[weberer]

You're blaming the "current" Finnish government for austerity measures and implicitly removing blame from the previous administration for driving up the debt in the first place. I would just blame "the Finnish government" (over all administrations).

[tovej]

Uh, no. The unemployment is due to this govt. The austerity measures have led to purchasing power dwindling, leading to lowering domestic demand, and changes to unemployment, removing the possibility to do part-time work while on benefits has disincentivized people from becoming employed.

These austerity measures have made the Finnish welfare system more U.S.-like. This is all I'm commenting on. My initial comment did not assign blame, it simply described the situation.

The debt issue is separate from this point, since we're not talking about why these measures were made. But the debt is definitely not due to the previous govt. If you look at the data, the debt has been an issue since 2008 (just as it has been worldwide).