I'm in Finland helping my wife with family stuff. Saw the FM on TV Saturday push a scheduled FTT vote this Friday in parliament, for Finns to join France and Germany on pushing FTT EC-9. The TV news reporter interviewed the PM who outranks the FM and he said he was not sure of FTT. He looked against it, but seemed unsure of the upcoming vote. My wife had to translate for me. Its in the English media, too. The news story also interviewed a major bank SVP who said they would move operations out of Finland very deliberately, to the other Nordic countries where they already have operations. Message, kiss jobs goodbye.
Finland is spiraling down in business confidence and people (friends) are losing jobs left and right. Nokia of course, but also their bread and butter paper mills. Banking was decimated in the 1990s, I think related to the Swedish FTT and Swedish banks doing less business and overnight lending with Finnish banks, when they needed help during a leveraged risk crisis in real estate.
The Finnish FM's sales pitch was par for the dumb course. Tiny tax on greedy banks who caused the crisis and who now owe their fair share of taxes for the welfare state. Few investors in the markets, so few FTT hits on Main Street. No mention of bank exemptions from FTT, and Main Street having their pension funds tied up in the markets indirectly, and paying the lions share of FTT.
Finns are usually smart so I hope they aren't stupid this Friday with this vote. Finnish eurospeptics the True Finns have been somewhat downsized. Finland can nip EC 9 in the bud. One problem is that Finns are on the euro bandwagon with their leaders cheerleading business to think positive. When Finns do that type of embellishment you know they are in trouble.
Greens back financial transaction tax | Yle Uutiset | yle.fi
http://yle.fi/uutiset/greens_back_financial_transaction_tax/6315803
