Finland                                                                                                                                 

Home
SEARCH
SPECIALS
Banks and Trades
Docs and Quacks
Elections
Food and Shops
Globalization
Justice
Marriage
Post Office
Racing
Recycling
Religion
Transport
Xmas
AFRICA
Congo  drc
Egypt
Tripoli
Zimbabwe
EURASIA
MIDDLE EAST
Iran
Iraq
ISLAM
Quran for dummies
EUROPE
Albania
Italy
Poland
Romania
RUSSIA
SHORT STORIES
ARCHIVE WAHOO


Work sucks but.. 


Africa Hippo jewels 

Hippo for lunch


China  lift me up


 sapodilla. Italian Vintage Ads

ART

 

 

 

 

 

 

EUROPIAN UNION      Taxi driver                                                                


      Finland by Phil & Others

 

 

Work sucks


 Finlandforthought 


 


 

Excerpt of the Day

Welfare State  Phil

“…the most successful welfare system in the world is a paid job.”

- Madsen Pirie, president of the Adam Smith Institute

Yes, how obvious. After all, the system has worked great all these years…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

        

 


19.10.2006 

                                                  Finnair strike

 Phil

Finnair cabin crew are on strike as of 4am this morning, the company are claiming it’s an illegal strike. Since the state of Finland are the majority shareholders in the company, it’s the Finnish taxpayer who gets screwed by all of this.

Finnair’s cabin crew strike is in protest over plans by Finnair to hire 500 new cabin crew for its Estonian subsidiary Aero Airlines for lower pay than provided for in Finnair’s labour contract. The pay level under the national contract is 30 percent less than salaries under Finnair’s own contract.

30% of a typical Finnish wage in Estonia is pretty damn good considering the average monthly salary in Estonia is $575 (US), while in Finland $3,026 (US). And if you think the unions give a damn about Estonians, think again. Their strike is just a bigoted ploy to keep Estonians away. Because if they’re forced to pay Finnish  wages, might as well hire a Finn, and fuck all the Estonians.

 


 

                                                                                 Finns’ prejudices against Estonians

  Phil

For the first time in history, an Estonian company will be handling the road maintenance in a region of Finland

The prospect of an Estonian company maintaining roads in the area has raised a good deal of curious discussion at the Finnish Road Administration and the Finnish Road Enterprise. Raekallio understands the curiosity.

“For decades, Finns have been businessmen in Estonia, and employees have been hired from there to Finland. We are used to being the managers and bosses. Now the setup is turning upside-down… Prejudices are so strong that many were unwilling to take jobs with the company.”

MORE: I don’t get this prejudice many Finns have towards Estonia, it’s as if Estonia is still part of the Soviet Union or something. The people are poor there, the place is dirty and unsafe, people are shifty, the vodka will make you go blind, there’s lots of hookers….bleh!

I think those Finns who dislike Estonia are quite jealous and see their country as a threat. They worker longer, harder, and for less. There are exciting changes and progress being made in Estonia, it’s an exciting place to be - meanwhile Finland has remained stagnant, following the status quo for what seems to be an eternity with no end in sight. Estonia has been the dorky kid school that everyone picked on, but that’s not the case anymore, and soon they’ll be picking on us!

A liberal sees another country progressing so rapidly and sees this as a very positive thing for their citizens and the rest of the globe. Others see another country progressing so rapidly and sees this as a threat their comfortable lifestyle. The welfare state is under attack and the weapons fired are hard-working and inexpensive labour, inexpensive goods, increased competition in the region, and possibilities of policy reform such as flat-tax.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Estonia. Tallin


 top of page

    

21.8.2006   Phil 

                    See Finland, by bike!

 Nokians live here

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have no idea why anyone would possibly think about leaving Finland during the months of July and August, the weather is just too perfect here. If the weather could be like this all year round, I would forget this blog, join the Social Democrats, and never criticize the welfare state again - I promise.

