Comment by mikkom | Hacker News Reader

Comment by mikkom | Hacker News Reader

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> government has generally been described as the most right in modern history in Finland

Which is probably much more on the left than any US government for example and quite far from the "far right" you were stating in previous post.

> "taking from the poor, giving to the rich" and a xenophobic agenda

Quite strong words. This sounds very much like your personal opinion instead of a fact.

> to my understanding polls show a clear correlation between "everything was better under Kekkonen" (a president for over 25 years with a somewhat authoritarian leader style) and voting for the "True Finns" / "Finns Party" today

Sources please for the "clear correlation". This also sounds very much like your personal opinion.

> My point was more like the other way round: Happy people would not vote for the party of the dissatisfied, simple answers, everything was better before EU/the foreigners came. For those following German politics, "Wutbürger" (angry citizens) would typically not be happy people, would they?

Voting parties more on the right does not mean that "people are not happy", it mostly means that people understand economic principles.

The previous leftist government caused the Finland's debt level to raise to very dangerous levels while the economy shrinked at the same time and were only going to add more debt without cutting any expenses or encouraging new business. I personally think that business-positive government is a very good thing and apparently so do most of the happy finnish voters.

>> "taking from the poor, giving to the rich" and a xenophobic agenda > > Quite strong words. This sounds very much like your personal opinion instead of a fact.

Yes, strong words. In my opinion it's the worst government as long as I have followed Finnish politics. A vice prime minister who wants to shoot foreigners, that would not be acceptable in many Western democracies. (Yes, the statement is old and she might have written it only to get political supporters. But for me neither of them is an excuse.)

Just read any newspaper:

* Next month social benefits will be cut and more cuts are in preparation

* Unemployed foreigners will lose their permits and have to leave their country after a short time. Not yet decided, but the original plan was 3 months.

* The possibility for seeking political asylum can be suspended for 30 days (draft by the ministry)

That's what I call taking from the poor and the weak.

Despite that everybody agrees that the public debt is growing too fast, the government insists on lowering taxes (not drastically, but still) instead of raising them as the situation would require.

That's what I call giving to the rich.

The new government is growing the debt even further already according to current budget. And typically the budget is too optimistic, in reality it might come worse. I would not call that understanding economic principles, it's pure ideology that taxes must not be raised and benefits of the rich must not be touched.

> apparently so do most of the happy finnish voters.

The results were pretty unclear. Several government coalitions would have been possible. The winner did not want to compromise, but move to the right as far as they could.

If there were a election today, the Finns Party would lose quite a bit. Many of their voters are affected by the cuts and not happy.

So claiming that this government has a strong backing is a bit of an exaggeration. It does not help that they repeat it. They won the last election, but that's it.

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