Too cheap realty prices?

Finland has too cheap housing they say.

That is at least according to news reporting about the list compiled by IMF, the International Monetary Fund. The last has taken in consideration various factors such as expected growth of income, the number of working age people in the population, the average mortgage, loans and cost of building. Finland actually was the only country of the 16 countries on the list that has under prized housing.

This seems a bit strange, as housing has always been, well at least as far as I have been told, considered as expensive with families living cramped in apartments and houses for years in order to be able to get a bigger one later on. It has been considered as over-rated as a matter of fact, taking in what you actually get for the money. This of course depends on the city and area, but the prices have been considered a bit over the top and one of the most expensive realty countries in the world, or should I say upper side of the list?

Anyway, off-spring has finally moved out so now I am packing again, and moving into a smaller apartment than this previous one. And I just hate moving so much, the sorting out of things, discarding of some, packing and unpacking and re-sorting them into their new places...

But then, moving always is a sort of new beginning and life does go on.

Lay offs and re-hires

The worldwide economical decline is said to ease next year but still people are being made redundant or temporarily laid off but in some lines of business they are still going strong and just hiring more workers.

People are still needed and apparently hired in the social services sector, well, that's only a matter of supply and demand. As people get laid off and redundant from their work their accessible funds decline, resulting in less purchasing power. In sad cases it means having to rely on social welfare to get by in daily life, this resulting in more paper pushers to answer to the demands as the current time of handling applications of living allowance in most municipalities is longer than the given time according to the law.

The health services of course need more people, and are hiring more staff. People are more prone to depression in a economical depression, and then there is the coming of the flu later on in the fall. Is it the "Pig flu" or the "Swine flu"? I do know that it is called the "Mexican flu" in Muslim world. Anyway, as the flu is expected to hit the health care personnel first, there need to be more personnel to step in when the big flu wave hits the country. Currently there are 176 confirmed cases of the flu. The number is likely to be higher as many cases are so mild they have not required any medical care and are not accounted for.

The paper industry in Finland has been having hard times lately but now finally there seems to be a glimpse of light, a sun ray, to see through the cloudy skies. A mill that was closed down about six months ago is to begin running again as the demand for their products is on the rise again and the workers laid off will get their jobs back, if this is on a temporary basis or not I do not know.

Hard time for women

The sales manager of a foreign made car has resigned since he made derogatory remarks about women in general in an interview for a women's magazine, his resignation having been the right thing to do according to both his superiors and the Finnish minister in charge of equality issues.

And poverty in Finland has increased, but as poverty in terms of income has not been defined it really depends on how you count. Today more than 700.000 people earn less than 1.100 Euros per month, with a third of them being single moms.

Now having in mind that women together with minorities are treated unequally in working life, according to freshest report on how human rights actually are carried out in Finland, it is no wonder that most women retire out of working life for health reasons with the main reason being depression.

Conclusion, this may not be the easiest of countries to live in, especially if you are a female and a foreigner.

Running out of paper?

Many blogging ideas have popped into my mind lately, but I have not had the real urge I used to have earlier to get them posted, still some ideas have been bugging me for some time now and I guess they'd better get posted, or I'll die with them spooking around in my mind.

In the very early days when I first started blogging we had this long paper Union strike in Finland, a strike that has over the years showed having huge impact on the paper industry as well as the forest industry in general in this country. Of course other things such as the worldwide recession also has paid its' respects to running down the industry in question.

What surprised me though, is that the same company, one of the major companies in Finland, that has plants and mills in other countries, has been running down mills and cutting down on personnel, is doing so well abroad their mills running on full around the clock.

I read somewhere some statistics that most magazines and newspapers are now printed on Russian paper as it is more cost-effective. Well, using the same wood must be cheaper and turning it into pulp and paper in Russian, instead of importing them to Finland and having to pay import-taxes on the wood on top of the higher costs in wages and transports in and to Finland
is much cheaper so the paper industry, that used to earlier be so important for the Finnish economy, seems now threatening to die out completely.

