Helsinki Relocation Package: City as a Service

> to constantly use 20% of my brain when out in a cafe to keep an eye

Same thing for me. Singapore would stress the heck out of me, I'd have to constantly use 20% of my brain on whether I can drink that coffee or it is an illegal substance and police will just casually murder me. No way I'm setting foot on that crazy hellhole.

Huh? The police doesn't just casually murder people, we have the rule of law and all that.

Most other places have illegal substances as well. It's just that the list differs from place to place.

There's no capital punishment for consuming illicit drugs here. That's reserved for dealing. (And in any case, there's no penalty for consuming anything by accident.)

It's all fairly boring. If you are set on wanting to be stressed out, you'd have an easier time complaining about long working hours in local companies. (Working for multinationals is fine.) See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiasu

It's a legitimate position that you want more drugs to be legal. But it's rather weird to clad your complaint in the words of stress.

You are right, Finland doesn't have universal minimum salary, but it does have a similar, interesting state sanctioned relic - most industries with unions have a union enforced, national minimum salary for their industry - this includes construction, hospitality, manufacturing etc. It has been criticised for creating lack of flexibility in the job market - perhaps so, I don't have a strong opinion.

Absolutely right that Singapore wants to primarily attract foreigners longer term who won't place a burden on the already stretched public services (state provided housing or schooling). Though even for many of them PR/citizenship can be a long, long time away.

Helsinki should also increase capacity of English speaking private schools to attract well-to do foreigners interested in living in Helsinki, that's one of the things this "City as a Service" plan isn't able to arrange at scale right now - there are simply not enough places since there are only 1-2 private schools for English speaking kids.

The tax situation couldn't be much different between the two, but beyond that I think both countries offer a high quality of living and a vibrant tech sector. Also, for people running their own companies there are always ways to plan your tax affairs, regardless of where you live.

Oh, I'm glad to hear, it really is a good book although you have to get it used.

Part of the reason I clicked into this thread is if I have been fasicnated with Finland, especially the last 12 months or so, so you caught me at a time when I have Finnish history particularly close to my memory :) I am reading a book by the same author AF Upton presently on the Finnish "revolution" (peaceful) and civil war. I read a winter war book at the start, also good. That's all my Finland knowledge, beyond wikipedia.

I don't blame you for defending Finland, it is a wonderful country, one of my favorites. I don't think of them mainly as German collaborators or anything. They did have to defend themselves against some pretty terrible USSR behaviour. Cheers.

PS Do you watch any Aki Kaurismaki? Great Finnish filmmaker, lives in Portugal these days.

> Absolutely right that Singapore wants to primarily attract foreigners longer term who won't place a burden on the already stretched public services (state provided housing or schooling).

I'm not sure those public services are 'already stretched'. Perhaps at most in a relative sense compared to the rest of Singapore's generous infrastructure?

> Also, for people running their own companies there are always ways to plan your tax affairs, regardless of where you live.

That there are ways to optimize your taxes in multiple places doesn't make them equal, nor even similar. (Otherwise, eg the American corporate tax cut a while ago wouldn't have been such big news.)

In any case, regardless of tax rate, taxes here are much simpler. There's less overhead in doing your taxes.

Some friends of mine ran businesses both in Singapore and in Poland. Their accounting in Singapore is vastly simpler.

> You are right, Finland doesn't have universal minimum salary, but it does have a similar, interesting state sanctioned relic - most industries with unions have a union enforced, national minimum salary for their industry - this includes construction, hospitality, manufacturing etc. It has been criticised for creating lack of flexibility in the job market - perhaps so, I don't have a strong opinion.

I am familiar with the system from growing up in Germany. Alas, I'm also familiar with trying to foist higher wages on a part of the country than the market can support. That's what led to decades of high unemployment in East Germany.

(Though to be honest, the German unifiers were between a rock and a hard place. It was either high wages and people migrating away from unemployment, or otherwise people migrating away from low wages.

Politically, it was an easier sell to convert the East German Mark and associated contracts etc at the symbolic rate of 1:1 (and 1:2), instead of the more realistic black market rates of 1:5 to 1:10.)

> Absolutely right that Singapore wants to primarily attract foreigners longer term who won't place a burden on the already stretched public services (state provided housing or schooling). Though even for many of them PR/citizenship can be a long, long time away.

One more remark on that: Singapore isn't a monolith. In general, the government is more open to migration and capitalism than the population. Many (but far from all) of the existing restrictions are to keep the voters from rebelling.