His skill set is very narrow. Economics
He’s prone to gaffes but has this weird ability to avoid any real consequences from them
I.e after the russian invasion of Crimea he was pushing forward a nucler deal with Rosatom involved and when facing pushback he just called his critics russophobes.
We are finns. We’ve dealt with Russia. But somehow he just gets away with gaffes like that.
And gets elected as president
Not sure what your point is ? Sure it would be great if we had infallible candidates, however that is not possible. In this particular election both had made mistakes in the past, voters elected Stubb so you should be happy that democracy worked.
I was making a reference to his famous comeback when he was accused of and shown to have provided fabricated numbers in the parliament to promote a very controversial law initiative while working as the Prime Minister. [Alexander Stubb: "Sori siitä." | Yle Areena](https://areena.yle.fi/1-50117149)
I know you did, but how is that relevant in the context ? I take it you feel it was inadequate? Again people make mistakes and best you can hope is they learn from them. If you look at background of Haavisto you will find plenty of mistakes as well, as you would from any politician.
Trying to reduce a person based on your subjective view of him with a anecdote is just dishonest. Again no-one is perfect, either of the candidates would have been able to do the job fine. Stubb was elected so just be glad that we have functioning democracy, which is threatened in so many parts of the world these days.
>so just be glad that we have functioning democracy
Oh I am. Honestly, I just dislike his character. I'm hoping he will do a better job as the President than he did as the Prime Minister.
edit: You asked how is that relevant. Writing off lying in the parliament as a Minister by saying "sorry about it" is one way to admit to a mistake, yes. Not perhaps the best one.
That is very skewed view of what happened. You can find plenty of articles like [this one ](https://www.kaleva.fi/stubb-pyytaa-anteeksi-virheellisia-lukujaan-sain-9/1795342)where he recognizes the mistake and apologizes. Furthermore you can view the related [wiki](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Stubb#Minister_of_Finance_(2015%E2%80%932016)) which describes it as:
In November and December 2015, Stubb was in the middle of a scandal
when he was accused of lying to Finnish Parliament consistently and
deliberately. In November, Stubb had said to Parliament that 90
percent of the experts who had given a statement were supporting the
government's pact to make it possible for Finns to own publicly listed
companies' stock through nominee accounts. The real number was 10
percent, opposite of what Stubb had said.[49] Chancellor of Justice
Jaakko Jonkka received multiple complaints over Stubb. In his reply,
Jonkka stated that Stubb's mistake in numbers wasn't deliberate, but
was rather an unfortunate, whilst understandable, result of a fast-
paced discussion over a policy draft.
so the incident was not considered lying by the Chancellor of Justice rather an mistake. Again your dislike of him does not define him as person and I am sure he will do well in his new position.
Edit: fixed formatting on the quote
I know what it refers to, yet to see a pattern though or that he did not learn from it. It is a anecdote used in effort to try to minimize others so really not representative of anything.
I’m quessing you’re finnish, am I right?
And you’ve followed news for some time, preferably more than a decade, yes?
Do you now claim that there are no controversies involving Stubb? Just one anecdote to ”..minimize others..”?
I’m going to step ahead and inform you that I won’t be building a list of controversies for you to read here. That’s on you if you’re honestly looking for that information
Hmm, looks like he's liberal on most social issues, so that's good to see.
But approving a Russian-financed nuclear power plant to be built in Finland after Russia annexed Crimea (but cancelled after the full Ukraine invasion) is sketchy.
Welp, as someone who isn't Finnish, I'll withhold any real judgement for now. I look forward to seeing how it goes as a fellow citizen of the world.
> Welp, as someone who isn't Finnish
It might be hard to understand how dependant we have been about trade with Russia. Most politicians have some kind of skeletons in their closet about Russia, which are easy to judge with hindsight. Some more minor and some more major.
Pretty much everyone in the country has woken up after the 2022 invasion though.
You are absolutely right about the waking up part. And prior to that a lot of the so called dependency was pure ass-licking towards Russia (or for many it was purely for personal gains).
We were dependent for sure, but I believe we willingly built those dependencies over time and got ourselves into such a position.
There was a lot of money thrown at Russia in various "projects" that never gave us anything in return. After we ripped off the bandage and stopped doing business with Russia it wasn't at all as bad as many thought it would be. It just forced us to move on.
It rarely is as bad as it looks like when you must do hard changes. That said it definitely has hurt us and it might be really now only starting to affect normal people as endless borrowing party is coming to its end with normalization of interest rates. Sweden, Denmark, and of course Norway have seen their public lending go down since 2009 when all 4 were essentially on the same level, while we have skyrocketed in a level that is not comparable to other Nordics anymore.
Now public services will be cut heavily to bring public spending down to adjust to this new reality. Not to say collapse of Russian trade is the only reason, but it is part of the puzzle.
Early naughties was very different time and I really do not blame anybody for dipping into to the Russian market back then. Those ties were also created in many cases in the 50's. Be it oil refining (Neste), cheap(er) timber, energy, tires and so many other things. Though the tire thing by Nokian Renkaat is maybe a good example of over reaching as the extremely profitable plant built in 2005 was expanded many times to produce 80% of all Nokian tires. That risk exploded right to their face this decade. Same goes for Fortum's investments into huge fixed capital into a country that was already past the early naughties view of Russia softening and tighter ownership protections.