One comes to wonder about ulterior motives though, about what trade unions really are about, when one hears that leading union representatives are members of boards in companies, that own parts of the companies they are union representatives for, the same companies that now are closing down.

First frost night

Today is the Swedish Day and it is celebrated among the Swedish-Finns in this country.

Swedish Day is actually older than the national day itself, as it was first celebrated in the year 1908.

Anyway, with the ongoing decline of world economy, stock exchanges globally plunging on and off, I find it most annoying to watch the large amount of TV-programs about selling and buying property. Redecorate and make it up slightly, then you will get a better price for it. Fat chance!

Fact is that there is a decline in real estate here in Finland as seems to be globally, at least in the so called western part of the world, and people are less prone to take longterm loans with current mortgages.

Ah, time for a brisk walk. The sun is shining from a clear blue sky, and the air is crisp from the first night frost of the winter.

Taxs list public

Yesterday last year’s tax results were made public and lists with people the biggest earners in each municipality were published on the Net.

I really wonder what use that is, more than make people envious and want more, or maybe it comes handy when blondes are looking for eligible bachelors. Must be every girl’s dream, having the official tax lists available, when hunting for a new husband.

This year the average tax return is about 600 Euros, and will be paid back on December 4^th directly into your bank account, depending on whether you have provided the authorities with your bank account number, or by a postal order by December the 10^th. Which will come good in handy for the Xmas shopping.

For those with back taxes, this year the average came to of 1600 Euros, and the sum will have to paid in two payments, one in December and the second on in February next year.

Refunded in full

Only a year ago many Icelandic companies were flying high buying property abroad and investing in many businesses.

I always wondered where the money came from, as Iceland to my knowledge has not many natural sources except their inexpensive way making electricity and heating up houses due to the heat produced by the seismic activity beneath the island. Everything else has to be imported from abroad.

Today the picture is completely the opposite. Iceland is in big trouble with their national finances, and they are now trying to borrow money in order to save their economy from total collapse amidst the global economical decline.

Also here in Finland the aftermaths of the touch and go collapse of the Icelandic economy can be seen, and one financial bank owned by Icelanders was taken over by their Finnish employees and sought for financial subsidies from the Finnish government in order to be able to refund all the money deposited by their clients.

Currently only up to 50.000 Euros of deposited money in bank accounts are guaranteed to be paid back to the customers in case of the bank is not able to do.

Fortunately for the 10.000 clients of the bank in question now three Finnish banks in are now lending the money needed to refund their clients in full.

Good economy TV

Having been down with a bad flu and not having any strength do to much but doze off to the TV, I have really had time to discover is going on in TV land here in Finland.

And my conclusion is that at least there is one place that uses recycling well, that is, so many programs are re-run so many times within i very short period of time, that they turn washed out as some series are broadcasted three or four times within the next year or two.

Guess this is good economy and makes the TV shows less expensive to purchase if yo0u show them as many times as you possibly can in the given contract time, but it kills the interest of the viewers even though the program itself was good the first time around.

The second thing that is recycled but the program or show itself, is the idea for reality TV shows, and this goes for the whole world and not just for Finland. One reality TV show format is sold around the world and all the programs are made in the same mold, with a little difference for some cultural variations. And is this reality TV, are there really no written scripts?

Guess there has to be some water tight legal work behind, so no one can reveal the truth of reality shows and reveal any scripts. But they seem cheap enough to produce and there also apparently must be a market for them as they are produced en masse.

Stop eating and breathing?

The Government ensured that there would be no rising prices at the time when Finland changed its’ old customary Marks into the European monetary systems Euros but despite this everything seems to be much more expensive now than it used to be. Then came the global warming and saving the planet earth from heating up and so began the campaigning for more environmentally friendly energy solutions with energy costs still soaring.

