Jarpie

If we're going for british manager, Rodgers is probably best choice even if he is David Brent-like. I find british managers to be too inflexible and with exception of SAF they seem to have the glass ceiling at 'top-midtable'. Personally I'd go for experienced but relatively young-ish foreign manager who has a good grasp of english language.

I'm glad we (probably) have progressively thinking new owner, the football clubs can't be run like they were ran in the past. I've followed both premier league and NHL for years, and I have noticed difference between how the teams are run in both, and I have to say that english football clubs could learn thing or two from the north american teams...or franchises as they're called in there. I know the culture is different, but in today's world you have to run the clubs in much more "business"-like fashion, and PR should go much further than just your own fans or the england/UK. Just making AVTV free would be a decent start, nowdays making video service where you show highlights, interviews etc subscription based is IMO hindering your own visibility. I might be wrong, but AFAIK all NHL teams own video-sections are free, even the highlights. Any potential new fans who comes to see the website first goes to see the video section, and the highlights and other videos. I know it costs to produce the videos but the potential PR benefit would make it worh the cost IMO, and I hope they'll revamp Villa's website too, as it looks a bit too "busy" and not eyecatching. This takeover would be incredible opportunity to get publicity and PR, and I imagine that's why Dr. Xia is doing all those interviews, you gotta make it a big thing to get into the news and create a positive wibe around it. The new progressive take on the club and getting a good wibe makes it easier to attract new sponsors and partners around, which is not easy as we'll be playing in the championship next season, but you use what you can. When Atlanta Thrashers moved to Winnipeg, and brought back "my team" in NHL, Winnipeg Jets, they (IIRC) made it into the big thing, and created a good buzz about it.

Villa Park is a very well known across the globe with football fans, people even in Finland knows it, so renaming it completely would be ill-advised. On the other hand, the world has changed, so renaming it to something like Lotus Villa Park would be very logical.

Yeah, I like people who are suitably blowhard-y and/or blustery, who can match it with actions (or money). Time will tell.

In before: "He's just saying those things to please the fans!"

Like I wrote in the another forum, I'd be interested to see what Bernd Schuster would manage to achieve, he certainly wouldn't be boring as he is, afaik, madman.

IT'S FINALLY OVER! For myself, I welcome our new chinese overlords. Before I start worrying, I'm enjoying being rid of Lerner before it's time worry.

isn't that nowdays case in the most clubs that it's committee who chooses which players to buy? This shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone.

Not calling MON out on his horrendous transfer policy and wasting fortunes of money is inexcusable.

If we get Garde then I'm happy, we've had way too many limited and too rigid british managers. One of the big flaws I see lookinh from the outside of britain is the rigid way of thinking by british managers/coaches and inability to react in changes in the game/league. At least continental manager has a chance to bring something new and new kind of thinking. IMO it's obvious when watching what's been going on in the premier league in the last 10 years that british managers just doesn't work anymore so if that's not working then it's time to try something new.

Most of the retired players will defend retired player who's gone into management/coaching because they are "one of them" and feel kinship with them. It's only "natural" thing to do and I wouldn't expect anything else and I'm pleasantly surprised that Murphy is saying otherwise.

If we're to replace Sherwood I think it needs to be continental manager, british/scottish/irish managers have imo shown that they cant cut it. We need to try something new, not to do the same stale shit all over again, british managers are tactically too limited imo.

