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Between 2020 and 2023, Finland allocated an additional 10B a year (41B in total)  to handle the Covid pandemic. However, in a report released yesterday by the National Audit Office, *less than half* of this was spent on Covid-related policies, and the majority was used to support municipal finances, state administration and a smaller portion, to defence spending, which is probably more warranted given that Russia invaded Ukraine at the start of 2022. While 41 billion might not sound like that much, for a country of 5 million people, it is a lot and what most of that additional unnecessary spending was on meant that there are long-term obligations, not only to service the debt, but in the way it was spent. 

> What are the chances Finland is the only country? 

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> It was a cash grab. 

Each country might have spent the debt on different things, with some better than others, but I suspect that most countries over allocated to the Covid response, and the majority of what was spent was not on the response itself, but was used to support the padding of pockets at the expense and future cost of the taxpayers. And in Finland, in response to this significant mismanagement of "public" finances, the current government has been implementing austerity measures and cutting back in areas that affect people's daily lives, like healthcare, and it has had a massive effect on cost of living, as well as the unemployment rate, which is over 10% currently.

When it comes to fiscal policy, *bad fiscal policy* has far reaching implications and consequences, and poor government spending ultimately hurts the people that the government *should be* helping. And governments themselves rarely make good decisions for their people, and instead look to play the political games locally and at the global level. 

For an example of this, based on a discussion with @seattlea yesterday about European military reliance on the US and related matters, he mentioned that it is obviously cheaper to buy the equipment from the US, because ramping up production in Europe would take a lot of investment. Which is totally true. The problem I have with this though is that it leaves Europe continually a renter, reliant on the good graces of the US, which is no longer that good, graceful, and increasingly unreliable. And while it might be more expensive initially to invest, that investment is made *locally* into the future of the region in an area that (unfortunately) isn't going away anytime soon.

> It boosts the local economy, whilst improving security through supply autonomy. 

But it isn't just military spending. Going back to the Covid pandemic, as I had said at the time, the handouts and the spending shouldn't have been done in the way they were, and instead Finland should have been investing into its future. Now with the numbers released yesterday, that could have been over 20B investment made directly into developing local business, but it instead went the other way, putting more strain on locals. 

A lot of the current political manoeuvring with the Us is in an attempt to support the status quo of the US as a superpower and the largest single economy. Instead of this, all the other countries on earth should be looking to improve their own business capabilities, spending on local investment in order to develop the rest of the world market so as not to have reliance on a single market, that is increasingly erratic and abusive of trading partners. If they did this, the stranglehold the US has the single largest economy would loosen, but it would also weaken the US ability to generate its income, because they would have to compete at the global level on a more even playing field, rather than where they are subsidised by political motivations to make them happy.

It is in the economic interest of around 7.5 billion people to weaken the US as a market buyer, because it returns more wealth locally. And while currently the US has most of the world's largest companies and the majority of the billionaires, once the markets around the world strengthen, it starts to dilute the concentration and distribution starts to spread. It takes time, possible a generation or two, but on the current course, the concentration is going to cause a global economic and social collapse of everything. And the more power gets concentrated, just like in a communist country with centralised resource allocation chosen by leadership, the less provision is given to the outlying regions.

What people might want to consider is that there is no such thing as a communist country in practice. Perhaps ideologically it exists, but at a practical level, the government is a capitalistic monopoly with complete control. And what the US has been doing over the last seventy years is using its debt mechanics to position itself at the centre of the global economy, as the capitalistic monopoly. And it has been so successful that the population they control at the political level, is scrambling to push more wealth and power their way, like department leaders of the controlling government. This is not in the best interest of the people though, just like it is not in the best interest of the majority to have a communist system with centralised authoritarian control. 

But for most people, this seems to hard to understand, which is because most people don't actually think about how all these flows of wealth affect their daily lives, and how the numbers are so large, people just can't imagine what it means. 41 billion is not a small number, nor is the 10B purchase of 64 F-35s fighter planes from the US. Yet, at the same time these kinds of numbers are being spent, they are making savings of a few hundred million here and there in areas that affect people's daily lives negatively. 

The fiduciary responsibility of a government is *to its people,* and while this doesn't mean handouts, it does mean that the way the government spends should be directed at improving the quality of life of residents. If that requires (in the current economy) revenue, this requires investing into revenue generation in the country, not continual renter spending outside of the country. The more reliant a government becomes on external supply, and especially when that supply is increasingly volatile, the worse it gets for the people of the country. This isn't to say that all countries should close themselves off, rather that countries should look to build their competitive advantage and alliances with surrounding countries in ways that both provide some level of security, but most of all *improve people's lives.* 

> There is no point of having security, if life is shit.

And life is increasingly getting shittier for the majority of the world's residence, even as the financial earnings of the globalised economy improves. The system is failing, because it has placed earnings above people in the hierarchy, which means as long as numbers go up, it can come at the expense of people's wellbeing. Human wellbeing should be at the very pinnacle of all government activities, and should be the true north for every expenditure. All government policies should be directed at human wellbeing first. Because if human wellbeing gets too low, there will be nothing left of a country to defend. 

But hey, what do I know.

Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]


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