In Finland

[Pursuivant]

In Soviet Russia you wish you had a sausage to eat -------- In Finland you eat a sausage and wish you hadn't

[Jessa]

In South America, people eat bugs. In Finland, bugs eat people.

[Pursuivant]

In South America, they always say "I'll do it tomorrow" ------ in Finland, there is no future tense in Finnish.

[AldenG]

It might be more accurate to say that Finland pays doctors like teachers.

[Jukka Aho]

It might be more accurate to say that Finland pays doctors like teachers.

Well, now I’m confused.

http://www.iltasanomat.fi/tyoelama/art- ... 46808.html

[AldenG]

It might be more accurate to say that Finland pays doctors like teachers.

Well, now I’m confused.

http://www.iltasanomat.fi/tyoelama/art- ... 46808.html

Well, that 12,000/m or 144000/y sticks you in the eye but further down they point out that it's exceptional and also akin to an agency fee for locums, while a regular public doctor's salary is more like 72,000 a year. Technically that's 96,000 USD a year at present but when you consider cost-of-living and "real" comparisons, it's more like $72,000 a year. I think it tends to be more realistic to assume euro-dollar parity when you're looking at salaries and wages. I've even heard that if you're talking about comparable standard of living a rule of thumb of 2 euros per dollar is reasonable.

You'd be hard-pressed to find many American doctors making only $72,000. With any kind of specialization, even internal medicine, something more like $200,000 would be closer to the norm. More like $400,000 would not be exceptional in cities. And with a little more specialization, such as oncology or cardiology or even radiology, it's not uncommon to find docs pulling in over $1,000,000. Of course you can always find exceptions, particularly people in family practice in poor areas. Some of them will make $72,000 or less.

And yes, for teachers $72,000 is a little high in most places even for the most experienced teachers. But on the whole it's a lot closer to a typical US teacher's salary than it is to a typical US doctor's salary.

Now for the headline to which I was reacting to hold up, we'd have to see that Finnish teachers are averaging around 72,000 euros a year. I'm skeptical about that.

[Pursuivant]

Ah, but what does it cost to become a doctor in the US? In Finland you get "free" 7 years of education, even though you might have to pay a few C-class driving licence worth to go through the prep course. And how much does the doctor in the US have to pay for his malpractice insurance? Never mind how much does the doctor need to save for college fees if he wants his kids to become doctors?

[AldenG]

I can see why you might have thought I was somehow praising the pay of US doctors but I wasn't. Our system is broken in a thousand ways and the rewards go not to the deserving (of whom there are many) so much as to the brazen and too often the unscrupulous.

There's nothing I disagree with in what you said.

[Pursuivant]

I was just pointing out, that the "pay" disappears much quicker in the USA, so the "lifestyle enjoyed" by a Finnish doctor with 72.000 and an American doctor with 200.000 might be comparable - you can't look at the money but everything connected. Like paying off your student loan, the Finnish doctor has maybe 12.000 and the American 200.000...

[catfish78]

So what that is saying is they don't pay teachers or doctors hardly enough for the hours they work and the services they provide.


Why on earth would you want to promote that?

[Oombongo]

Are we sure?
http://yle.fi/uutiset/teachers_ready_to ... es/5847430

[faronel]

I guess jokes about Finland and Finns fit here as well. Here are two I managed to digest...

1) How to know a difference between a Finnish introvert and a Finnish extravert?
- A Finnish introvert is looking at his or her own shoes, while talking to another person. A Finnish extravert is looking at the shoes of his/her conversation partner.

2) How many Finns it takes to change a broken light bulb?
- None. The owner of the light bulb will just repair it... again.

[Pursuivant]

Joke from the 1990's:
In USA you have George Bush, Johnny Cash and Bob Hope.
In Finland we have Mauno Koivisto, no cash and no hope.

[rider1000]

Actually... 25 years ago the USA had Ronald Reagan, Steve Jobs, Johnny Cash and Bob Hope.

Now we have Obama, no jobs, no cash and no hope...

[Oombongo]

in Soviet Russia..you screw taxman
in Finland...taxman screws you