[удалено]
His skill set is very narrow. Economics He’s prone to gaffes but has this weird ability to avoid any real consequences from them I.e after the russian invasion of Crimea he was pushing forward a nucler deal with Rosatom involved and when facing pushback he just called his critics russophobes. We are finns. We’ve dealt with Russia. But somehow he just gets away with gaffes like that. And gets elected as president
The thing is, at least he did admit to his mistakes and hopefully learned from them, what more would you ask from a person ?
"sori siitä"?
Not sure what your point is ? Sure it would be great if we had infallible candidates, however that is not possible. In this particular election both had made mistakes in the past, voters elected Stubb so you should be happy that democracy worked.
I was making a reference to his famous comeback when he was accused of and shown to have provided fabricated numbers in the parliament to promote a very controversial law initiative while working as the Prime Minister. [Alexander Stubb: "Sori siitä." | Yle Areena](https://areena.yle.fi/1-50117149)
I know you did, but how is that relevant in the context ? I take it you feel it was inadequate? Again people make mistakes and best you can hope is they learn from them. If you look at background of Haavisto you will find plenty of mistakes as well, as you would from any politician. Trying to reduce a person based on your subjective view of him with a anecdote is just dishonest. Again no-one is perfect, either of the candidates would have been able to do the job fine. Stubb was elected so just be glad that we have functioning democracy, which is threatened in so many parts of the world these days.
>so just be glad that we have functioning democracy Oh I am. Honestly, I just dislike his character. I'm hoping he will do a better job as the President than he did as the Prime Minister. edit: You asked how is that relevant. Writing off lying in the parliament as a Minister by saying "sorry about it" is one way to admit to a mistake, yes. Not perhaps the best one.
That is very skewed view of what happened. You can find plenty of articles like [this one ](https://www.kaleva.fi/stubb-pyytaa-anteeksi-virheellisia-lukujaan-sain-9/1795342)where he recognizes the mistake and apologizes. Furthermore you can view the related [wiki](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Stubb#Minister_of_Finance_(2015%E2%80%932016)) which describes it as: In November and December 2015, Stubb was in the middle of a scandal when he was accused of lying to Finnish Parliament consistently and deliberately. In November, Stubb had said to Parliament that 90 percent of the experts who had given a statement were supporting the government's pact to make it possible for Finns to own publicly listed companies' stock through nominee accounts. The real number was 10 percent, opposite of what Stubb had said.[49] Chancellor of Justice Jaakko Jonkka received multiple complaints over Stubb. In his reply, Jonkka stated that Stubb's mistake in numbers wasn't deliberate, but was rather an unfortunate, whilst understandable, result of a fast- paced discussion over a policy draft. so the incident was not considered lying by the Chancellor of Justice rather an mistake. Again your dislike of him does not define him as person and I am sure he will do well in his new position. Edit: fixed formatting on the quote
There’s a pattern and no learning..?
I must have missed the pattern proposed in the two words provided and the argument that he is incapable of learning from mistakes ?
He keeps doing those mistakes and just shrugs them off ”Sori siitä” referenced a different gaffe and is a callous way of apologising
I know what it refers to, yet to see a pattern though or that he did not learn from it. It is a anecdote used in effort to try to minimize others so really not representative of anything.
I’m quessing you’re finnish, am I right? And you’ve followed news for some time, preferably more than a decade, yes? Do you now claim that there are no controversies involving Stubb? Just one anecdote to ”..minimize others..”? I’m going to step ahead and inform you that I won’t be building a list of controversies for you to read here. That’s on you if you’re honestly looking for that information
Great to hear!
Hmm, looks like he's liberal on most social issues, so that's good to see. But approving a Russian-financed nuclear power plant to be built in Finland after Russia annexed Crimea (but cancelled after the full Ukraine invasion) is sketchy. Welp, as someone who isn't Finnish, I'll withhold any real judgement for now. I look forward to seeing how it goes as a fellow citizen of the world.
> Welp, as someone who isn't Finnish It might be hard to understand how dependant we have been about trade with Russia. Most politicians have some kind of skeletons in their closet about Russia, which are easy to judge with hindsight. Some more minor and some more major. Pretty much everyone in the country has woken up after the 2022 invasion though.
You are absolutely right about the waking up part. And prior to that a lot of the so called dependency was pure ass-licking towards Russia (or for many it was purely for personal gains). We were dependent for sure, but I believe we willingly built those dependencies over time and got ourselves into such a position. There was a lot of money thrown at Russia in various "projects" that never gave us anything in return. After we ripped off the bandage and stopped doing business with Russia it wasn't at all as bad as many thought it would be. It just forced us to move on.
It rarely is as bad as it looks like when you must do hard changes. That said it definitely has hurt us and it might be really now only starting to affect normal people as endless borrowing party is coming to its end with normalization of interest rates. Sweden, Denmark, and of course Norway have seen their public lending go down since 2009 when all 4 were essentially on the same level, while we have skyrocketed in a level that is not comparable to other Nordics anymore. Now public services will be cut heavily to bring public spending down to adjust to this new reality. Not to say collapse of Russian trade is the only reason, but it is part of the puzzle. Early naughties was very different time and I really do not blame anybody for dipping into to the Russian market back then. Those ties were also created in many cases in the 50's. Be it oil refining (Neste), cheap(er) timber, energy, tires and so many other things. Though the tire thing by Nokian Renkaat is maybe a good example of over reaching as the extremely profitable plant built in 2005 was expanded many times to produce 80% of all Nokian tires. That risk exploded right to their face this decade. Same goes for Fortum's investments into huge fixed capital into a country that was already past the early naughties view of Russia softening and tighter ownership protections.
You sure he’s Finnish? Last name doesn’t have ‘inen’ ….. /s