The EU in its’ great wisdom shared the pollution rates equally, that is in this case is not in equally big parts, instead it means each member countries ability, with its’ technology and economical resources taken into consideration counting the country’s ability to adjust into the required decreases of polluting carbon oxides and cuts backs are to be made in the emission. The poorer and the less developed the country, the less to take into concern about these matters it seems.

The more farmland that now has been converted into growing renewable energy sources across the world, the less area has been left to grow food for people. And now the "silent tsunami" as it's being called, with ever increasing food prices is beginning to have an impact on the poor, even here in this welfare state called Finland. With the rising prices of food the remaining farmlands have to be turned into corps as cost efficiently and time consuming as can, and this might result in even more pollution than earlier. Smaller farm area needs to produce more, it resulting in suddenly rising levels of fertilizers leaking into rivers and lakes, finally ending up into the Baltic Sea, at least according to some recently published speculations. So the poor Baltic Sea that has been suffering of pollution for so long and was in hope to be restored into a sea instead of the sewage pool it more or less has become. This seems to be a yo-yo bouncing up and down, with no real outcome.

So; avoiding pollution of the air decreases food availability and raises the pollution in the water.

Is there really anything more we can do except stop eating and breathing?

Maybe the EU could in their great wisdom decide who should stop eating and breathing, at least to equally measured parts like with the emissions? Maybe eat 20% less food and breathe 15% less air?

And as always this still is a win-win situation for the businesses concerned no matter they are selling their newest technology to cleanse the air or the sewage water, or develop new more efficient artificial fertilizers and pesticides.

The weather has also here has been extremely warm for this time of the year with several days’ summer heat of well above 20 degrees Celsius now, in beginning of the month of May and no rain to talk about for a long time.

The winter was unusually warm with hardly no big temperature drops to -20 degrees here in the south. As well as less snow than usual with the more rain but with the annual flooding this spring have gone missing to a minimum raise in water levels in the lakes and rivers. Mind, I am now talking about southern Finland where there already is a prevailing summery weather, the north still has to get out of the winter’s grip and there might be some flooding there as usual.

Anyway, finally the lot is out of my hair and the house is left silent and I enjoy the first serene silence and absolute tranquility from any reminiscence of soup cooking for the ill. A good shower of rain would do good right now decreasing the pollen levels in the air, as well as soaking up the ground for the growing plants. It might do well for the crops to grow this summer. If no rain comes there still is no use of the fertilizers they spread. And besides, a record crop would still not have any real outcome on the food prices in this age of globalization.

Terrorist threat to Finnish Embassy

The Finnish embassy in Kenya has three times by e-mail been warned against a planned terrorist threat originating from Ethiopia and the Kenyan police are now investigating where the warnings have been sent from.

In the mean while the security has been tightened on the embassy premises, as the Finnish prime minister takes them seriously. The main question here remains; why on earth make warn the Finnish diplomats, what have the Ethiopians against Finland? The threat is not believed to have any connection with the current unstable political situation in Kenya.

Anyway, there is one thing going on in this country right now that people in general are speculating might make the current administration crumble down. That is the governments’ part-ownership in the forest products giant Stora Enso that are closing their mills in Finland. Especially their mill in Kemijärvi is considered to be deadly serious business and the prime minister has been visiting the Kemijärvi area in order to try and calm down the soon-to-be unemployed. 300 hundred demonstrators also took the train to the capital Helsinki in order to protest against the decision to close the mill, marching the three block distance from the railway station to the steps up to the house of parliament, where a series of speeches were held.

As the mill is the main mean of employment in the Kemijärvi area, its closing most surely will have devastating effects on the whole business situation in the area resulting in a general depression in regional economy.

Well, here I have to ask one thing, might this have anything to do with the effects of the long and tedious strike the paper worker’s union undertook two years ago during the summer? That forest industry companies re-localize their manufacturing to other countries with more affordable wages and with maybe employees more keen to keep their jobs which will be more cost effective in the long run.

