look at this miserable terrible awful country I would hate to live here Wait no that's Canada look at this cold dark isolated country I would also hate to live here oh wait this is apparently the happiest country on Earth Finland this is the happiest can you imagine how miserable the rest of the world must be and they're the happiest by a pretty wide margin here's the rest of the list and then bam Finland jumps way ahead of Denmark to first place so what can we learn from Finland for us non fins to be happy too
let's look for some Clues so we can stop crying and maybe cheer up for once are they Happy from their climate now you might be thinking what are you talking about of course it's not their climate this country is full of blizzards rain permanent night time at least Long Winter nights in the South and mosquitoes so many mosquitoes but out of the top 10 happiest countries on Earth pretty much all of them are cold the happiest hot country is Australia and it's all the way down at 11th maybe there's something to a cold breeze to
make someone happy but our theory is not always true hot Costa Rica is happier than lukew in Britain and boiling Saudi Arabia is happier than hot Italy so even though the weather might not influence happiness that much the environment might Finland is a wooded country it's got a lot of bush a whole 2third of the country is Forest that might have been relevant in the 1800s but it's the 2000s now most people don't live in the woods they live in cities at least 85% of fins do but hold up look at these pictures of those
cities why are there trees why is there water cities are supposed to look like this road stores skyscrapers Road more Road smog Road it's not supposed to have nature but the average Finnish City uses 30 to 40% of its space for what it calls Green Space including helsinki's 52 nature reserves tamper green shorelines and juas schula's green ring Finnish residents even that their number one priority for their cities is transportation like literally everyone else on Earth but their number two priority is proximity to Nature it also helps that finished cities are some of the least
densely populated in Europe and none have a population over a million so nature is always near to them nice that seems like a good way to be happy could it be their culture at over 90% Finnish 60% Lutheran and small perc Sammy in the north Finland is quite homogeneous they have a culture of education and Innovation with most people having a bachelor's degree and having a 100% literacy rate not a single person can't read I don't know how much I believe that considering their language looks like they also have an egalitarian culture that shows up
particularly well in its work you know flat organization autonomous decision-making strong work benefits and the average work week only being 35 hours long just don't show up late they'll beat the out of of you if you do showing up late would probably break their trust and fins have built their society very trusting trusting trusting maybe the cold and sick centuries of foreign rule Force the fins to rely on their neighbor can't do much alone when outside looks like this and can't go alone when your Swedish ruler drags you into another war or maybe they're just
trusting because of the low crime rates and economic security the fins have so could it be security that makes the fins so happy usually worrying about fighting a war or having your house robbed when you're gone or stepping outside and getting immediately shot is not great for your mental health and Finland is a very safe and secure country having their crime rate since the '90s having a 2% poverty rate 100% electricity access and a very long life expectancy their biggest crime contributing to that tiny rate it was traffic offenses demographically they're also fairly secure at
5.5 million people expected to fall to around 5 million by 2100 that's not too big a drop not like some of the drops in population other European nations are expected to face it'll be hard on the economy but relatively small to make a relatively happy time geopolitically too they're in a secure region they're tucked safely inside the European Union for a free market cuddled by NATO for free defense and all their neighbors are rich and stable Sweden Norway Denmark Germany maybe Estonia and oh right Russia too dealing with the Russians has always been high on
the Finnish concerns list they've always had to bounce between the west and Russia after all Russia would love aort hellsinki and the fins are tiny compared to the Russians they would get annihilated by them right well exhibit one no and Exhibit 2 also no the Russians probably wouldn't annihilate the fins but they've shown they might still try so in 2022 Finland applied to join NATO just for that extra layer of security and there's another aspect of security Economic Security does money really solve happiness well I have two things to say one Finland wasn't always Rich
they used to be a Backwater a sludge waterer a stick in the mud nobody cared about for most of history and two yes money does make you happy so this video was sponsored by surf shark just kidding so back to the real economy for most of History Finland was poor I'm talking trenches poor in a time when the standard of living was pretty much equal to how much your family could farm this winry landscape wasn't exactly the richest it wasn't the freest either being under Swedish rule until 1809 and then Russian rule until 197 when
they had that whole Revolution although they generally had a great amount of autonomy to focus on whatever they wanted so the law money Banking and integrity have been stabled for centuries developing trust trust trust this is great news for developing the economy cuz the rest of it wasn't so great in terms of Natural Resources Finland pretty much only had two who water and wood can't easily export water at least without exporting food through virtual water so wood was their money maker for most of history or I guess pulp Paper Pete parchment print you name it