Ah, sorry, I misunderstood then. I can agree with that. I don't think it's naive to appeal to people's better natures. And we need trade. It can be done ethically or cynically. As you know, it's all a matter of how the rubber meets the road. China practices some forms of capitalism, and it's become an oligarchic dictatorship. There's an ugly side to capitalism in Scandinavia, too, a place often hailed for its social state. The USA is the world's whipping boy for its supposed untrammeled capitalism, but we actually have an enormous social state, too. As many people in the States get pensions of some sort as the entire population of Britain. Wasn't Brum a place where the Quaker experiment in business was quite successful? What's the ugly side of capitalism in scandinavia? One of the flaws in Finland is that our laws and bureocracy doesn't support the risk-taking, I think that supporting the right kind of risk-taking the state would incite starting new kinds of enterprises, which in my opinion would be very important in the long run for economy as you never know where the next big success comes from, for example I doubt anyone would've believed in the 80s that mobile phones would become such a huge thing when Nokia ventured into that business. Yes and no, if you naively expect just anyone to be good natured and honest you will get exploited by assholes, as I believe that most people are selfish, stupid and/or assholes. Also I wouldn't trust anyone to be fair toward their employees, even though most employers probably are good ones, that's why I think it's important that we have reasonable laws and regulations to keep them in check. When it comes to social security etc, as I think I said before, I like most of it, but the benefit-system have had adverse effects too. Our unemployment benefit system has caused more low paying jobs to become much less valued and respected than they were 20-30 years ago, for example we have lack of nurses in at least parts of the country because youths are not going for it. I've heard youths saying that "Why would I go to study to become nurse when I can get half of the salary as benefits anyway?" and they go to study something else, so I do think that if we wouldn't had the benefits then people would still go for those kind of professions, I'm not sure which would've been better though.

As far as I know that kind of jobs have been largely eliminated with the automation, and I don't think anyone would say that kind of job would be rewarding. Far from it. Every ready meal or sandwich you eat has been assembled by hand by a line of people wearing hairnets and standing in a freezing warehouse. Same as the people who spend their day picking grocery orders for all those delivery vans you see on the streets. They definitely do not go home and enthuse about how fulfilling and satisfying it was, they moan because the gaffer has reduced the time they have to do a task, or is deliberately running with a person short. Hmh, every time I've seen footage from finnish food manufacturers, those have been very much automated where they don't have people manually putting the food etc together and packing them, maybe it's different where you live. So you think that every employer is an asshole who's exploiting their workers? Have you ever ran your own business? My father did and he employed 2-3 people and it's a very tough work to run your own (small) business, and he certainly "didn't take the piss" of his employees, and that goes to every entrepreneur I've known, although I've known mostly small or mid-sized business owners who are more "hands on" than many of the biggest ones, sure some of the people owning businesses can be assholes or who exploit people who don't know better, but not all, are the most? I doubt it. What would you propose instead? Surely not communism as we saw how well that worked in the soviet union, china and eastern europe. Do I think that unchecked and unregulated capitalism is good? Of course not, there needs to be laws and regulations to make sure that businesses does things properly, takes care of their employees and keeps the work places safe etc. We have very strong unions in finland, so that helps to keep things in check, and deal with the problems with the employers if needed. Part of the reason why I'd want getting rid of the 'problem'-workers would be easier in Finland is that our economy is in the shitter, partly because companies are afraid of investing as it can even ruin their business if they hire wrong people. It's not the only thing what should be done but one of actions what should be taken. Our export-business is in shambles because producing stuff is way too expensive in finland compared to the quality they can produce, so the customers go elsewhere, so another action should be making it cheaper to hire people, as it's expensive in Finland. Either we increase our income (as in investments and taxes from the companies and people they hire) or we'll cut the public sector, and that's mostly public sector salaries, social security and welfare etc, and I'd rather increase the income than make cuts.

