Estonian Parliamentary Election, 2015

[Baltenstein]

Because they were in euro system probably allowed them to borrow more because investors trusted them.

Yes, exactly. That was part of the problem. But, the very fact that they could borrow excessively shows the problems with a monetary, but no fiscal union. European federalism FTW! Furthermore, Greece totally didn't lie about their debt upon joining. *glares at Greece*

Well, at least the two Greek parties responsible for the mess are on their way out. If their successors will provide to be a more integre, responsible leadership however, is anyone's guess.

[Liberty and Linguistics]

Yes, exactly. That was part of the problem. But, the very fact that they could borrow excessively shows the problems with a monetary, but no fiscal union. European federalism FTW! Furthermore, Greece totally didn't lie about their debt upon joining. *glares at Greece*

Well, at least the two Greek parties responsible for the mess are on their way out. If their successors will provide to be a more integre, responsible leadership however, is anyone's guess.

That's nice, yes. It's too bad that SYRIZA, a party that's worse than both PASOK and New Democracy may win on the 25th. Greece is fucked.

[Baltenstein]

By what measurement would you estimate Syriza as being worse than ND and PASOK?

There are several key differences between Syriza and PASOK/ND:

1.) They won't be able to over-spend, even if they might be ideologically motivated to want to, if only for the simply reason that the markets and the EU won't give them the money to do so.
Here's a goo read:

http://www.spiegel.de/international/eur ... 11288.html

2.) On the domestic front, they don't suffer from the obscene level of nepotism with media, construction and business magnates that the other two parties do.

[Tallinna Rahvavabariik]

Attempting to steer the thread back towards its original topic...

I think it might be useful to try and give some insight about the main campaign issues that the parties are concentrating on in the run-up to the elections.

1) Defence and security policy - while in Western Europe the threat of islamic extremism is getting the most attention in this regard at the moment, in Estonia the main concern is and has always been Russia. Especially now with Russian military involvement in Ukraine and the rapidly risen military activity around the Baltic region. Therefore, all the parties are trying to emphasize that they are strong on defence and have promised to keep defence expenditure at least at 2% of GDP. Also, they have promised to fill the gaps in our military capabilities, for example mid-range anti-aircraft systems. The importance of NATO membership also gets underlined and only the Center Party has hinted at supporting a more independent policy which really means being more acommodating of Russian interests.

2) Population decline - as has been previously noted in this thread, the Estonian population is still declining and all the parties are trying to find a way to motivate Estonians to have more children. Even the Reform Party who generally doesn't support simply handing out money is promising a monthly 300 euro allowance for the third child in a family. SDE for example wants to generally increase child allowances, from the current 45 euros a month up to 75 euros and an additional 25 euros for taking part in organized sport and hobby clubs and for families with three or more children they promise an additional 200 euro allowance. Also, there are proposals to increase minimum wage to stop emigration.

3) Changes in taxation systems - except for the Reform Party who is mostly happy with things as they are, all other main parties are promising some rather radical changes - that goes for the already discussed progressive income tax proposals from the Center Party and SDE, IRL's complete change of the current personal income tax policy (the system they propose is very complicated so I'm not going to explain it here) and many other ideas. All parties seem to agree though that our rather high social tax (33%, paid by the employer straight to the state) is a problem.

4) State and administrative reform - Estonia being a small country of only 1,3 million people is divided into 15 counties and over 200 smaller municipalities which means there is a lot of waste of administrative resources. Although the ideas for an administrative reform have been discussed for many years it has been stalled because there are simply far too many people who actually depend on the current system and in many municipalities, the local administration is the biggest employer so there is a lot of grassroots resistance for such a reform. Then there are also ideas, mainly proposed by the small parties, for state reform - for example, transition to direct democracy, lessen the number of MP-s, establishing a bicameral legislature etc.

5) Integration and education policy - in light of the situation in Ukraine, the relations with our Russian community and in relation to that, the status of Russian-language education, have once again become an important topic. Although all parties agree that there are obvious problems, they seem to have different solutions, with SDE advocating taking a softer line and IRL and Reform Party preferring not to change the basic principles of citizenship and education policies.


