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The two words missing from the HN post title (“says minister”) give the crucial context. As everywhere in Europe, there’s a heated ongoing debate in Finland abo

The two words missing from the HN post title (“says minister”) give the crucial context. As everywhere in Europe, there’s a heated ongoing debate in Finland about the rising price of electricity, what should be done about it, and who is to blame. This is a political statement aimed at defending the government’s past and current policies, not more or less than that. (At the moment of writing this the yle.fi title is “Finland will be self-sufficient in electricity within a year or two, says minister” whereas HN title is “Finland will be self-sufficient in electricity within a year or two”.)

dang 4y ago
Ok, we've restored the minister. Thanks! Ministers say a lot of things.
- emptybits 4y ago
  Blame me if it sounded like clickbait. I submitted with the verbatim headline ("..., says minister") but HN rejected it as too long. It was late, I was lazy, so I just removed the ", says minister" and carried on. I should have edited it down more intelligently. Apologies.
  - dang 4y ago
    No worries!
londons_explore 4y ago
"self sufficient" doesn't mean "pricing will not depend on external influences". If you have cables to the rest of europe, they will be buying any cheap energy off you. Clearly, thats good for the economy as a whole (better to sell that energy and earn a decent profit for the country), but voters might still be unhappy at high prices.
- 656565656565 4y ago
  this
- idle76 4y ago
  Not neccesarily. They could choose to implement a two-tier system for pricing. One system for internal use (within Finland), and only making the rest available for export (and thus Europe) after the finnish needs have been covered. The full market integration isn't a natural law, as some free-market enthusiasts would have you believe.
  - moogly 4y ago
    It isn't a natural law, but it is an EU law. A two-tiered system would also need EU on board, since currently such a system is considered anti-competitive for some reason (unclear to me why).
    - idle76 4y ago
      Because the EU thinks it's ok to have an advantage with lower wages, but not on cheap electricity. If they didn't, they would have made regulation that either normalised wages throughout the EU (VERY unpopular with the inhabitants of northern Europe) or allowed nations to demand that all wages must be paid locally in accordance to local laws or tariffs. This is not allowed today, as it would make work migration a lot less beneficial for capitalists importing workers from eastern Europe.
  - ZeroGravitas 4y ago
    No, but it is more efficient. This recent crisis has unleashed a weird strain of anti-capitalist crony-capitalism. People angry that "their" energy is being sold to "other people" so we should do X, where X obviously makes them poorer, but "sell X to other people at a profit and redistribute the profits to the whole nation making everyone richer" is simply considered iconcievable because it would affect the concentrated profits of crony capitalists and generally make people aware that they have democratic power to do things like that. Same deal as with carbon taxes.

dang 4y ago

Ok, we've restored the minister. Thanks! Ministers say a lot of things.

emptybits 4y ago
Blame me if it sounded like clickbait. I submitted with the verbatim headline ("..., says minister") but HN rejected it as too long. It was late, I was lazy, so I just removed the ", says minister" and carried on. I should have edited it down more intelligently. Apologies.
- dang 4y ago
  No worries!

londons_explore 4y ago

"self sufficient" doesn't mean "pricing will not depend on external influences". If you have cables to the rest of europe, they will be buying any cheap energy off you. Clearly, thats good for the economy as a whole (better to sell that energy and earn a decent profit for the country), but voters might still be unhappy at high prices.

656565656565 4y ago
this
idle76 4y ago
Not neccesarily. They could choose to implement a two-tier system for pricing. One system for internal use (within Finland), and only making the rest available for export (and thus Europe) after the finnish needs have been covered. The full market integration isn't a natural law, as some free-market enthusiasts would have you believe.
- moogly 4y ago
  It isn't a natural law, but it is an EU law. A two-tiered system would also need EU on board, since currently such a system is considered anti-competitive for some reason (unclear to me why).
  - idle76 4y ago
    Because the EU thinks it's ok to have an advantage with lower wages, but not on cheap electricity. If they didn't, they would have made regulation that either normalised wages throughout the EU (VERY unpopular with the inhabitants of northern Europe) or allowed nations to demand that all wages must be paid locally in accordance to local laws or tariffs. This is not allowed today, as it would make work migration a lot less beneficial for capitalists importing workers from eastern Europe.
- ZeroGravitas 4y ago
  No, but it is more efficient. This recent crisis has unleashed a weird strain of anti-capitalist crony-capitalism. People angry that "their" energy is being sold to "other people" so we should do X, where X obviously makes them poorer, but "sell X to other people at a profit and redistribute the profits to the whole nation making everyone richer" is simply considered iconcievable because it would affect the concentrated profits of crony capitalists and generally make people aware that they have democratic power to do things like that. Same deal as with carbon taxes.