In which case we have a problem because being a 'hard worker' does not necessarily mean that one is a 'good worker' or that one does a good job or is efficient or as productive as possible (or just more productive than previously, i.e. with an improving productivity) and so on. Edit: I don't think it's just a language/translation issue either as your comments appear to confirm that you are equating effort with output. The person who answers 150 calls per day at the call centre is not necessarily either a harder or better worker than the one who answers 50; the person who 'works through lunch' is not necessarily the harder or better worker than the one who makes sure that they take their lunch break - often it's quite the opposite; the person working 50 hours a week isn't necessarily a harder or better worker than the person working 35 hours in the week; the people who go out for a fag break are not necessarily slackers skiving off for five minutes every hour or two, and so on... Yeah, I know this as I worked in helpdesk for six long (and sometimes excruciating) years, and I don't equate that effort = output, for example my intake for calls wasn't in the highest tier, but my boss saw from the statistics (as they can gather statics for everything) that those customers who called me didn't mostly have to call us back as I handled their case/call as well that it got dealt with. I was just saying that in here hard worker has become to mean the same as good worker, not the other way around. Yeah, shitty employer can create really shitty work environment so people aren't motivated, or that there's something wrong in the company. My boss in the helpdesk was fortunately very good one in that he knew how to read the statistics and saw that some of those who got very high intakes for calls caused the customers to call again as they didn't do their job properly, so some of them actually cost the company more than me (they had calculated how much one call cost on average). On the other hand there were some bosses who just looked at the pure numbers and bitched to their underlings that they have to take more calls. In the helpdesk I saw some people becoming much more lazier and losing their motivation to do the work well when they got from the fixed-time/temp contracts to the permanent one, even though there was nothing wrong in the workplace, as they knew that they'll have the comfy job for a long time as without reduction negotiations they won't get fired without getting many warnings and what not, and if they did, they could then improve a bit again to make it look like they give a shit. I'd say about 30% of people were like that, give or take 5%, and based on what I've asked in another professions, the percentage is about the same. Edit: Derp, typo, meant 20%.

As far as I know that kind of jobs have been largely eliminated with the automation, and I don't think anyone would say that kind of job would be rewarding. How is "producing surplus value for the capitlist" alienating? if someone is working for a somekind of manufacturing plant and is doing a "proper" job and not just pushing cherries into the cakes, such as refining the wood into the boards for new houses to be built, or for other uses, like my friend was doing, it brings the company profit, and they'll (potentially) use that profit to invest into the new manufacturing plants and thus they create more jobs for more people to do. What if someone starts their own bakery, and they'd start to get enough demand that they'd have to hire more people to bake the cakes, and invest into bigger facilities etc...when should the bakery artificially stiffle their crowth that they wouldn't become "alienting"? Sorry if I misunderstood you. I'm curious...what do you do for the living? would be interesting to know that I can understand where you come from and would understand better your viewpoint.

Hard work is hard work; efficiency is efficiency. Hard work can be very useful, it can also be pointless and, on occasions, it can be utterly counter-productive. It seems that there's a bit of difference on the meaning of the word, as at least with the people I know in here means that people does the work well, efficiently and/or hard when they talk about people/employees being industrious and/or hard working, in here "hard working" seems to be synonym for "good worker". The point I was trying to make is that they would need to be more productive and industrious, for the lack of better term, if they would know that they'd get more easily fired if they'd be lazy. Some people needs a bit of carrot, and some people requires a bit of stick. Certain players in Aston Villa comes to mind Good example of this is my local phone company, who's employees are notorious for being utterly inefficient, lazy and doesn't care for shit, one of my friends was there for a summer job couple years or so back, and he worked with the technicians who installs DSLs etc for customers, fixes the faulty connections and so on. They had backlog worth of three-four weeks of orders to be installed, and it took them 30-60 mins to make one installation; as they got to work at 8am they went to install two, and by that time the clock was usually between 9:15am and 9:45am, and the guy would say "Our coffee break is in 15-45 mins, let's go and wait for it", so they'd go to sit in the local gas station and read the paper, and after the coffee break is over they'd go again to install couple more and the clock would be 11:15-11:45, "Our lunchbreak is at noon, let's go wait for it" and again sit for another 15-45 mins and so on, so they'd install six or so subscriptions, instead of the possible dozen or so because they knew they don't have to because it wasn't worth the hassle for the company to try to get rid of them and try to hire new ones. Not only that, they didn't even check if the connection would work, so some customers would have to call the phone company that it's not working...and again wait for the technicians to fix it. Last time I had to move I ordered the transfer/switch to the new address well in advance because I knew that otherwise I'd have to wait for weeks...as some people I know had to wait for four weeks. Who lost in this? the customers of course who would have to wait for their DSLs for up to four weeks, five they didn't do it properly.

