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Helsinki Relocation Package: City as a Service

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Re: Helsinki Relocation Package: City as a Service

#441

Post by MagnumOpus »

plq wrote: post #413
waihtis wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Problem is that it's a super difficult language where you can't draw any help from any other languages you might now. Plus it's obscure and if you move out of Finland you'll likely never use it again. I can see why people don't want to invest huge amounts of time learning it unless they plan to stay for the rest of their lives.

Actually, the foundation you got with Finnish should be useful if ever you need to learn Turkish, Hungarian or Japanese. Natural languages are like programming languages in a sense -- Haskell doesn't get as much use as C++ but learning Haskell will make you better at C++.

It helps less than you would think. Finnish doesn't share any intelligible vocabulary with Hungarian beyond the loanwords that are also the same in English (let alone Turkish or Japanese which are entirely different language families).

Yes, there are grammatical similarities, no that won't help you much at all in understanding or talking to people...

Re: Helsinki Relocation Package: City as a Service

#442

Post by eru »

milchek wrote: post #180
eru wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can have lower taxes (than in America) and excellent public services in Singapore. Eat your cake and have it, too. Very startup friendly as well and excellent food. The tropical weather takes a bit of getting used to, though. I much prefer gloomy European skies.

I've been here for close to a year now and enjoying it. It is a very well run country that is clean, safe and modern. That said, I thought expats here can't really make use of most of the public health, housing and education services? Those that I know also are all sending their kids to international schools and have private health (thankfully the private health packages that come with employment are decent). Have to…

I lived in Sydney for a while. The heat is usually worse in Singapore, but at least the ozone layer is thicker.

Expats can still rent HDB. Just can't buy subsidized HDB.

If you have kids here and want to use the local schools, I would suggest getting PR or citizenship perhaps.

I've paid out of pocket for medical expenses recently. Wasn't that bad overall, and all fairly transparent up front. But am back on company provided insurance now. With gold plated insurance, my raw medical costs are sure to go up, since I don't care about keeping them low anymore.

Re: Helsinki Relocation Package: City as a Service

#443

Post by eru »

dharma1 wrote: post #382
eru wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can have lower taxes (than in America) and excellent public services in Singapore. Eat your cake and have it, too. Very startup friendly as well and excellent food. The tropical weather takes a bit of getting used to, though. I much prefer gloomy European skies.

I think Singapore is one of my other favourite cities in addition to Helsinki! In many ways it's very different though - while the taxes are lower, its generally much more expensive, especially if you have kids. Singapore is a very dense, packed, hot city - you get a bit of island fever and are not so close to nature. Helsinki is literally the opposite. Singapore and Helsinki are both very, very safe, but I find Sing…

Helsinki could also have badly paid migrant workers, if they wanted to. Instead they don't let migrant construction workers nor gardeners nor cleaners etc into the country, which is worse for global inequality. But, out of sight, out of mind.

(There's more to say about income distribution in Singapore, but having migrant workers, even if badly paid, is a plus in my book.

If Singaporean immigration was more open, they would have even more low paid foreigners. Making the situation look worse, but be better purely in terms of global equality.)

With kids: I think it's mostly expensive if you are an expat and go the expat route with everything. If you go more local and earn a decent amount of money, the amount you save in taxes should more than make up for some extra costs.

(There's also a breakeven point for expats with kids at private international school, but it's obviously much higher.)

Re: Helsinki Relocation Package: City as a Service

#444

Post by [deleted] »

doikor wrote: post #360
bedobi wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No offense but OP is right and you are wrong. Health care in Scandinavia is great in many ways and not so great in others. People do suffer, even die, waiting in line for public treatment, and health care lawsuits aren't really a thing.

> People do suffer, even die, waiting in line for public treatment Never heard of anyone dying waiting for public treatment here in Finland. If you have some life threatening issue you will get treatment right away. I would say the only one coming anywhere close to that here is the somewhat bad access to mental healthcare that can end up in suicide if left untreated. But based on the amount of homeless people with se…

[deleted]

Re: Helsinki Relocation Package: City as a Service

#446

Post by PopeDotNinja »

pkaye wrote: post #305
soul_grafitti wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you live and work in America?

Yes I do. If you have a six figure salary (or even a bit less), an employer will certainly buy a short/long term disability plan for their employees. Its a perk even small startups can afford. Also California is unique among the states in that it runs a mandatory short term disability plan through payroll deductions but employers are able to buy enhanced plans which cover higher income thresholds.

Even if they did, I was massively depressed with two broken arms and a head injury. I wasn’t thinking clearly about my options. Trying to navigate the healthcare system when you can't wipe your own ass is not a fun situation to be in.

Re: Helsinki Relocation Package: City as a Service

#448

Post by herbstein »

eru wrote: post #425
astura wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For just routine cleanings, sure. If you need work done it can get real expensive.

Hence me saying 'on average'. In a sane country, you can use insurance to convert variable payments into average payments (plus a bit of overhead). Or, you just self-insure for dental, if you make a reasonable amount of money or have some savings. (It's much more feasible for dental where the realistic maximum amounts are still quite small, compared to cancer treatment or similar.)

> In a sane country, you can use insurance to convert variable payments into average payments

Consider tax paid healthcare to be a public insurance plan that doesn't need to skim billion dollar profits from their "customers" then.

Re: Helsinki Relocation Package: City as a Service

#449

Post by exDM69 »

yason wrote: post #416
ashtonkem wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Take home alone is a meaningless number if you don't compare it against cost of living. This is a bit like asking "how much to fill up your car" without asking how big of a gas tank it has first.

You don't necessarily want to use that angle on Finland... the gas tank is pretty large and gas is highly taxed, both figuratively and literally. In addition to the relatively small salaries, the cost of living is pretty high in the capital area. If you do move to some of the smaller cities your price-to-value ratio for living will go up way faster than trying to reach the same ratio by instead hunting for a larger s…

> You don't necessarily want to use that angle on Finland... the gas tank is pretty large and gas is highly taxed, both figuratively and literally.

While the cost of car ownership and general cost of living is high, I'd like to point out that you don't necessarily need a car if you live and work in Helsinki. Or at least you don't need two cars in the household.

A bicycle is a perfectly viable option for transport for about 8 months of the year, or at least 6 if you're afraid of the weather (or can't change clothes at work). The bike paths are excellent and safe and if your route involves going through the city center, it's by far the fastest mode of transport (you can average 20km/h easily, can't match this by car or bus in the city). Bicycling may not be quite as good as continental Europe, but it's pretty good and the city is small enough to go everywhere by bike.

The rest of the year can be covered by public transport, which is very reliable.

Unfortunately COVID has hit the public transport in many levels, but hopefully that situation will get better. On the other hand, it did bring grocery delivery everywhere so that negates another need for a car.

Re: Helsinki Relocation Package: City as a Service

#450

Post by johnisgood »

deanc wrote: post #190

Overall my experience in Helsinki has been hugely positive. I’ve been here now over a decade and have settled with work and family life. Work life balance is great, there’s a beautiful outdoors to enjoy all year, and the people are warm and kind, if not difficult to start with. All that said, there’s a lot of bullshit and hot air here in this thread: - public healthcare is great until you have something difficult to…

> - public healthcare is great until you have something difficult to work with or non acute. Enjoy the months longs waiting times to see a dentist.

Months? What? Why? We have universal health care but the dentist is just days away... if you have pain, usually 1-2 day, or immediate extraction. I live in Eastern Europe.

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