By the way, here are the websites of the parties (unfortunately they mostly either don't have information in English or only some outdated stuff):
Reform Party - http://www.reform.ee/
Social Democratic Party - http://www.sotsdem.ee/
Pro Patria and Res Publica Union - http://www.irl.ee/
Center Party - http://keskerakond.ee/
Conservative People's Party - http://www.ekre.ee/
Free Party - http://www.vabaerakond.ee/
Party of People's Unity - http://rue.ee/WP/
Estonian Greens - http://www.erakond.ee/
Independence Party - http://iseseisvuspartei.ee/
United Left Party - http://vasakpartei.ee/


As for the EU and euro, like Teemant already noted, the support for both is very high in Estonia and from a recent Eurobarometer poll, I remember something like 83% supporting the single currency. In fact, before the last European elections, EKRE's (the party has been anti-EU) leader, when asked about why they have dropped the proposal to leave the EU from their program, noted that since Estonians are so pro-EU, they would simply not get any votes, so now they're just advocating not ceding any more powers to Brussels and getting some back. In general, yeah, there isn't a single serious political force in Estonia that advocates leaving the EU or eurozone.

[Arkolon]

By what measurement would you estimate Syriza as being worse than ND and PASOK?

Tsipras wants to cancel Greece's publicly-held debt, or in the least seriously renegotiate it. The whole purpose of austerity was to avoid Greek default; Tsipras is pretty much trying to get to that point as soon as possible.

[Teemant]

Attempting to steer the thread back towards its original topic...

I think it might be useful to try and give some insight about the main campaign issues that the parties are concentrating on in the run-up to the elections.

1) Defence and security policy - while in Western Europe the threat of islamic extremism is getting the most attention in this regard at the moment, in Estonia the main concern is and has always been Russia. Especially now with Russian military involvement in Ukraine and the rapidly risen military activity around the Baltic region. Therefore, all the parties are trying to emphasize that they are strong on defence and have promised to keep defence expenditure at least at 2% of GDP. Also, they have promised to fill the gaps in our military capabilities, for example mid-range anti-aircraft systems. The importance of NATO membership also gets underlined and only the Center Party has hinted at supporting a more independent policy which really means being more acommodating of Russian interests.

2) Population decline - as has been previously noted in this thread, the Estonian population is still declining and all the parties are trying to find a way to motivate Estonians to have more children. Even the Reform Party who generally doesn't support simply handing out money is promising a monthly 300 euro allowance for the third child in a family. SDE for example wants to generally increase child allowances, from the current 45 euros a month up to 75 euros and an additional 25 euros for taking part in organized sport and hobby clubs and for families with three or more children they promise an additional 200 euro allowance. Also, there are proposals to increase minimum wage to stop emigration.

3) Changes in taxation systems - except for the Reform Party who is mostly happy with things as they are, all other main parties are promising some rather radical changes - that goes for the already discussed progressive income tax proposals from the Center Party and SDE, IRL's complete change of the current personal income tax policy (the system they propose is very complicated so I'm not going to explain it here) and many other ideas. All parties seem to agree though that our rather high social tax (33%, paid by the employer straight to the state) is a problem.

4) State and administrative reform - Estonia being a small country of only 1,3 million people is divided into 15 counties and over 200 smaller municipalities which means there is a lot of waste of administrative resources. Although the ideas for an administrative reform have been discussed for many years it has been stalled because there are simply far too many people who actually depend on the current system and in many municipalities, the local administration is the biggest employer so there is a lot of grassroots resistance for such a reform. Then there are also ideas, mainly proposed by the small parties, for state reform - for example, transition to direct democracy, lessen the number of MP-s, establishing a bicameral legislature etc.

5) Integration and education policy - in light of the situation in Ukraine, the relations with our Russian community and in relation to that, the status of Russian-language education, have once again become an important topic. Although all parties agree that there are obvious problems, they seem to have different solutions, with SDE advocating taking a softer line and IRL and Reform Party preferring not to change the basic principles of citizenship and education policies.