I haven't got the time to respond to your lengthy post in full at the moment (or perhaps I can't be arsed right now ) but I will just pick up on what you say in the above quote. You've slightly got the wrong gist of what I was saying in the line that you highlighted. It wasn't to say that an employer (or many or all employers) may or may not value a work ethic but that the discussion (about overall employment/social security/the future of employment and so on) doesn't benefit from that kind of talk and the implicit corollary that those who are out of the workplace don't have that ethic (and thus deserve to be where they are) and those that are in the workplace do (and thus deserve to be where they are). I am quite concerned that people so obviously conflate hard work with efficiency with doing a better job and diligence with industriousness - they're huge mistakes to make in my experience and opinion and perhaps these conflations have something to do with productivity problems in western economies (obviously there are many other factors there, too). I'll try to be brief as well. What else is hard work then if not effiency, doing a better job, diligence and/or industriousness, or vice versa? During my lifetime as I've been on this rock I have noticed in myself, and in the others that when you work to get something, be it saving money from salary to buy something, or doing something, for example, being as simple as go to fish to catch your food once in a while, it feels better to get it and you appreciate what you get more, than just to get it without an effort. As I said in another part of my message is that I don't think that all of those who don't have a job aren't hard working, or doesn't want to work, but I do think there are people like that, but to what extent? That'd be interesting to know, but it's very hard to measure into statistics, unfortunately. Like I said, as it's almost impossible to get rid of the unmotivated and unproductive employee without months long "fight" (so to speak), which can potentially cost a lot to the smaller businesses and cripple them, they'd rather not hire anyone unless absolutely needed than take the risk which can cost them a lot of money. The employees knows that they don't have to put as much effort as needed because they're very hard to get rid of, so some will become unmotivated and unproductive. I and others have seen this happen in the work places, and it has slowly crept into the finnish (work) culture, and those parents will teach their children the same and so on. I don't know about british employment laws so I can't say if it's the same in there. Part of the problem is obviously, at least in finland, that employee will cost 30-40% more per month to the employer than what their salary is due what they need to pay to the state, such as portion to the retirement funds, social security costs etc, and it obviously will make it more expensive to produce what the company is producing, be it service, physical products etc, and the world isn't getting any less globalized, and as we've seen the larger companies will go to the countries where it's cheaper to produce the goods, and move the jobs out of the europe/north america.

