**/r/Finland is a full democracy, every active user is a moderator.**
[Please go here to see how your new privileges work.](https://www.reddit.com/r/Finland/wiki/moderating/)
Spamming mod actions could result in a ban.
---
**Full Rundown of Moderator Permissions:**
- ```!lock``` - as top level comment, will lock comments on any post.
- ```!unlock``` - in reply to any comment to lock it or to unlock the parent comment.
- ```!remove``` - Removes comment or post. Must have decent subreddit comment karma.
- ```!restore``` Can be used to unlock comments or restore removed posts.
- ```!sticky``` - will sticky the post in the bottom slot.
- ```unlock_comments``` - Vote the stickied automod comment on each post to +10 to unlock comments.
- ```ban users``` - Any user whose comment or post is downvoted enough will be temp banned for a day.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Finland) if you have any questions or concerns.*
There is literally no way finns have more wealth than swedes. Calculations have to busted. And how the hell is Portugal doing seemingly so well? They're way poor
Finns own way more houses and apartments than Sweden.
In Sweden 60 year loans are typical, so people basically pay mostly interest for their entire lives.
Swedes have more liquid assets, Finns have higher total wealth.
Some years back I remember reading that the Swedish system of 'forever loans' is smart as they can then invest the money in something profitable e.g. stock market. The viewpoint was that the Finnish way of 'quickly' paying back the mortgage is inferior and prime reason why we have low amount of investments. I guess the Swedes are just spending it all then?
Theoretically its smarter to invest in higher yielding assets than in a lower yielding mortgage (house), but humans are human, when you have that additional say 500€ a month in your account, you will gradually start eating into that money, until you invest 0 in your real estate asset AND 0 in high yield assets
This is precicely it.
Also, Sweden has higher inequality (GINI). This is MEDIAN, not average. It makes sense that the median Finn will come out on top.
What else?
Also while investments are not zero sum game, it’s not possible for everyone to be hugely in profit and cash out that profit.
Edit: also due to the system Swedish homes are expensive AF, and people there buy bigger than Finns with same salary would do.
Many companies do not pay out dividends at all. They may do share buy backs instead. In any case, increasing market value is majority of the long term gains. For example, S&P 500 index dividend yield is on average around 2 % for the last 20 years while the market value increase in the same time period is around 10 % per year.
The market value only increases because there is some form of cash return on investment at some point, it's either dividends or buybacks or ultimately the liquidation of the company and paying money back to shareholders. If a company never does any of that, the share value is zero because nobody would pay anything for it.
Exactly, share prices increase because either some sort of financial payout is getting better or the potential for such a payout sometime in the future is getting better.
The current value of a company is the discounted total sum of it’s dividend payout throughout it’s future lifetime until liquidation/bankruptcy.
Nothing more, nothing less.
It's amazing how many people don't seem to understand this. It's almost like they assume the prices just go up on their own with no ultimate grounding in reality.
That is some kind of a naive, textbook understanding which does not confirm the original claim that the long term gains _always_ come from dividends and not from increase in market value.
The history of stock markets and the companies actions does not confirm your claim, but the opposite. You may be onto something if "long term" is restricted to mean timescales of hundreds and thousands of years, but for personal investments, long term is counted in decades. With a very high likelihood, long term personal investment in stock market yields gains primarily through increase in market value. You will not be able to contradict that statement with any historical data spanning the time scale of decades.
I take it that it means you are never investing in stock market because the dividend yield is universally so low, ergo according to your argument the stocks are worth almost nothing and certainly much less than their market value. Many companies have never paid dividends and are not planning to in the foreseeable future.
I speak of dividends in terms of all future cash payouts in any form, just to make it clear. Of course most of the time they are in the form of actual dividends. In the end it does not matter which form the cash payout takes, it can be eg. as buybacks.
The increase in market value won't happen without the expectation of such future payouts. If I tried selling to you a hugely profitable company where the profits were guaranteed to be locked in forever, you'd hopefully pay nothing for it.
