Finland for Thought continues criticizing the welfare state:

After three and a half years in Finland I think I’ve finally realized the true meaning of [modern day] ’sisu’: It’s when you work 60 hour weeks, often on weekends, for little pay, and most of your earnings eventually wind up in the hands of the state, every year they take more from your pockets, you live in a little apartment, drive a little rusty car, you can barely make ends meet, your family life and personal life suffers and you get “burned out” - Yet you still trudge on. THAT’s sisu.

It has to be admitted, the Finnish system is designed for keeping everybody on relatively equal state of living. But then again, that is in any case the brand promise of the country. Even the national anthem, Maamme states so (roughly translated):

Our land is poor, and shall be left,
if you crave for gold.
Foreigners do abandon it,
but for us it is most precious,
its forests, islands and continents
for us they’re golden.

And personally I buy into this idea. I feel the social stability and relative equality is much preferable over the consumeristic and cutthroat ideals of some other countries.

But still, I also have to agree with Phil that Finland is definitely spending too much money on bloated government agencies, and keeps too lax conditions for the long-term unemployed:

If you’re lazy, irresponsible, careless, incompetent, and don’t want to work - there’s no better place to be than Finland, cause if you act like that in the U.S….you’ll be out on your ass.