island of Aland of which capital city of Mariehamn has 11,123 inhabitants. The main economic activities in Aland are farming and fishing. All this makes him a true expert on global economic and political issues. What a fucking joke……..
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Thanks for the comment, HR. Unfortunately, your argument involves a very basic logical fallacy: the fallacy of accident, or destroying the exception. The notion you assert, that numerous people under the age of thirty and raised in small towns are ignorant, is highly debatable in itself, but the notion that it has any bearing on a particular person, much less his or her arguments, is entirely unfounded.