The world is in crisis and Finland, with its elaborate social safety nets and renowned entrepreneurial economy, is no different. Even though our reliance on either China is low, the nature of the neoliberal order ensures we all go down with the ship. If you wanna experience the highs, you’ve gotta stick around for the lows, that’s the nature of globalization. Unfortunately, this low is catastrophic. 14% decline for the year, with no positive growth predicted for the foreseeable future. To prevent a complete economic collapse, and to keep their heads firmly attached, the Finnish Government is implementing immediate relief measures to keep the economy afloat during this unprecedented crisis.

The Future of the Future Fighter Program

The Future Fighter Program is the Finnish Government’s plan to procure up to 64 fighters to replace its ageing fleet of F/A-18C/D Hornets. The government was slated to finalize its decision on the choice of fighter aircraft in 2021. However, years of government inaction (M: being an npc) have let the program sit idle and by now the F/A-18s are positively ancient. Regardless, the slated $12 billion for the plan cannot in good faith be used on military procurement in dire times such as these and will be reallocated to easing the enormous budgetary strain of this crisis. The cabinet does however recognize the embarrassing lack of capabilities this leaves us in the air and as such, we have decided to request the temporary use of 25 F-35As from the United States, along with trainers for our pilots. Should they accept, we will commit to selecting the F-35A for the Future Fighter Program once funds are once again allocated to it.

New Beginnings

The economies of Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and China have taken the heaviest hits from this war, and in the case of Taiwan and Fuzhou those hits were very real. Thousands of brilliant minds are languishing in temporary shelters or at home, unemployed and with very uncertain futures ahead. The high-tech industries of Finland could make great use of these people, and we believe the excellent social security benefits and stable region will be very attractive to these workers, especially those professionals with children’s futures to consider. To capitalize on this, the Finnish Government will begin running targeted ads towards those working in the semiconductor, medical equipment, telecommunications, pharmaceutical, biotech and renewable energy sectors in these war-effected economies. They will highlight the hospitality and beauty of Finland, while emphasizing excellent social safety net and low crime it has to offer to its residents. The Finnish Government will create a special designation for these groups, “Skilled Workers Escaping Disaster”, affording them reduced emigration barriers, subsidized Finnish lessons and easier paths to citizenship. These benefits will also be extended to individuals who emigrate and create a business employing at least 5 Finnish citizens and have their main registered home within the European Union.

Paying People to Keep Doing Stuff

You ever see a cartoon where they stop the evil machine by jamming a cog with a big stick and it stops all the other cogs? The economy is kinda like that too, but instead of jamming a cog you hit a major exporters ports with cruise missiles. To ruin the metaphor, the economy cogs are jamming so hard they’re starting to crack and the whole thing’s gonna collapse if something doesn’t hold everything together till we unjam it. For a crisis this big, the government is pulling out all the stimulus ideas and mashing them together in the hopes that something unjams a cog, or at the very least holds the machine together until the cogs unstick themselves. JobRetainer: If an eligible business can’t afford to stay open, we’re gonna pay them to pay their employees, this will ease the stress on unemployment services and prevent the loss of productivity caused by having to rehire. The Economic Jumpstart Payment: one time payments of up to $900 per household (income tested) with one rule – buy shit with it. Buy a big TV, buy a new phone, buy a goldfish, we don’t care just spend it in Finland. Ideally, these measures should keep businesses afloat during the crises and allow them to just slowly increase operations as the economy improves, rather than restarting shuttered businesses and rehiring everyone.

You and Me and Factory Makes Three

The loss of Taiwan and China in the world’s markets creates a large shortage of high-tech manufacturing and niche industries. Local companies cover a lot of Finnish needs luckily, but this shortage creates an opportunity for local companies to expand into markets now in desperate need of things like semiconductors and medical tech. The EU has proposed buying old soviet factories in Eastern Europe and revamping them, but that’s capital intensive in a time of serious budget squeeze and takes time to provide a return on investment. Fortunately, Nokia has a solution for that problem, the factory in a box. This factory concept involves making small portable sections of the factory in shipping containers, loading them on a truck bound for the factory site and assembling like lego to fit the requirements. The model is ideal for small manufacturing or goods with niche markets, such as small parts of complex medical machinery and other electronics, sectors Finnish companies excel at developing. Furthermore, Nokia’s ‘conscious’ design builds in various sensors and machine learning technologies to allow a control room in Finland to adjust factory outputs from offsite to perfectly meet fluctuations in demand requirements. The government will be encouraging companies that can take advantage of this model to take use the EU small business scheme to purchase land in Eastern Europe and quickly and cheaply start manufacturing of complex high value electronics like semiconductors and medical equipment to fill the new gaps in the markets, establishing new footholds in mainland Europe once the crisis is over.

Trusting the Process

Now for the feather in the Keynesian cap: public works projects. Infrastructure is the tried and true bandaid for all your economic wounds and this will be no different. Luckily for us, Finland’s infrastructure is already so good the government struggled to find new projects that weren’t absolutely ridiculous or prohibitively expensive. However, the first one will raise a few eyebrows, fair warning. Introducing the Helsinki-Tallinn tunnel, a $12 billion dollar project linking the Finnish and Estonian capitals via high-speed rail under the Gulf of Finland. What was previously a 2 hour ferry ride for 10,000 Estonians who work in Helsinki will now be a 20 minute train ride, an acceptable commute time for workers travel within their own city, let alone from another country. Expected to carry around 10 million annual passengers and 4 million tons of freight, as well as creating 30,000 jobs in construction and operation, this project will be a key for Finnish and Baltic economic recoveries. Furthermore, the shortened travel times will make significant strides in increasing the economic interconnectivity of the two cities. The tunnel will be vital for Finland’s future in European markets, creating a land connection to the wider European rail network and right to Eastern Europe, the heart of massive EU investment drives. The financing will be easily done through EIB 0% interest loans and provides a fast return on investment.

Further harnessing the economic benefits of high-speed rail, the government will jointly fund the construction of a Helsinki-Tampere and Helsinki-Turku line through private-public partnerships. The Tampere line will travel via the international airport in Helsinki, connecting Tampere and its natural beauty with the outside world. This project will cost around $5.75 billion, with 51% of the funding coming from the State’s finances.