Any tourist that visited Finland this summer was treated with some amazing weather and no doubt left thinking very highly of this country. But I wonder how many of them toured Finland by bicycle? Probably not many. There’s so many fine things about Finland that you’ll never see unless you take a bike. Walking doesn’t get you far enough, and you’ll miss soooo much if you’re just in a car or bus.

Finland’s residential building and landscape architecture is very different from the states. Finland has what I call “circled wagon” style, where the housing layout is more circular rather than straight like in the states. All the neat things to see are in the community yards and behind the houses which you’d never see by car - In the states, you can see just about everything from a car. So that’s where you need a bike. I love to ride through these neighborhoods, discover new neighborhoods you’d normally never drive through, get lost and try to find out where I am.

The bike trail/road system of Finland is just as comprehensive as the automobile road system, bike trails are in the U.S. are basically non-existant, Americans don’t know what they’re missing. Even though cars can’t travel directly to each neighborhood, there’s always a bike path that connects two neighborhoods - it’s amazing, I virtually never run into a dead end while on my bike, the trails just keep going and going.

One trail I highly recommend is the one that runs from Tapiola to Kivenlahti, in Espoo. I believe the length is about 16km and most of it is along the shore. The scenery is breathtaking - on one side of you is the sea and archipelago, on the other side you’ll see multi-million euro homes that you and I will never be able to afford - you can either admire them or loathe them, depending on whether you voted for Niinistö or Halonen during the last election. You get a true sense of Finland’s “classless society” when you tour the south of Espoo, especially when the trail leads you away from the water to make way for some gated community (that supposedly don’t exist in Finland) of the uber-rich who have the beach all to themselves.


 18.7.2006

                             How the welfare state model creates racism

  Phil

…in 1990, a real problem arose wen a group of Somalis turned up at the Soviet/Finnish border, uninvited, unsponsored and unexpected. Most Finns did not want them to stay. This was little do with racism but more to do with the psychological difficulty the Finns have with making room for others and to share the hard-earned fruits of their labour.

Absolutely, it had little to do with racism - but it quickly turns into racism when, against the will of the people, they’re allowed into the country, and the Finns are forced to give the hard-earned fruits of their labour to non-Finns. This is how the welfare state model creates racism. The natives see their favorite social programmes diminish while the money is being funneled elsewhere to burden the welfare state even further. I hear this all the time, it’s got to be the #1 reason why Finns are so against immigration. I do not believe that the Finnish people are naturally racist at all, I believe it is the welfare state which makes them (some of them) to be that way.


 


 
                                              unemployment is around 25% for immigrants
 

While unemployment is around 7% in Helsinki, it’s around 25% for us immigrants - Who has the answer to fix the situation?

When will these trends be reflected in the recruitment practices of the municipal labour force? And what about public procurement? Municipal politicians in Helsinki - if they are interested in the issue at all - still talk about supported work schemes for immigrants. Why don’t they demand that also private sector companies (who supply goods and services worth of millions of euros to the city) take responsibility in providing jobs for people of diverse ethnic backgrounds? After all, the public, taxpayers’ money, that funds public procurements comes increasingly from taxes paid by ethnic minorities. And sooner or later it simply will make economic sense for these companies!

Quotas. Some are not directly saying it but what what they  want is private companies in Finland to have immigrant quotas - Companies over ‘x’ amount of people must have ‘x’ amount of immigrants depending on the size of the company or else they’ll be taxed extra or sued by the state or something. And while I came back from vacation quite tan skinned, I doubt I’m the kind of “immigrant” who would fulfill these quotas. 