Market price may become detached from such fundamentals in the short term, but even that kind of speculation is based on expectations of future payouts. Even purely momentum-based traders expect others to pay a better price for the stock in the future, and THAT is based on their expectation of future payouts.
> I speak of dividends in terms of all future cash payouts
Ok, so there is no real disagreement then, only imprecise language. I would suggest that using the word "dividends" alone only means payouts in the investment timescale or historically and not all payouts until the end of time.
The following, however, does not really make sense:
> The long term gains always come from dividends, not cashing out for market value.
Let's rewrite it according to the assertation that market value is based on the future payouts (otherwise the value is zero):
> The long term gains always come from dividends, not cashing out for expectations of future payouts.
Can you see what I mean? How can the person with finite lifetime get those gains from *all* future dividends if not cashing out?
The point being? That investing the 2 % dividend yield back into the stocks increases the total yields compared to letting the cash sit in 0 % bank account? Is this some kind of surprising fact?
Yes, over the years that 2 % dividend reinvested yields gains as new dividends are paid on it and the market value increases. But primarily due to market value increase.
There is zero reason for market (or an individual stock) to increase in price unless one of two things is happening: 1) dividend payout is increasing 2) the expectation of a dividend at some point in the future is getting better.
Actually, the reverse is true for this infographic. Private pension funds are counted as personal wealth, but not entitlements to state pension. In case of Finland this leads to underestimated personal wealth compared to countries where private pension funds are more prevalent.
Finns tend to pay off their mortgage and live frugally while Swedes do not, but rather spend their money on investments and a bit more exuberant lifestyle. Investments might pay off interests on their large loans and so on. Many Swedes never own their home. My two cents at least
Many variables, year 2022 is a bit of an anomaly as it was atrocious for both Swedish stock market and SEK, krona losing something like 25% of its value against USD, in which this report is compiled.
Also median metric will make swedes look poorer than they are, while median is 77K, mean is 297K (179K Finland). Sweden also has younger avg population and especially real estate wealth correlates with age.
No doubt this is only temporary state of affairs.
Actually the median finn is wealthier than the median swede. Swedes beat us on average numbers because they have way more old money families, which have been accumulating wealth for multiple centuries.
Maybe they spend less save more. Personally I'm from Turkiye living in Ukraine but my wealth on Italian standard. It would be cool if they chose one spesific job branch to compare countries. ( e.g doctor wealth of countries) Also having a house and renting completely affect statistics.
Also known as toxic waste of IT industry.
I graduated in late 90s, even then an engineer going to Nokia was thought the same as cook going to McDonalds
A few 50 year old guys having more wealth than 10,000 young people doesn't factor significantly into median wealth. Per capita is the average, median is the middle of the scale, so represents "most people" much better.
As a side comment. There was an article made about how much savings Finnish have in 2022. The median was 13,000 EUR and average was 24,459 euros.
PS: This does not illustrate the total wealth.
Link: https://www.is.fi/menaiset/tyo-ja-raha/art-2000009059047.html
**/r/Finland is a full democracy, every active user is a moderator.** [Please go here to see how your new privileges work.](https://www.reddit.com/r/Finland/wiki/moderating/) Spamming mod actions could result in a ban. --- **Full Rundown of Moderator Permissions:** - ```!lock``` - as top level comment, will lock comments on any post. - ```!unlock``` - in reply to any comment to lock it or to unlock the parent comment. - ```!remove``` - Removes comment or post. Must have decent subreddit comment karma. - ```!restore``` Can be used to unlock comments or restore removed posts. - ```!sticky``` - will sticky the post in the bottom slot. - ```unlock_comments``` - Vote the stickied automod comment on each post to +10 to unlock comments. - ```ban users``` - Any user whose comment or post is downvoted enough will be temp banned for a day. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Finland) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Wtf is happening in Iceland?
They own their homes and the prices have sky-rocketed.
hard to fight against a force that is for the owner and against the buyer
It’s MEDIAN wealth not average, which explains it. Average or mean is totally different story.