By the way, here are the websites of the parties (unfortunately they mostly either don't have information in English or only some outdated stuff):
Reform Party - http://www.reform.ee/
Social Democratic Party - http://www.sotsdem.ee/
Pro Patria and Res Publica Union - http://www.irl.ee/
Center Party - http://keskerakond.ee/
Conservative People's Party - http://www.ekre.ee/
Free Party - http://www.vabaerakond.ee/
Party of People's Unity - http://rue.ee/WP/
Estonian Greens - http://www.erakond.ee/
Independence Party - http://iseseisvuspartei.ee/
United Left Party - http://vasakpartei.ee/


As for the EU and euro, like Teemant already noted, the support for both is very high in Estonia and from a recent Eurobarometer poll, I remember something like 83% supporting the single currency. In fact, before the last European elections, EKRE's (the party has been anti-EU) leader, when asked about why they have dropped the proposal to leave the EU from their program, noted that since Estonians are so pro-EU, they would simply not get any votes, so now they're just advocating not ceding any more powers to Brussels and getting some back. In general, yeah, there isn't a single serious political force in Estonia that advocates leaving the EU or eurozone.

Can't wait for TV debates anymore.

What I really like is that all parties support spending at least 2% of GDP to defence. But looking recent events decreasing defence spending means losing votes so no party can afford this. I also hope that Estonian tax system will remain untouched. It is essential for Estonia's future success.

[Martean]

By what measurement would you estimate Syriza as being worse than ND and PASOK?

Tsipras wants to cancel Greece's publicly-held debt, or in the least seriously renegotiate it. The whole purpose of austerity was to avoid Greek default; Tsipras is pretty much trying to get to that point as soon as possible.

Because Greece is simply not capable of paying back the debt, yet they are being forced to do so. Don't forget that, in order to pay some international agencies (such as IMF or the ECB) that do not really need money, as one can print it and the other... well, the other is the IMF, many Greeks are suffering and you are condemming millions of people to live in a European country that sometimes looks like a north-african one. But even worse, as North Africa at least hopes to grow, while Greece doesn't.

Many economists (leftists and right-wingers) agree that Greek debt must be pardoned in order to let them grow, this is something that has been done with many countries (Germany, France... etc.) several times, it is not such a great deal.

[Arkolon]

Tsipras wants to cancel Greece's publicly-held debt, or in the least seriously renegotiate it. The whole purpose of austerity was to avoid Greek default; Tsipras is pretty much trying to get to that point as soon as possible.

Because Greece is simply not capable of paying back the debt

They don't need to. They just need to control it. Which they can do.

yet they are being forced to do so. Don't forget that, in order to pay some international agencies (such as IMF or the ECB) that do not really need money, as one can print it and the other...

Yeah.. no. "Why don't we just print more money?" has never been a sound idea.

well, the other is the IMF

Yeah? I don't get the insinuation here.

many Greeks are suffering and you are condemming millions of people to live in a European country that sometimes looks like a north-african one. But even worse, as North Africa at least hopes to grow, while Greece doesn't.

Deficits at 10% of GDP don't really help you in this sob story.

Many economists (leftists and right-wingers) agree that Greek debt must be pardoned in order to let them grow, this is something that has been done with many countries (Germany, France... etc.) several times, it is not such a great deal.

Source me any of that.

[Martean]

Because Greece is simply not capable of paying back the debt

They don't need to. They just need to control it. Which they can do.

Really? they can? They owe more than 170% of their GDP, this is a massive debt, besides, in order to do that they would need to impose severe austerity that would only damage more the economy. I'm aware the Greeks have spent too much money in the recent times, but nothing can be done now and I think forcing a whole country for their past, as like a ''collective punishment'' is something that we did with Germany after WWI and we learnt the lesson afterwards. Don't forget we pardoned German debt and thanks to that, in part, now Germany is where it is.

yet they are being forced to do so. Don't forget that, in order to pay some international agencies (such as IMF or the ECB) that do not really need money, as one can print it and the other...

Yeah.. no. "Why don't we just print more money?" has never been a sound idea.

It is not 'lets print more money', the ECB could buy the Greek debt and Greece would simply not pay it, this is how 'defaults' work.

well, the other is the IMF

Yeah? I don't get the insinuation here.

It is a monetary fund that, like central banks, etc. doesn't really need the money back, and not paying them back shouldn't be too harmful for the economy.

many Greeks are suffering and you are condemming millions of people to live in a European country that sometimes looks like a north-african one. But even worse, as North Africa at least hopes to grow, while Greece doesn't.

Deficits at 10% of GDP don't really help you in this sob story.

This usually happens when a country is hit hard by a crisis, that deficit goes up as the economy is, you know, fucked up. Greece had a deficit of 3% before the crisis, it is by no means perfect or desirable, and they should have at least tried to have superavit, but my own country did reach a 10% deficit and before the crisis we had superavit.