Immigrant/minority/racial quotas may be a new concept in Finland but they’re very familiar to Americans. While in the short-term it may provide jobs (not necessarily good ones) for immigrants, Finland will see increased sentiments of racism and anti-immigration in the long-term. Whether they’re right or wrong, some natives will feel these immigrants are “stealing” their jobs. More qualified people will lose jobs to less qualifiied people simply because of the color of their skin or where they come from. I know that the protectionist, racist, yet powerful Finnish trade unions make it very difficult for immigrants, I just think that using government force to fix this issue will do more harm than good.

 top of page


                                    Problems with socialized healthcare, an example

Seems like my recent appendectomy went well because my symptoms occurred while in my city of residence…My girlfriend just received an e-mail from the girlfriend of a good friend of ours. He’s in the hospital because his appendix burst. He was experiencing pain in his stomach just like I was and went to his closest hospital just like I did - I live in Espoo and went to my Espoo (Jorvi) - However, the closest hospital to him (Meilahti, Helsinki) wasn’t “his” hospital because he is a resident of Nummela. So he was transported to Lohja, during the journey his appendix burst which is VERY serious and life-threatening. If he would have remained in Helsinki, he would have most likely been fine and had a routine operation just like I had.

This kind of nonsense is typical with socialized medicine. When I go to the grocery store each week, the girl at the cashier never says, “Sir, this isn’t your local grocery store, you must go there if you wish to buy food.” …why does healthcare have to be the same? It’s no wonder why Americans time and time again refuse to implement socialized healthcare.

 

1.      So American goes to the hospital: Sir, we don’t take in people without insurance…

Comment by Hank W.

2.      I’ve been complaining about this idiotic system ever since they created it. It’s impossible to comprehend why the municipalities cannot agree on intermunicipal compensations on patience costs. It’s completely retarded!

I was near Riihimäki few years back on sunday when all the sudden half of my body went numb and started to paralyse. I got shit scared because it included massive headache and tinnitus. Luckily my gf was there and she rushed me to the local hospital. She carried me with wheelchair to the reception, as i was unable to move at that point.

They took my wallet and checked me for id. They didn’t even check my current condition expect that i was still conscious. The minute they figured out that i was from Helsinki they threw us out, telling that i have to take a cab from there to Helsinki and report to hospital. After telling us that, they closed the reception and refused to talk to us any more.

We waited for three hours outside the hospital too scared to travel incase my condition would continue to radically worsen. Luckily after that i was able to limb back and curse at them for ten minutes.

Comment by Kras

3.      Medical horror stories are not in any short supply in the U.S. Why do you think that the lawyers are specializing in malpractice suits over there, and making dough hand over fist?

Comment by Petteri

4.      4 Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and family of David;

5 to enroll himself with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him as wife, being pregnant.

6 It happened, while they were there, that the day had come that she should give birth.

7 She brought forth her firstborn son, and she wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a feeding trough, because the Bethlehem Hospital told her to get her ass back to Nazareth.

Comment by Hank W.

   top of page
top

 

 

                                               

     
 


 

31.3.2006

      Under the table, better than nothing at all


 
 

It’s so amusing to read about “under the table” jobs as if the participants were committing murder. This is a huge difference in attitude between the Finns and Americans. The article uses words like “shady”, “wrestles with his conscience”, and “temptation” to describe the people involved in this practice. Pleaseee…. 

PAM reports that its Helsinki office is contacted about once a week by someone who has been offered undocumented work. The information comes by telephone. “They want to remain faceless. Common sense dictates that these kinds of things will not bear the light of day”, says Irmeli Mäenpää, head of the office. Jussi sometimes wrestles with his conscience. “But I will have time to pay plenty of those taxes when I get a regular job.”

People involved in the grey economy are rarely well off financially. Like the article says, it’s often restaurants, probably just trying to make ends meet, offering this undocumented work because the state makes it too costly to do legally. And the workers, often students and young people like the article states, are struggling with the high youth unemployment in Finland - they either they take the under the table jobs or they’re broke and unemployed.

In addition to young people, immigrants are newcomers to the Finnish labour market, and as such, are subject to offers from shady characters.

These under the table jobs are mostly temporary anyways, few people do this work for long periods of time. And you usually get paid daily, so if the boss screws you over, you just tell him to suck it…and you never return. But I guess the state would rather we immigrants and young people sit home and collect the welfare, and have the small shops and restaurants go bankrupt?