Money on the loose

With the EU things are supposed to be better and easier with things between the member countries.

Mobile phone roaming prices are to be cut in February and money transfers to be quicker according to EU directives. The transfers between foreign banks are meant to take as long as national bank transfers which currently is three banking days, at least here in Finland. I have now been waiting for the money that was to be transferred to my account from abroad for almost a week and still no money in sight at this hour, just half an hour past midnight.

The account the money was transferred from has been debited the right amount money, the bank abroad have transferred the money in question but the receiving bank still claims they have not received the right amount in question, thus I have not been credited the money that rightfully is mine and I have been expecting.

Minor glitch maybe, but sometimes it can be ever so annoying to not have the money you are supposed to in the promised time causing my bank card to be debited more than I have on my account. Maybe this now has something to do with the stock markets currently having had some downslides in their indexes around the world? The banks trying to take more advantage of the interest they can get by stalling the money transfers just for one or two extra days?

At least there is an existing receipt of the money so in time they will arrive, but until then no more shopping for me.

Global gambling

The Helsinki Stock market was bought by the Swedish stock market a few years back and joined into a joint stock exchange called the OMX consisting of the Nordic stock markets and some Baltic countries stock markets.

Recent takeover battle is for the OMX is finally at and end after an unexpected twist that the OMX board has given their okay to. The two rivals NASDAQ and UAE-based Bourse Dubai first competed of total ownership but they have now teaming up and sharing the ownership of the OMX.

NASDAQ buys OMX to join it as a part to itself and Bourse Dubai becomes a big part-owner of NASDAQ with fifth ownership. This also means that Bourse Dubai also owns a great part of the London stock exchange. According to the CEO of NASDAQ this is a one of a kind deal and the world now has a leading super stock exchange dealing in all market areas.

Well I wonder how it will affect us all, globally, when economics begin to slide like for instance the depression in the early 1900’s or the UShouse loans market has done recently. This begins to remind me more and more of hazardous global gambling as every stock exchange now is interlinked with each other and I guess then the s*** really hits the fan then.

Anyway, I never cease to wonder about al these pageant competitions and just the other day spotted a new one I have not yet laid my eyes in one of the Finnish magazines on so far here in Finland. A Miss grandmother pageant. Okay, miss is unmarried to my knowledge, and a grandmother is not supposed to be unmarried as she has children and grandchildren. I have not altogether not got why to compete in beauty and looks, it’s like cattle on the market lined up to be sold to the biggest bidder. I can understand the point of wanting older women to accept they are not twenty and something anymore, I mean I am forty something by now and I do not feel dead and buried yet as fashion magazines have tried to brainwash us women to believe.

I was yesterday horrified when watching a TV programme about plastic surgery in Hollywood. I mean plastic surgery done on the most private female parts, is there any part of the body that they can not change the looks, or as in this case the feel of? How superficial can people get, are we just about how we look? Chasing the perfect body, face, liposuction on this, lifting this, botoxing that and in the end you have no family resemblance.

I do not consider myself the beauty queen, I guess I am more the ugly duckling that grew into a swan when growing up, but I consider my brain capacity more important than my looks. And there is a great difference between mum at home, mum going out shopping or appearing on social occasions but I still am the same person underneath the make-up.

Lamb or duck?

This year so far until the month of May 4.200 brand new companies were formed in this country with the help of Starttiraha, Starting-money, which is paid to facilitate for new entrepreneurs to get their businesses up and running. The novelty from the begging of this year is that now even employees and not only unemployed as earlier, that can receive this benefit.

I just visited a church that is famous for it’s’ murals painted by a famous Finnish painter.
I guess I can not deny the paintings were beautifully performed but the choice of what was painted I found very odd.

