Stable but poor?
I've known this for a long time. This is the other side of the coin.This article is in Finnish. It says: "Finnish Households are the Poorest in Europe".
The average wealth of Finnish households in 2000 was at approximate 29,000 euros - - this is about half of the wealth of Swedish and German households.
Finns do not achieve the highest wealth class of around 40,000 euros, to which all the old EU countries excluding Portugal belong.
According to the Wider-Institute the reason for this might be the generous social care system and the fact that Finns themselves do not save for their pension.
Wider-Institute compared wealth of households globally and included finance, stock and land property into the research.
Why am I posting this? 1) Because Finland is not exactly like other Nordic countries. The system brings food to everyone's table, even medicines and library books to read. The system is a choice that lies on heavy taxation. It's not about being rich but about sharing.
2) Knowing this, it's painful to speculate what's gonna happen if the economy will blow off.
posted by Anicko @ 7:22 AM
2 Comments:
hallo!
Don't get me wrong, but I take it very badly when people talk about Europe as Western Europe. And you might not be among the richest in the EU, but you are way ahead of us.
Anyways, once my hell here is over, I promise I will send you a long email and catch up.
Hope you are doing well!
love,
k
I would love to hear from you soon! (hoping that I'll have internet connection over Xmas, I'm not sure yet...).
It took almost 3 mins for me to realize what your reference to Western Europe meant. Am I sold on stereotypes, too, I started to think?
Luckily not I noticed, since the study also included Romania and Slovakia. Finland belonged to the same wealth class with Hungary, Croatia, and Slovenia. You can see the results in English under:
http://www.wider.unu.edu/ and by clicking the "Figure 1".
I don't care how rich Finland is, I'm very worried about the fact that too many Finns really think there is going to be pension money for them left in twenty years time. And there are hundreds of thousands of Finns who, because of their trust in the system, have only some 50 euros in their bank account. Ironically, only educated people seem to be most worried, and they already have great savings. I went to the bank and the first two questions were:"how old are you", and "well, would you like to start saving for your retirement? As you know, you'll get nothing from the state once your 65".
Post a Comment
<< Home