 

Young people increasingly offered untaxed grey sector work

Offers of illicit untaxed work are becoming an increasingly frequent temptation for young people starting their working careers.
      "Some friends tipped me off about a job, or then they told their own employers that they could call me", says 24-year-old student Jussi (not his real name), who has done a number of short stints at a night restaurant in the south of Finland. He is paid in cash, and the income is not reported to tax authorities.
      Work in the grey sector can be especially attractive if the student’s official income is starting to approach the limits for eligibility for student grants. Fast money is also an attraction: Jussi is paid cash on the same evening.
     
Jussi does not belong to a labour union, but offers of untaxed work also come to young people who are union members. An estimated 8,000 young members of the Service Union United PAM (under the age of 25) - about one in six - have been offered untaxed work.
      PAM reports that its Helsinki office is contacted about once a week by someone who has been offered undocumented work.
      The information comes by telephone. "They want to remain faceless. Common sense dictates that these kinds of things will not bear the light of day", says Irmeli Mäenpää, head of the office.
      Jussi sometimes wrestles with his conscience. "But I will have time to pay plenty of those taxes when I get a regular job."
     
The restaurant business is notorious for paying workers under the table. Inspections in 2003-2005 revealed the payment of EUR 11 million in undocumented wages. However, even more went into the pockets of restaurant owners in the form of hidden dividends.
      Restaurants in Finland put away an estimated EUR 32 million in illicit earnings.
     
Young people are recipients of illicit wages in other fields than the service sector. A survey by the Central Organisation of Finnish Trade Unions (SAK) reveals that nine percent of the younger members of its affiliate unions have been offered untaxed work. It is not known how many actually yielded to the temptation.
      PAM feels that offers of grey work to young people are a serious matter. "It is unfortunate if employers do not meet their obligations in the first job that a young person has. It can lead to a cycle, when the habit turns into a practice", says the union’s vice president Kaarlo Julkunen.
     
In addition to young people, immigrants are newcomers to the Finnish labour market, and as such, are subject to offers from shady characters.
      When a trade union official explains rules of Finnish labour practice to new immigrants attending an orientation course, listeners can have quite different experiences.
      "What if work is always offered by people saying that you can come, but without a tax certificate?" Irmeli Mäenpää has heard people say.
     
The trend for untaxed work appears to be increasingly common. Five years ago, four percent of unemployed SAK members had been offered undocumented work. This has now risen to seven percent.

 


Helsingin Sanomat

 


Comments

1.      These under the table jobs are mostly temporary anyways, few people do this work for long periods of time. And you usually get paid daily, so if the boss screws you over, you just tell him to suck it…and you never return.

How would you know.. .?

         

2.      No, Phil, the state would rather want to see immigrants and young people work and pay their taxes and demand the same from the small shops and restaurants as well.  And this is for the benefit of all of us. I don’t remember by heart whether that article was translated into English (and am too lazy to check) but the Sunday issue of HS some weeks ago ran a lengthy article about two Turkish men exploited by their employer here. Too much work, illegal working hours, far below standards pay and so on. Really a sad story. Rather than a situation where both the employer is saved from the evil state and the employee given more flexibility, this is what the grey market is more all about.

3.      I’ve read that story about the turkish men, why is that so sad? No one was forcing them to work those hours or take that pay. If it wasnt for that low pay and long hours, they would probably never have been brought to finland and would be back in Turkey working even longer hours for even less pay.

Comment by Phil —

4.      Phil… the Turkish men were brought to Finland under false pretences that they would be working a 37.5 hour week. They worked six days a week, roughly 12 hours a day, and could do nothing much about it as they were:
a) unable to speak either Finnish or English,
b) (as a result of a)) completely dependent for information on their employer, who apparently fed them a crock of shit,
c) initially unaware of Finnish workplace legislation or the rights and obligations of employees and employers, and
d) scared that they would be sent home if they bitched about the job and the hours.
These men were mercilessly exploited by one of their own, for his own profit. The pattern is being repeated in similar (and much worse) circumstances in many other ethnic communities and in many other countries besides Finland. But never mind, the exploiters are themselves exploited by the evil überstate.