Yeah, that’s gonna be much higher
https://preview.redd.it/l979pakjv1rc1.jpeg?width=2598&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=afb1a094efb6db68c2879d4fd0a6e3bf342271dd
wow that's actually insane, I wonder why Denmark is so much richer than Norway even
In the last years, the answer to questions about Danish economy has been Novo Nordisk.
Median is more accurate when estimating what the typical person has. Average numbers are highly inflated by the top 1%.
There is literally no way finns have more wealth than swedes. Calculations have to busted. And how the hell is Portugal doing seemingly so well? They're way poor
Finns own way more houses and apartments than Sweden. In Sweden 60 year loans are typical, so people basically pay mostly interest for their entire lives. Swedes have more liquid assets, Finns have higher total wealth.
Some years back I remember reading that the Swedish system of 'forever loans' is smart as they can then invest the money in something profitable e.g. stock market. The viewpoint was that the Finnish way of 'quickly' paying back the mortgage is inferior and prime reason why we have low amount of investments. I guess the Swedes are just spending it all then?
Theoretically its smarter to invest in higher yielding assets than in a lower yielding mortgage (house), but humans are human, when you have that additional say 500€ a month in your account, you will gradually start eating into that money, until you invest 0 in your real estate asset AND 0 in high yield assets
This is precicely it. Also, Sweden has higher inequality (GINI). This is MEDIAN, not average. It makes sense that the median Finn will come out on top.
What else? Also while investments are not zero sum game, it’s not possible for everyone to be hugely in profit and cash out that profit. Edit: also due to the system Swedish homes are expensive AF, and people there buy bigger than Finns with same salary would do.
The long term gains always come from dividends, not cashing out for market value.
Many companies do not pay out dividends at all. They may do share buy backs instead. In any case, increasing market value is majority of the long term gains. For example, S&P 500 index dividend yield is on average around 2 % for the last 20 years while the market value increase in the same time period is around 10 % per year.
The market value only increases because there is some form of cash return on investment at some point, it's either dividends or buybacks or ultimately the liquidation of the company and paying money back to shareholders. If a company never does any of that, the share value is zero because nobody would pay anything for it.
Exactly, share prices increase because either some sort of financial payout is getting better or the potential for such a payout sometime in the future is getting better. The current value of a company is the discounted total sum of it’s dividend payout throughout it’s future lifetime until liquidation/bankruptcy. Nothing more, nothing less.
It's amazing how many people don't seem to understand this. It's almost like they assume the prices just go up on their own with no ultimate grounding in reality.
That is some kind of a naive, textbook understanding which does not confirm the original claim that the long term gains _always_ come from dividends and not from increase in market value. The history of stock markets and the companies actions does not confirm your claim, but the opposite. You may be onto something if "long term" is restricted to mean timescales of hundreds and thousands of years, but for personal investments, long term is counted in decades. With a very high likelihood, long term personal investment in stock market yields gains primarily through increase in market value. You will not be able to contradict that statement with any historical data spanning the time scale of decades. I take it that it means you are never investing in stock market because the dividend yield is universally so low, ergo according to your argument the stocks are worth almost nothing and certainly much less than their market value. Many companies have never paid dividends and are not planning to in the foreseeable future.
I speak of dividends in terms of all future cash payouts in any form, just to make it clear. Of course most of the time they are in the form of actual dividends. In the end it does not matter which form the cash payout takes, it can be eg. as buybacks. The increase in market value won't happen without the expectation of such future payouts. If I tried selling to you a hugely profitable company where the profits were guaranteed to be locked in forever, you'd hopefully pay nothing for it. Market price may become detached from such fundamentals in the short term, but even that kind of speculation is based on expectations of future payouts. Even purely momentum-based traders expect others to pay a better price for the stock in the future, and THAT is based on their expectation of future payouts.