Many economists (leftists and right-wingers) agree that Greek debt must be pardoned in order to let them grow, this is something that has been done with many countries (Germany, France... etc.) several times, it is not such a great deal.

Source me any of that.

OMG it seems the press is full of radical-left propaganda

[Wolfmanne]

Not really much of a choice now is there. Estonian Reform Party? Or Pro Patria and Res Publica Union? I dunno. Xenophobia and racism is scawy. Vewy scawy.

Source me any of that.

OMG it seems the press is full of radical-left propaganda

Forbes and Financial Times as sources? Not being sarcastic here, but it is definitely worth a look. Good on you for digging this out.

[Tallinna Rahvavabariik]

Can't wait for TV debates anymore.

What I really like is that all parties support spending at least 2% of GDP to defence. But looking recent events decreasing defence spending means losing votes so no party can afford this. I also hope that Estonian tax system will remain untouched. It is essential for Estonia's future success.

Yeah, the TV debates should be fun. Unfortunately though, in my opinion at least the debates on ETV have often degenerated into shouting matches where the candidates simply present campaign slogans and accuse the other parties for being in the wrong. Personally, I prefer to watch debates with more in-depth discussion on the provided topics where the candidates can actually talk about the issue and not yell one-liners before the host cuts them off.

Agreed about the defence spending. At the moment this should be one of our main priorities and I think there's room to even raise that a bit. Then again, we shouldn't overspend because that would mean diverting money from elsewhere which might result in people becoming unhappy with the country and therefore unmotivated to defend it. So there needs to be a good balance because defence policy in its wider sense doesn't just mean military power but also keeping people motivated to defend the country and going into the survivalist mode won't do us any good there. I also dislike some of the rhetoric that I see as scaremongering. Yes, of course, at this time Russia is the only realistic threat to our independence and freedom but we should remain level-headed. To quote one very bad movie: "Danger is real. Fear is a choice."

[Martean]

Not really much of a choice now is there. Estonian Reform Party? Or Pro Patria and Res Publica Union? I dunno. Xenophobia and racism is scawy. Vewy scawy.

OMG it seems the press is full of radical-left propaganda

Forbes and Financial Times as sources? Not being sarcastic here, but it is definitely worth a look. Good on you for digging this out.

There were hundreds of articles, I just saw Forbes and FT and thought they were relevant newspapers and I just posted them here

[Arkolon]

Not really much of a choice now is there. Estonian Reform Party? Or Pro Patria and Res Publica Union? I dunno. Xenophobia and racism is scawy. Vewy scawy.


Forbes and Financial Times as sources? Not being sarcastic here, but it is definitely worth a look. Good on you for digging this out.

There were hundreds of articles, I just saw Forbes and FT and thought they were relevant newspapers and I just posted them here

Not sources; opinion pieces. Literally the blog posts of various journalists. I didn't know people still used opinion pages in newspapers "sources".

[Martean]

There were hundreds of articles, I just saw Forbes and FT and thought they were relevant newspapers and I just posted them here

Not sources; opinion pieces. Literally the blog posts of various journalists. I didn't know people still used opinion pages in newspapers "sources".

Economists giving their views, it's not like it's very easy to find 'pure' economic articles, much less in a language it's not my own. Besides, I just wanted to show you all along the political spectrum people find the Greek default necessary, or at least unevitable.

[Arkolon]

Not sources; opinion pieces. Literally the blog posts of various journalists. I didn't know people still used opinion pages in newspapers "sources".

Economists giving their views, it's not like it's very easy to find 'pure' economic articles, much less in a language it's not my own. Besides, I just wanted to show you all along the political spectrum people find the Greek default necessary, or at least unevitable.

Vox EU, The Economist, or even just actual articles from FT, Forbes, or even the Guardian would have sufficed. All of these are respected, proper sources, and I think Vox EU takes Spanish economists for Spanish news anyway.

[Wolfmanne]

Economists giving their views, it's not like it's very easy to find 'pure' economic articles, much less in a language it's not my own. Besides, I just wanted to show you all along the political spectrum people find the Greek default necessary, or at least unevitable.

Vox EU, The Economist, or even just actual articles from FT, Forbes, or even the Guardian would have sufficed. All of these are respected, proper sources, and I think Vox EU takes Spanish economists for Spanish news anyway.