So that’s alright then.

5.      I would stress the little sentence: “Work in the grey sector can be especially attractive if the student’s official income is starting to approach the limits for eligibility for student grants.”

This is all too true. If you are approaching the earning limit, the only ways to improve your economic situation is to get money from your parents or do an under-the-table job. If the tax authorities do not know, KELA won’t know either. It is the state’s fault that it does not provide people a way to improve their economic situation by earnest open-market work.

For those who think that the limits are not too thigh, I must stress they are personal. If there is a pair, and only one works part-time to finance their living, the limit is still single-person limit for the working one. That the other does not have time or chance to work, does not raise the limit for the other. So, in effect, the limit/person is halved for them.

6.      Thank you, Lawyers, guns and money, you replied before I could have. This is no funny issue at all. The merciless employer really exploited them, used their lack of language skills and knowledge of Finnish society and legislation to get a huge profit for himself. It’s not a question of doing one quarter of an hour of unpaid extra work per day for a meager salary, it was a question of hundreds of hours of unpaid work for an illegally low salary plus other illegalities, all this done consciously exploiting people’s ignorance (which the Turkish guys are not to blame for, they didn’t know).  This is all called exploitation. I don’t understand how someone can support the conscious exploitation of other, ignorant human beings for his own profit. Disgusting, honestly.

Liber Al, what I meant by for the benefit of all of us is wrote I wrote above. It’s in the interest of everybody that situations like that with the Turkish men don’t exist. If you think what happened with them is OK, please feel to do so but I hope I’ll never live in a society ruled by people with such ideals.

7.    Phil do you remember when you first came to finland ,how hard and frustrating it was , now imagine that without your girlfriend to translate and guide you.
this is one of the best countries in the world to live in but also one of the hardest to establish yourself in , but i think most on this board would agree its worth it in the end but please dont belittle these guys troubles, just remember your own troubles and multiply it

 

8. People who get paid under the table work in jobs that they don’t keep for long. On the other hand it can be a stepping stone to a job that pays wages that feed into the economy. If you were stranded and looking for work, and had little options open to you, would you rather take a job that paid under the table until you found “decent” employment or would you starve?

 

9. Ms. NJ.   It depends who would offer me a under-the-table job. If it was a wealthy person, I would do what I could to bring the person to justice. I think it is possible in Finland to get a fair trial even if you are poor. If it was a case where the employer can not afford fair pay, I might take the job. But decisions are not usually that simple.

10. I completely agree that what was done to those turkish men was wrong, but c’mon, Turkish men cant count? they agreed to 7.5 hours but worked 12? don't be such a sucker.

If I want you to shovel my snow, and we agree on a price of 10 euros, and it takes you 4 hours to do it, so you get paid 2.50/hr…is that illegal?

Comment by Phil —

11. And I think poor people and poor companies shouldn't pay any taxes whatsoever. Go after the rich companies offering the under the table work.

Comment by Phil —

12. As we all know the culprits are always ulkomainen. Proving that Finns are more moral than immoral foreign parasites who come to Finland to steal “our” wealth.

The HS sings the same song (indoctrination) Recently they ran an article screaming about the fact that most ethic restaurants were commiting fraud. The cat was unintentionally let out of the bag later on in the article. Those conducting the investigation had apparently made a conscious decision to focus their enquiries, on yes you’ve guessed it……ethnic minority run restaurants. What did they expect!!!!!

The real story went un-reported. The Finnish media and the role it promotes in encouraging racism in Finland.