in fact the whole reason they even started to industrialize in the 1800s was to build saw mills to meet new Russian Lumber demand and by the time of the world wars their wood phase wasn't over wood products made up four fifths of their exports onethird of their industry and one half of their jobs along with agriculture the wood trade Only deepened The Balancing Act between Western Europe and Russia do we industrialize like these fellas and become filthy rich or do we keep chopping trees for the Russians and become stinking Rich well they had no time
to think about that cuz the Russians invaded them in 1939 the winter War might have prevented a communist government but it also meant they lost nearly 70,000 men 10% of their territory and were forced to pay reparations bummer so during the Cold War not wanting to repeat that whole mess again the fins officially stayed neutral although definitely leaned more to the West than the east from the sour relationship they stayed out of NATO stayed out of the eec and stated of the Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe sure they still sold Timber to the west and
slowly started the Soviet trade back up again too getting much of their energy from them but they invested that money back to make machines elevators ships and paper Machines they started manufacturing them and selling them to the Soviets so from their New Wealth they decided to try to fit in with the other Scandinavians and try out the Nordic wealth welfare model education for all social Care Health Care maternity leave blah blah and they continued the slow and gradual path to rist emphasizing education and Innovation above all to make a heavily research and development based economy
yeah all nice until the Soviets collaps in the 1990s hm so that means their trade with them just fell dramatically and I guess that means their currency just collapsed which wait that means their Banks which were already deep in debt just collapsed and Finland was hit with the biggest depression ever had as everyone decided now was not a good time to invest in anything they recovered by the 2000s but they pretty much gave up paper it was all Innovation now you might have even heard of some finished Tech Creations Nokia Linux the first internet browser
SMS basically texting Angry Birds and Clash of Clans all this made with a tiny population the New Finland is booming economically secure and on The Cutting Edge of Technology but if there's one thing you should take away from this it's that there wasn't one moment Finland became Rich it was really a buildup from stable institutions and business over 150 years so is it welfare that makes them so happy perhaps the security it brings them makes them worry a lot less but how do they even afford it well Finland is not Norway the Norwegian government gets
nearly half of its revenue from oil money Finland doesn't have this luxury and the average Norwegian is almost twice as rich as the average Finn so they've got a lot more Revenue to taxs Finland has to go to those industries that were slowly built over over 150 years and tax them for its Revenue Finland has one of the highest tax burdens on Earth number two for personal income at almost 57% and top 10 in sales tax at nearly 25% but luckily for the fins their government also has a fairly competent accounting department every electoral term
the government has given pretty strict spending limits that they have to stick to it's not every year it's every government this means they've usually ended up with a 2 to 3% Surplus and although they did get into some serious debt during their depression in the 9s they ended up balancing it back out with their 2000s boom and then deficit again with 2008 but as their population ages shrinks and takes that tax money back through pensions they've had to go back to this deficit spending which is threatening their Nordic welfare way of life and could scare
investment well what are they getting for all this spending though pensions free education unemployment benefits Health Care Family benefits State subsidized housing government loans on housing and of course the training needed to deliver these Services sounds pretty nice to me it also helps you could actually trust trust trust that your government will get these services to you in a lot of less developed Nations your tax bill will come you'll wait for the new Services you'll get and keep waiting and keep waiting and keep waiting and they never seem to come trusting that the government won't
screw you when you give them 57% of your income is pretty important to feel secure so it's up to you personally to decide if you would take this deal but taking it doesn't doesn't seem to make them any sadder okay that's way too much about this happy Jolly jovial Nation let's talk about their problems first is obviously their shrinking population threatening their whole welfare model bringing Rising debt and falling investment along with it second they have a housing crisis house prices are climbing at a pretty scary rate but tell me which developed Nation isn't facing
a housing crisis am I right I wish I could afford a house third the whole Russ situation isn't getting any friendlier right now and it sucks considering Russia was a huge supplier of energy to them when they got cut off from Russian gas electricity Prices rose almost 50% in 1 year they've had to get some coal plants back online to meet demand and it doesn't help that 30% of their electricity comes from wood still jeez wood someone helped Finland get out of the 1730s with their wood burning plants get them some oil uranium at least
a wind turbine fourth sure Finland is happy on the aggregate but a lot of fins are still sad Finland has 1.2 times the rate of mental illness than the EU and are 66% more likely to abuse drugs and alcohol than the European counterparts it could be from social exclusion especially among lower classes a stereotypically isolationist culture or simply just a bigger drinking culture in Finland especially of hard liquor and Fifth and finally two of their main industries paper and Nokia Apple destroyed both of those but they're still quite Diversified and complex so to be happy
some keys are transparency Security money but most importantly trust trust trust trust in your government neighbors businesses schools I don't know trust in your dog trust that in 5 years from now you'll also be in a comfortable position and if anything happens to you you can trust someone will help you trust trust trust trust trust trust me it's what made Finland happy