Pfff, Guardian. You give too much credit to the Liberal Democrat's lapdog.

[Teemant]

Can't wait for TV debates anymore.

What I really like is that all parties support spending at least 2% of GDP to defence. But looking recent events decreasing defence spending means losing votes so no party can afford this. I also hope that Estonian tax system will remain untouched. It is essential for Estonia's future success.

Yeah, the TV debates should be fun. Unfortunately though, in my opinion at least the debates on ETV have often degenerated into shouting matches where the candidates simply present campaign slogans and accuse the other parties for being in the wrong. Personally, I prefer to watch debates with more in-depth discussion on the provided topics where the candidates can actually talk about the issue and not yell one-liners before the host cuts them off.

Agreed about the defence spending. At the moment this should be one of our main priorities and I think there's room to even raise that a bit. Then again, we shouldn't overspend because that would mean diverting money from elsewhere which might result in people becoming unhappy with the country and therefore unmotivated to defend it. So there needs to be a good balance because defence policy in its wider sense doesn't just mean military power but also keeping people motivated to defend the country and going into the survivalist mode won't do us any good there. I also dislike some of the rhetoric that I see as scaremongering. Yes, of course, at this time Russia is the only realistic threat to our independence and freedom but we should remain level-headed. To quote one very bad movie: "Danger is real. Fear is a choice."

What do you think about recent scandals regarding Central Party and SDE campaign posters. Central Party had russian language text first if I remember correctly and SDE says different things to estonians and russians eventhough SDE claims to be unifier (impression I have got so far looking their politics).

[Greonterp]

Vox EU, The Economist, or even just actual articles from FT, Forbes, or even the Guardian would have sufficed. All of these are respected, proper sources, and I think Vox EU takes Spanish economists for Spanish news anyway.

Pfff, Guardian. You give too much credit to the Liberal Democrat's lapdog.

In all fairness, the Guardian backed the LibDems for one election. And, they're likely to back Miliband in 2015, given the fact that they feel betrayed by Clegg.

[Tallinna Rahvavabariik]

What do you think about recent scandals regarding Central Party and SDE campaign posters. Central Party had russian language text first if I remember correctly and SDE says different things to estonians and russians eventhough SDE claims to be unifier (impression I have got so far looking their politics).

To be honest, I think this issue is made up to be more than it really is. Just on a personal note, having Russian text on campaign posters doesn't bother me one bit. I get that there's a lot of Russian speakers in Estonia who have little or no grasp of Estonian and the parties also need to reach out to these voters. To go even further, I'd say the root of many problems, including this one, is excessive nationalism on both sides. I mean on one side we have one idiot yelling "I'm not learning this language of subhumans, besides Estonia is rightful Russian land and you should speak to me in Russian" and then on the other side we have this other idiot yelling "Damn tibla, get the hell out of Estonia, we are the masters here". Ok, so maybe it's not always that extreme, but the more extreme opinions do tend to color people's perceptions of reality. Just for the record, I'm saying this as an ethnic Estonian who cannot even speak Russian except for forming a few primitive sentences.

As for the SDE campaign posters, the Estonian version "Inimeste Eest!" has a dual meaning - it can be read as "For the people!" or, if you read the exclamation mark as the letter "I", it means "The Estonia of people" (yes, slightly crappy translation, but because of certain linguistic issues, it's not possible to directly translate it into English). The Russian version translates as "Estonia for everyone" which to my mind covers the meaning pretty well and if you know the political positions of SDE, is in no way contradictory to what they are saying in their program to the Estonian voters. Just so others can have a visual clue, you can look at the campaign slogan here: http://valimised2015.sotsdem.ee/est/esileht

As for our integration and education policy so far, yes I do think it has been pretty abysmal and as Sven Mikser noted in his speech a few days ago, it has been made into a nationalistic and political issue (mainly by IRL but also Reform Party), instead of being an issue of education policy. The truth is that for many reasons, the Estonian language skills of many Russian kids, especially those living in the Ida-Virumaa county, are seriously lacking and it cannot necessarily be seen as their own fault and the state needs to come up with a new strategy to ensure that they actually get the proper training before we start to arbitrarily convert Russian-language schools to Estonian. I'd say the current minister of education Jevgeni Ossinovski seems to have a pretty good plan and ideas to accomplish this goal and because of his background also has a way better understanding of what and how needs to be done to get young Russians to speak Estonian well enough to study in our language.