 Use of Estonian temp agencies to continue as restrictions on new EU members end

Representatives of temp agencies in Estonia expect Finnish employers to use their services more eagerly than before for the purpose of recruiting Estonian workers.
      Citizens of Estonia and other new member states of the European Union are to have full access to the Finnish labour market from the first of May. That date marks the end of the interim period, in which citizens of new EU member states were required to have work permits, in spite of the principle of free movement of labour in the EU.
      During the interim period, many Finnish employers have managed to use Estonian labour by taking advantage of a loophole provided by Estonian temp agencies. Estonian citizens nominally employed by the Estonian companies have actually been working in Finland.
      The Central Organisation of Finnish Trade Unions (SAK) has expressed the hope that with the open labour market now formally extended to Estonian citizens, Finnish employers would start hiring Estonians directly, without resorting to any intermediaries. However, there are indications that this will not happen any time soon.
      "At first we were afraid that there would be fewer offers, and that companies would recruit their workers directly", says Riin Kilk of the Tallinn temp agency Personalipunkt Extra.
      In fact, the opposite seems to be true. The temp agencies Adecco, Uniq U Eesti, and Varumeesteenidus have noticed an increase in inquiries from both Finnish employers and Estonian job-seekers.
      Finnish employers are looking for people to work in construction, manufacturing, customer service, logistics, and industry.
      
The news does not come as a surprise to Riitta Wärn, a labour market expert at the Confederation of Finnish Industry (EK).
      "I have warned about this for over a year - ever since EK said last year that the whole interim period should be cancelled quickly, because the market was becoming distorted."
      When Finland placed restrictions on the free movement of labour from the countries that joined the EU in May 2004, there were no restrictions on the movement of services; temp agencies were seen as part of the service sector, and Estonians started to come to work in Finland as employees of temp agencies or subcontractors. The wages of such workers are paid by the Estonian company, which is paid a fee by the Finnish company using the service. It has been difficult for Finnish officials and labour unions to monitor the pay and terms of employment of such workers; the activity has been seen to distort competition in certain fields. Estonian temp workers have also been used to replace Finns.
     
"I see no reason why the market should be rectified, considering that people have had two years to get used to this system. Service in Tallinn has been good", Wärn says.
      During the interim period, a Finnish employer wishing to hire an Estonian without an intermediary has had to wait for up to six weeks for the prospective employee's work permit to be processed; those who are nominally employees of a temp agency have been available at a day’s notice.
      Klik believes that Finnish employers want to continue to save in personnel and bookkeeping costs.
      SAK’s Matti Viialainen does not feel that the interim period is the reason for the popularity of subcontracted labour. He blames the fact that the restrictions did not extend to services, as the SAK would have liked.
      Viialainen also points out that temp work and subcontracting are on the increase otherwise as well. Statistics Finland reports that employment exchange services are the most rapidly-growing part of the service sector in Finland.
     
Minister of Labour Tarja Filatov (SDP) is aware of the situation.
      She notes that the use of temp agencies has also increased in Sweden, which did not impose an interim period for workers from other EU countries.
      She added that it would be very difficult to get rid of the practice in seasonal work.
      "And with a shortage of labour starting to hit Estonia, employees there can better choose how they want to go abroad, if they want to."
      The labour shortage is already being felt in Estonia.
      "Demand is growing primarily in local markets. The labour shortage in Estonia is getting to be critical, as people are wanted in every sector", notes Heigo Kaldra of the Estonian branch of the international temp agency Manpower.

    

Helsingin Sanomat

Finlandforthought   

 

20.4.2006

                        Congestion tax in Helsinki?

At the beginning of 2006, Stockholm began charging cars a tax for driving in and out of the city, they’ll vote later this year to keep or drop this new tax - as of March, the majority polled are against it. The tax hopes to drop the amount of traffic and pollution in the city, London saw a 15% drop in traffic when they enacted this in 2003. Fortunately, Finland’s transportation minister isn’t so keen on this yet

Susanna Huovinen (soc dem), the Finnish transport and communications minister, said Wednesday that although Stockholm’s experiences with its congestion charge scheme were encouraging and should be monitored, she had not warmed to the idea of setting up a similar system in the Finnish capital region.