A big snake coiled up above you in the ceiling, a “garden of death” with skeletons and a blindfolded wounded angel carried by two boys and all painted in murky, musty colours. I have heard they used to perform executions in earlier times in the same spot where the church was built and apart from the horrible murals in the church the ambiance is quite awful, gives me the chills, and badly.

Being a Christian I think you should feel welcome and at ease entering a church but there you can only sense anxiety and depression. I could not for anything in my life imagine getting married or having my child baptized in that church, I even kept my visit to it to an absolute minimum. Where lies the joy and happiness you are supposed to feel entering a church?

A word of warning; beware of chefs who can not see the difference between lamb and duck, especially if you are allergic to the one or the other.

Yesterday, using some of my points having dinner at a restaurant I ordered duck medium rare and to my disappointment got lamb chops instead. Asking the waiter about it I was told that the order was for duck and not lamb so the plate of lamb was sent back into the kitchen. After half an hour of waiting when my companions had finished their meals long ago I got my duck.

Well, the duck was not medium rare as I ordered it, it was fried dry to a crust. The accompaniments were fine and sauces delicious but the whole meal was ruined because of the chef’s cock-up, even more disappointed I became when the bill was presented in full without any further excuses, not even with an offer to have coffee on the house as a comfort.

Well, one thing is for sure, we won’t be going back there again, not even with all my bonus points, it’s not worth it. I’d rather get the groceries and cook the duck, or the lamb for that matter, in my preferred way myself.

Winning first prize

Have you ever participated in a lottery?

What are the odds that you would win? When these lotteries in different stores to advertise a new product, you fill in your data and drop it in a box or participate by e-mail but who wins? Do real people win on lotteries or is it all a fake, just made up names on a list?

Just got one on the post with the monthly points form one food chain and there you can win to use an RV for two weeks time with petrol and a gift voucher to the food chain in question arranging the lottery all together to a value of 5.000 Euros.

Or the other one from the sister company of the above mentioned one, they have a lottery between all the receipts that you have registered to your membership card, and one lucky winner gets to win a car.

The average family in Finland have an estimated budget of 1.450 Euros to spend on their vacation which is less than in the rest of the Nordic countries done by an estimate by the Nordea bank. Most families are not able to stay in budget and spend more than they can afford to so I guess the winning of the use of the RV would come nice and handy, but as there is only the one to win.

Ryan air has been flying from Finland for a couple of years now and Ryan air is by far Europe’s biggest low-cost airline. They just recently announced their best results ever despite fuel costs increasing by 50%. The result is said to be a result of the airline increasing their higher ticket prices and having introduced lower baggage limits with the result in bigger income in excessive baggage fees together with increased handling fees. Well guess this is another way to stretch your money, to fly with low cost airlines. The only thing with Ryan air though is that you have to fly to Stansted in the UK with them first to change flights in order to get to most places they fly to as they only fly to a handful from Finland.

The funniest thing just happened the other day; I got a MMS that nobody had sent!

It was sent unintentionally by my friend carelessly shoving her mobile phone into her handbag and she had no idea of having done so. Well she did find the proof afterwards yes, but having received it I rang her up and we went for a coffee. It was really nice as I had missed seeing her as sometimes time just flies and you forget what is important in life, your friends and family. Tomorrow we are going out for lunch, and maybe some more coffee and desert afterwards.

So right now I feel like having won first prize on the lottery!

Summer pastime

62% of the Finnish companies pay their bills in time on the date, but the bigger the company the slower to slow to pay their bills in time. Every 5^th company pays their bills too late even though the Finns have a much better routine to pay their bills that prevail in many other European countries where it has become an art form to pay the bills as late as possible without having to pay any additional fees.