[Teemant]

What do you think about recent scandals regarding Central Party and SDE campaign posters. Central Party had russian language text first if I remember correctly and SDE says different things to estonians and russians eventhough SDE claims to be unifier (impression I have got so far looking their politics).

To be honest, I think this issue is made up to be more than it really is. Just on a personal note, having Russian text on campaign posters doesn't bother me one bit. I get that there's a lot of Russian speakers in Estonia who have little or no grasp of Estonian and the parties also need to reach out to these voters. To go even further, I'd say the root of many problems, including this one, is excessive nationalism on both sides. I mean on one side we have one idiot yelling "I'm not learning this language of subhumans, besides Estonia is rightful Russian land and you should speak to me in Russian" and then on the other side we have this other idiot yelling "Damn tibla, get the hell out of Estonia, we are the masters here". Ok, so maybe it's not always that extreme, but the more extreme opinions do tend to color people's perceptions of reality. Just for the record, I'm saying this as an ethnic Estonian who cannot even speak Russian except for forming a few primitive sentences.

As for the SDE campaign posters, the Estonian version "Inimeste Eest!" has a dual meaning - it can be read as "For the people!" or, if you read the exclamation mark as the letter "I", it means "The Estonia of people" (yes, slightly crappy translation, but because of certain linguistic issues, it's not possible to directly translate it into English). The Russian version translates as "Estonia for everyone" which to my mind covers the meaning pretty well and if you know the political positions of SDE, is in no way contradictory to what they are saying in their program to the Estonian voters. Just so others can have a visual clue, you can look at the campaign slogan here: http://valimised2015.sotsdem.ee/est/esileht

As for our integration and education policy so far, yes I do think it has been pretty abysmal and as Sven Mikser noted in his speech a few days ago, it has been made into a nationalistic and political issue (mainly by IRL but also Reform Party), instead of being an issue of education policy. The truth is that for many reasons, the Estonian language skills of many Russian kids, especially those living in the Ida-Virumaa county, are seriously lacking and it cannot necessarily be seen as their own fault and the state needs to come up with a new strategy to ensure that they actually get the proper training before we start to arbitrarily convert Russian-language schools to Estonian. I'd say the current minister of education Jevgeni Ossinovski seems to have a pretty good plan and ideas to accomplish this goal and because of his background also has a way better understanding of what and how needs to be done to get young Russians to speak Estonian well enough to study in our language.

But people living in Estonia must learn how to speak Estonian. It's hard for Estonians who don't speak Russian to get a job. Can you imagine? You can't get a job because you can't speak a foreign language. It just interests me how russian people in Estonia can learn English without any problems at all but when it comes to Estonian language we have huge problems that can't be overcome. I don't know if you noticed but there was (yesterday) an article in newspaper about that SDE politician had to communicate with elite russian school students in english.

I don't think that education policy has failed. They just need to give it more time. If we are going to change education policy every elections there will be no results at all.

[Bandwagon]

Hell no, I'd hate to live in Estonia with their choice of political parties.
I'd probably choose the United Left Party though.

[Teemant]

Hell no, I'd hate to live in Estonia with their choice of political parties.
I'd probably choose the United Left Party though.

Nobody hates Estonia. It's extremely easy to live here.

[Southern Hampshire]

Hell no, I'd hate to live in Estonia with their choice of political parties.
I'd probably choose the United Left Party though.

Nobody hates Estonia. It's extremely easy to live here.

He wants high prices low liberty and no jobs

Let him live in france/russia

[Teemant]

Nobody hates Estonia. It's extremely easy to live here.

He wants high prices low liberty and no jobs

Let him live in france/russia

I wouldn't recommend it even to my worst enemies.

France should absolutely cut taxes though.

[Liberty and Linguistics]

Hell no, I'd hate to live in Estonia with their choice of political parties.
I'd probably choose the United Left Party though.

Generally, I try not to judge the livability of a place based on their political parties. Of course, I suppose you could judge a country on their political parties if the main political party of the nation actively suppresses their people, making the nation a hellhole.

Anyways, Estonia is quite a nice place, with low taxes, high levels of equality, fairly high social mobility, friendly people, and a growing economy. It's too bad the weather is shit.