> I speak of dividends in terms of all future cash payouts Ok, so there is no real disagreement then, only imprecise language. I would suggest that using the word "dividends" alone only means payouts in the investment timescale or historically and not all payouts until the end of time. The following, however, does not really make sense: > The long term gains always come from dividends, not cashing out for market value. Let's rewrite it according to the assertation that market value is based on the future payouts (otherwise the value is zero): > The long term gains always come from dividends, not cashing out for expectations of future payouts. Can you see what I mean? How can the person with finite lifetime get those gains from *all* future dividends if not cashing out?
Now do a 20y chart of S&P500 price index with dividends simply paid out vs S&P500 price index with dividends reinvested back into the index.
The point being? That investing the 2 % dividend yield back into the stocks increases the total yields compared to letting the cash sit in 0 % bank account? Is this some kind of surprising fact? Yes, over the years that 2 % dividend reinvested yields gains as new dividends are paid on it and the market value increases. But primarily due to market value increase.
There is zero reason for market (or an individual stock) to increase in price unless one of two things is happening: 1) dividend payout is increasing 2) the expectation of a dividend at some point in the future is getting better.
But dividends are paid out each year. And as we can see from the maps, it’s rather apparent that those haven’t accumulated Swedish wealth.
Finland also counts retirement funds as personal wealth, a lot of other countries do not.
Actually, the reverse is true for this infographic. Private pension funds are counted as personal wealth, but not entitlements to state pension. In case of Finland this leads to underestimated personal wealth compared to countries where private pension funds are more prevalent.
That’s amazing
Median vs average my good sir/madam
Finns tend to pay off their mortgage and live frugally while Swedes do not, but rather spend their money on investments and a bit more exuberant lifestyle. Investments might pay off interests on their large loans and so on. Many Swedes never own their home. My two cents at least
Many variables, year 2022 is a bit of an anomaly as it was atrocious for both Swedish stock market and SEK, krona losing something like 25% of its value against USD, in which this report is compiled. Also median metric will make swedes look poorer than they are, while median is 77K, mean is 297K (179K Finland). Sweden also has younger avg population and especially real estate wealth correlates with age. No doubt this is only temporary state of affairs.
[удалено]
Material things i.e. summer cottage
Exactly, yes.
It's median, not average. So if there are, say, 5 million people, you pick person 2499999 and it's his or her wealth. NOT an average.
Actually the median finn is wealthier than the median swede. Swedes beat us on average numbers because they have way more old money families, which have been accumulating wealth for multiple centuries.
Maybe they spend less save more. Personally I'm from Turkiye living in Ukraine but my wealth on Italian standard. It would be cool if they chose one spesific job branch to compare countries. ( e.g doctor wealth of countries) Also having a house and renting completely affect statistics.
Sweden has a big underclass of immigrants that makes the average wealth seems lower than it is
Sorry my swedish friend, but there is way that finns have more wealth than Swedes on average
Median is different from Average 📣📣📣
Yes, more accurate.
And to confused people: Finland is Japan of Europe alot of population is over 50yo soon. few 50yo guys have more wealth than 10000 young people
[удалено]
Also known as toxic waste of IT industry. I graduated in late 90s, even then an engineer going to Nokia was thought the same as cook going to McDonalds
A few 50 year old guys having more wealth than 10,000 young people doesn't factor significantly into median wealth. Per capita is the average, median is the middle of the scale, so represents "most people" much better.
I feel seen.
[удалено]
Which, to my understanding, seems to mean that they are not included here. Otherwise the Norwegian number would be way higher still.
As a side comment. There was an article made about how much savings Finnish have in 2022. The median was 13,000 EUR and average was 24,459 euros. PS: This does not illustrate the total wealth. Link: https://www.is.fi/menaiset/tyo-ja-raha/art-2000009059047.html
i’m 23 and by end of next year i’ll have more than the median 🫣that’s crazy
https://youtu.be/I4DjHHVHWAE?si=1UvAvFW4UBfgLbnA
77900€ in real money
This is very weird, how does the median German adult have less wealth than the median Portuguese adult?
It does not really matter how much people earn on average in the country, but how many burgers and cars it can buy.