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• Wikipedia to the rescue (Score:2)

  by offerk (4962)

  While I have no personal knowledge of Finland, here are some fact and figures, courtesy of Wikipedia [wikipedia.org]:

  1. Finland [wikipedia.org] has a population of only 5mil spread over 338,145 km², making it only the 162nd most densely populated country.
  2. the Finish miliary [wikipedia.org] expenditure for 98/99 was only 2% of the Finish GDP. Compare to the USA's 3.7% for that time frame, a number which has surerly risen since then.
  3. 92% of all Fins are, well, Finish [wikipedia.org] :)
     (My point beeing that demographic homogeneity surely encourages trust and a grea
  • Re:Wikipedia to the rescue (Score:1)

    by Alias (5735) on 2005.10.27 3:57 (#44188) Homepage Journal

    Point 3 is a load of crap.
    
    Last time I checked, Australia has the highest rate of migrants of any country in the world, over 25% of the country wasn't born here, and it works just fine thank you.
    
    One thing I will say though, is that we don't have any major minorities (except for the aboriginal situation sort of...). There's no equivalent to the entrenched poor black or latino populations America has to deal with. At least, not amoung the migrants.
    
    But again, if you look at the top cluster of countries, Norway, Finland, Canada, Luxumbourg, Australia, they are all relatively small countries. With the exception of Lux, who can avoid economic tragedy of the commons and exploit situations, all 4 have large relatively large empty spaces. I'd say all 4 also have pretty low corruption. And things like a reliable living amount (albeit not comfortable) for the long term unemployed, and government medical health care.
    
    So... small enough to avoid being "lumbering", large enough to avoid being incompetant (a problem when you get down near a million or two), and relatively strong natural resources.
    
    But the demographic homogeneity bit is wrong.

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    • Re:Wikipedia to the rescue (Score:2)

      by offerk (4962)

      Point 3 is a load of crap. Last time I checked, Australia has the highest rate of migrants of any country in the world, over 25% of the country wasn't born here, and it works just fine thank you.

      I'm sure it does, but you can hardly say "Point 3 is crap" based on that - for one, thing, every point I listed is a contributing factor, changing just one may change the situation a bit, but the other factors will remain (as you yourself pointed out!).
      Furthermore, Australia is very different from both Finland