Finland’s story shows equality is the best route to happiness

Go for it. I'm all eyes.

This is a "debate" forum ...

 

Then what is?

The northern European countries need-the-manpower at that level of ability. That is, uneducated people who will do the lower-level jobs that their own people will not do because they have already higher-level qualifications.

You have to live here to believe it ... what America has is a system of education that permits only a tiny fraction of the population to "graduate" to higher level and better paying jobs.

So, the US has a LARGE POPULATION of people without any particular job-speciality. These are the kind that are in the Poverty Threshold (below an annual revenue of $24K a year for a family of four).

Barely half of the American high-school population is going into post-secondary schooling because that's the half that can afford the $40K it costs at a state tertiary-level institute of higher-learning ...

 

Their experience under the muslims probably shaped their attitudes on religious tolerance for the next proceeding couple of centuries, after they managed to liberate themselves.
Thus we got things like the inquisition and suppression of native culture in the New World, all an indirect legacy of their history.

 

You are evidently "not here". What I say is what is reported on the nightly news. All the northern country are seeing the same phenomenon - because southern Europe simply does not have the jobs (yet) and when they do have them, they wont be going first to the muslims.

I live in the boonies of France (which have accommodations for the migrants), and I see blacks strolling the street with nothing to do. If/when economies get better in Africa, they will likely be going back.

 

The currently prosperous Northwestern part of Europe is going to start looking a whole lot more like America.

What do you mean "yet" ?
Will they ever have the jobs?

 

I doubt that. They are a very intelligent people who believe fundamentally in Social Democracy.

They will not permit people to live below the poverty-threshold (at a ridiculous Minimum Wage). That's for a benighted America and its belief that "hard work brings riches".

The US is not making the transition from the Industrial to the Information Age because it insists on keeping Tertiary Education "private"; which is where one learns the skills that allow one higher incomes.

As I have said a thousand-times on this forum - Bernie got it right! The US needs a government-funded National Education System* at each state-level, with instruction that costs nothing or next-to-nothing. The highly unattractive cost of such tertiary-education in the US is well-known - and the cost-factor is well-known. The average student-loan debt in the US is just above $30K.

Which is a barrier to entry for anybody living below the Poverty Threshold. How can we expect anybody to pay that sum of money when they exist on a living of $24K (poverty-threshold maximum annual earnings for a family of 4) a year or less? How?

So, what happens? This happens:

The northern Europeans in retirement are flocking to the sunny&warmer south of Europe. And, get this: The south of Europe (Spain, southern France) is at the same latitude as Massachusetts! This "movement" is significant and has had a profound effect upon housing construction. (Much like Florida.)

It is true that the southern European countries will have lower salary levels (10/20% less), but that is also the reason why Germany builds cars in Spain (and retails them as SEAT throughout Europe) ...

 

Which is an ideological toy on this forum. They say It doesn't exists so one need think it does.

These people offer that Income Disparity in the US is a "bad joke" and that the Poverty Threshold (below which the Census Bureau says 40 million American men, women and children seek to survive) is non-existent.

It's just a figment of our imagination ...

 

Typo: They say It doesn't exists so one need think it does.
Should read: They say It doesn't exists so that one need not think it does.

 

It's a significant point, so "whatever works" is a poor response to a unique economic approach in a tiny and homogenous Nation.

 

Finland is indicative of the European Union in that all laws relating to the matter in question are common throughout. (Of course, application of the law may be different from country to country.)

The EU is an entity with more than twice the population of the US and a geography where the basic laws are formulated around the notion of a Social Democracy.

Which, of course, has not yet happened in the US and why it is (despite its larger GDP) an illiberal economic backwater. Its Income Disparity indicating precisely why.

The Gini Coefficient of the US is 41, China's 46.5 and Russia's estimated at 37.7 ...



As shown above, the lower the Gini Index also the lesser the Income Disparity nationally ...

 

good point!! if France cant copy them despite being neighbors and socialists too, we certainly cant, and don't want to anyway. Besides, Fins are happiest of all in America which proves our system is better for those naturally inclined to be happy.

 

why be happy in Finland anyway? Because you're all equally brainwashed socialist robots programmed to be happy like the Chinese hordes all wearing black pajamas for Mao?

 

You think being "equally brainwashed socialist robots" generates happiness? Weird idea, but each to our own!

 

No country is. Happiness is just a word that seems-to-fit the description of living well enough and without significant struggle.

The US was not a "happy place" during the Great Recession. At that moment, the Employment-to-population ratio was near 63%, as seen here:

Take that red-line above and trace it out straight and back up to 63%. What year does it reach back to that percentage. Around 2026!

What's happened? Why can't we go any faster?

Here's why:
*What's happened is that the jobs that fill the difference between 61% and 63% of the population have changed. Post-secondary schooling qualifications are now in Demand. But in certain key-areas we are going to India to find the competencies necessary. (Like medicine and information-systems!)
*We can't educate our own kids? Nope, but why? Because it costs next to nothing to go to post-secondary schooling in India. But in America, at a state tertiary-level school, the cost is $10K a year!
*I was speaking to my French dentist just yesterday. He told me that his tuition fee to a French state-run university never cost more than 1100€ a year (which is about $1500). Add to that room-'n-board.

Presume you are living below the Poverty Threshold (where exist today 40 million Americans) and you are earning therefore less than $24K a year. Where-the-hell are you going to find $10K a year each to send your kids to a post-secondary education? Where? (You and them both live in a poverty-prison!)

But to build a new battleship, "oh yeah, we got budget-money for that!"

Stop the world, I wanna get off ...

 

USA is happier than France and they get all the tax and spend welfare programs

 

Ever met a happy Fin?

Not really the party capital of the world is it?

 

thats op theory. when everyone is equal everyone is happy. I wonder if kids grow up dreaming of how happy they will be when they grow up to be equal?

 

Kids who grow up with equality of opportunity? Gosh, god bless em!

 

more importantly in Finland they have equality of outcomes so everyone is truly equal! Its the only way to inspire kids to be the very best they can be!!

 

You think Finland has equality of outcomes? Wow, you do make Americans look silly!

 

Finland has lowest income inequality in EU - Helsinki Times
www.helsinkitimes.fi/finland/finland.../10727-finland-has-lowest-income-inequality-i...
May 28, 2014 - Passers-by stopped to admire a Lamborghini parked on Pohjois-Esplanadi in downtown Helsinki Income inequality in Finland remains markedly lower than the average of all EU member states, Statistics Finland reported on Tuesday. Out of all European countries, the distribution of wealth was in 2011 the ...

 

You inform me that Finland doesn't have equality of outcome? Shock horror!

 

equality of income is ultimate way for libcommie govt to impose equality of outcome.

 

Do you even know what you're typing? Finland does not have equality of outcome. Crikey, we wouldn't have that with a socialist transfromation

 

one day you'll get one thing right I'm sure

"It was becoming obvious in the seventies that our system was in crisis – people's outcomes were dependent on their social background, and their educational outcome depended on where they came from," says Jouni Valijarvi, a professor at the University of Jyvaskyla in central Finland who was a key figure behind the most recent round of education reforms. "Then, in the 1990s, we realized that we needed even greater educational equality to promote economic growth, which depends on social mobility."