A report drafted by a ministry working group concludes that road tolls and congestion charges are not realistic policies in the near future.

There are some serious privacy concerns with this system, the state will know exactly when and where you enter and exit the city. I don’t have a real problem with a tax for using the roads, people who use something the most often should pay the most for it. And being a lover of Espoo city, I’d hope less Espoo residents would visit Helsinki, and Helsinki shops would suffer and be forced to move to Espoo.

But when 15% of the traffic stays off the road, what kind of people are those 15%? Yeah, it’s the poor. The poor will take their little polluting rust buckets off the Helsinki streets to make room for Finland’s wealthy, zooming around in their bigger, more polluting SUVs. At the very least, these bigger more polluting cars should be taxed more, but this isn’t done in Stockholm.

Comments

 

1. Again, where does this “poor 15 %” come from?

According to you, people seem to either drive cars or stay at home. Bikes and public transport just do not seem to exist in your universe, save for the rusty former milkvan that passes your neck of the woods twice a day.

And how can someone love Espoo? On the same note, how can someone call it a city? It’s more like a myriad of motorways that combine various patches of residential areas.

 

1. I like the idea, however I feel that it should be an “impulse” measure. there would be immediate impacts in certain areas like real estate (prices and rents on the edges of the city going up, prices going down -or growing less- in Espoo , Vantaa, etc).

And as for the privacy, many other countries use a registry system to pay highway fees (there’s an identifier in your car and it checks when you go in and leave) and no privacy issues have surfaced, AFAIK. Back home they couldn’t even have the police check your medium speed when it’s obvious that some guys do 300 klms in less than 2 hours.

 

3. In Helsinki they always say Espoo is not really a city and in Espoo they want to make a big deal about Vantaa not being a city. How many people live in Espoo? 250,000 or what? Many of them love Espoo. Since I think it’s the city in Finland that has the highest number of people moving in each year, there are plenty of people outside of Espoo who would want to live there. I wouldn’t since I’m more than happy in Helsinki but really since so many Helsinkians are anti-Espoo the whole anti-name-your-city-you-love-to-hate thing is getting boring. I like it here since there are probably more people like me here than in Espoo and in Espoo there are more people like Phil. I wouldn’t want everybody everywhere be like me. I also know people who have moved from Helsinki to Espoo and say they’d like to move back. Other people who’ve moved to Espoo are very satisfied with where they’ve made their new home.

 

4. I’m a car owner living in suburbia, and while I think that driving to the heart of dowtown during rush hour is a nightmare and I’d much rather take the train, shopping with a car is far more convenient. It’s not a lifestyle for me, rather a necessity. All the decent shops are downtown and when I do go shopping, I buy a trunkful of stuff at once.

 

So I see that a congestion charge might hurt business downtown, which is a thing to avoid. I’m not a big fan of strip malls.

 

5. Have you been to central London, before and after the congestion charge? It’s made a good difference, but I suspect your idea that it keeps the poor off the road is pretty much bollocks. The amount is big enough that most people avoid it if possible, most of the traffic is delivery trucks etc that need to be there. The buses run better because of less delays and a mate who cycles says the areas with the charge are safer to cycle in before.

 

Isn’t it just a market solution to a problem? People need to decide what value they place on access to that (actually rather small) part of London.

 

I don’t see why Helsinki would need one though. Helsinkians have no idea what congestion can really mean!

 

6. I don’t see why Helsinki would need one though. Helsinkians have no idea what congestion can really mean!

 

I do think that quite a few Helsinkians have visited London and other similar cities. I agree that it’s a completely different scale, but have you driven through Mannerheimintie at 4 pm? It takes a bloody hour! One wonders if all those cars really need to be there.


 top of page

 

 

 


 

 

Google
 
Web www.strudeltimes.it
www.strudelcraps.com www.strudeltimes.com

 

   

     

 


  MAIL      strudel wahoo