Anyway, our Vappu balloon is “still alive”, well it is much deflated now but still hangs high up at the ceiling but has lost its’ sturdy bounce and our cat has lost interest in playing with it as it does not bounce as well as it used to almost three weeks ago when we got it for him. Now with the warmer weather and the prevailing sunshine he has moved on to his summer pastime, spending time sleeping on the table on the balcony or eating some chives that we always get for the enjoyment of both the cats and ourselves. He also sits watching the sunset in the kitchen, a bit like the Indians who used to chant the sun up in the mornings and down at nights.

Tailored results?

The Finnish airline Finnair last year suffered from a strike of cabin personnel, which caused distress to their customers and a huge setback in their results. Last year there was also a nuclear warning on their planes to Moscow when they had to search for a nuclear hazard on a couple of their planes. We still have to keep in mind that the radiation we are exposed to in an airplane in the air still is much higher than being on the ground.

You also have to re-check in your baggage as the airlines nowadays do not want to pay the costs for handling other airlines luggage to keep their own costs down when passengers change flights. If you are flying with Finnair and you are transferring to a flight that is not a Finnair flight or the company you are flying with is not a member of the One World Alliance you have to claim your luggage at the airport you are changing flights at and re-check it for the transferring airline to handle.

Finnair is presently to greatest part owned by the Finnish government and they have a say in handling the business but the company also has foreign shareholders and the Finns have been accused of hostility against foreigners as they have not announced any new board members to represent the new part-owners.

With a 22% owned by foreigners, the size of their ownership should at least allow one new member on the board. So now if the foreigners do not get anyone on the board they are selling their shares, which could mean even more trouble for Finnair.

With the prices of airline tickets getting cheaper with two bargain-airlines disappearing from the competition in Finland, Finnair still managed to make a loss last year. Finnair still seems to be doing rather even if they reported a loss last year as they have ordered 15 new planes for an amount of 15 billion Euros, if I recall it correctly, to be added to their fleet of planes for the increased demand on flights to the Far East and China.

Well having myself studied the noble art of accounting I know how to tailor the figures into suiting your own purposes and made to look something else than they really are.

Opening hours?

I always have difficulties to remember if the shops are open on Sundays or not here in Finland. In the summertime they are and then also at Xmas time, but why they are not open rest of the year evades me completely. And why do the shops and supermarkets close at 6 pm on Saturdays? Weekends as it happens is the time people are free, so they can do shopping, spend their money in the supermarkets.

Another thing I keep wondering about it the logic in lunch-hours, and this applies not only it Finland. If you work fulltime the most convenient time for you to run some errands to the post-office or the bank for example is many times exactly when there is just one person to take care of your business. Of course they do have to have lunch-hours too, but hey, are they not in customer care so where is the logic here, least personnel available when most customers? Should they not be there when the customers are able to come? Get some extras to come during the lunch hours, many people would be happy to have a halftime job. One comes in for the morning, the other for the afternoon and they both are present during the lunch hours.

Argentinians against Finland

I am quite surprised to once again hear about the rallies that have been going on now for months against Finland in Argentina. Is this a trick by the clever media telling us different versions of the truth once again?

A Finnish company is building a paper- or pulp mill plant in the vicinity of the Argentinian and Uruguayan border, if I have not got it all wrong.

And people are rallying against this plant, I have not quite got it, whether it is cutting the trees in the Amazon or the air pollution from the factory people are angry about as it can not be the jobs generated by the plant, can it?

I can understand if you get angry and annoyed with a company you stop buying their products, but I can not see why the rallying against whole Finland and its’ people. Why is little Finland here way up in the north to blame for something that happens in South America?

It is just the company, which is by the way only partially in Finnish ownership according to my knowledge, that is building the factory!

Or is Uruguay and Argentina in every way so owned and the business life so regulated by the Politicians, with the politicians deciding upon everything even the policies of companies and people living there can not even believe that in other countries it is not in the same? Or maybe they have now have found a scapegoat, a whole country for their own misery and shortcomings of their politicians?

Well, once again I have to conclude, life is strange and it is time for me to have a nice cup of tea!