There are always, have always been and will always be people who 'don't have any initiative, common sense and are utterly clueless how to function in society'. (I guess I'm one) Sure, but the people I know who works with the kids, teens and young adults have told me that the amount of the people who are utterly clueless how to function in real, adult life has been steadily increasing for about 15 years, and they do say that they've seen the shift in the parenting styles from the previous generations, as nowdays many more parents are for "the free upbringing" where they think that they should let their kids to "form their own personality" and "value system", instead of "imposing" their own, I know there are people who will disagree with me but based on what I've heard and seen, it'll create more people like I described above than with more "old fashioned" methods, although there's of course much more than what makes a person than just upbringing by parents but it's a huge part of it. Yeah, of course not. One of the big problems in the finnish job market is that the jobs and the people don't meet; jobs are offered to the people who don't want to work, and those who want to work, won't get hired. One of the problems (at least in finnish) in society (for the lack of better word) is that the valuation or respect for more traditional jobs have lowered, so people don't go for them as much as before even if there'd be need for them, such as nurses in hospitals etc. Part of the blame is in the current benefit system where people don't value the more low paying jobs as much as before because they see that the benefits are "too close" to the salary they'd be getting after taxes, so it doesn't "pay" to go for them, it's not of course only reason but part of it. I have to disagree with this vehemently, I think proper work ethic where working hard, no matter what the job is, will be much more important than before in the future when the job markets will widen even more toward the asia, and possibly to middle-east, south america and africa where they will a] work cheaper and b] work harder, so europeans need to keep up with the competition, also don't forget that they will still need at least couple people to fix those machines, and there's yet another place where the good work ethic comes into the question; they'll hire/keep those who are the most competent; working hard and doing good job is part of it. When the employer can choose who to lay off from group of the workers, guess who will they choose, those who work hard, are more efficient and does better job, or those who aren't as diligent/industrious and are sloppy? Take your example, analyst, the good work ethic also comes into this; the employer is looking at their analysts and how good job they do, and they decide to replace third of their workforce, guess who's gonna be the first ones to go; those with good work ethic (dilligent, effective, hard-working) or those who are sloppy, slow and inefficient? When the time comes and people who don't have a good work ethic and are sloppy are laid off, and they start to complain that they were laid off or replaced, should maybe consider "Gee, maybe I should've done better job or worked harder" instead of blaming others or just the company, sure people might get fired because their boss just doesn't like their face or personality, but being sloppy or lazy doesn't certainly help in that situation either. I don't like it anymore than the rest when companies lays off people just to get better bonuses for the bosses, which I find abhorrent but the cold hard reality is still the same; they'll keep those who think will bring the most value for the buck. Good and hard-working workers will bring in more money for the company -> company has more money to invest -> investing money will create more jobs -> more people in work means more taxes -> taxes can be used to take care of those who are unable to work, better healthcare etc so I don't see why people, in this forum too, are (seemingly) against of good work ethic (Edit: if I've misinteprepted someone, correct me)? I know that's very simplified example and things don't always work like that but that's how economy in the simplest terms works. Maybe it's lack of my understanding english but I've always thought that welfare and social security are the same thing? When it comes to welfare or social security I do like most things about it, such as cheap healthcare, free education (which I think works great at least here in Finland as everyone who's good enough will have the same opportunities to go as far as they can and don't have to pay for tuitions, no matter how wealthy they are), taking care of the elderly, mentally- and physically handicapped etc. One of the big problems in Finland, combined with the (unemployment) benefits is that because it's almost impossible to get rid of the unproducrive and/or "problem" employees, the companies are very reluctant to hire new ones as then they'll be stuck with the very expensive ones who will just lose them money. This I think will also prevent the companies from growing, as they don't want to get the risk investing money to hire workers who would be operating at loss for the company, and who they can't get rid of.

I agree and I think Eames does, too - which was why he probably posted what he did questioning what may have been seen as a much too simplistic 'solution' when you posted they should've put the stop for the whole migration when it started. I did say that they should've figured out some other way to solve it, although, tbf, I should've said that by they I meant the decision makers. One possibility what they could've done is to form military force/unit combined with the humanitarian aid from the european nations and taken it to where the migrants are and taken care of them there, process the applications for the assylum there and then prioritize those who needs it the most. That isn't without its own problems but I think that, or something similar would have been better solution than "Let's let everyone who wants in and then figure out what we're gonna do with them". As I think that most of the politicians are imbecilles, crooks or at best (or worst) case, both, I don't really have any confidence in european politicians to plan for anything or solve anything before they've been caught with their pants down in the ankles, and given my experience with the finnish politicians, they're too afraid to do anything pro-actively as they think it's better to not to do anything, than get blamed for it if something goes wrong.

It would appear that the 'Us vs Them' mentality is very easy to slip in to. Good point, could've chosen my words better, but I meant those people who are the most passionate about letting all the migrants in without a hesitation or second thoughts, and yes, there are those people too. The retards who are "HURR DURR ALL MIGRANTS ARE TERRARISTS!", or who harass the volunteers who wants to help the people arriving aren't helping the situation either. This is complicated issue and it isn't black and white, and the reality is that many of them will end up being exploited, for example, by the organized crime.

How do you suggest that "they" (whoever "they" are) should have stopped migration when it started? Build a wall around Syria? Tell all the people fleeing the **** the West created that they should stay in Syria/Iraq and get murdered/raped etc by ISIS and just deal with it because hey - Finland ain't the promised land? They as in people who makes the big decisions in EU and/or in the european nations, maybe close the borders and process people in there to decide who's actually refugee and who's not? Someone told me (I haven't checked it yet how true it is) that EU could've potentially solved this in 2009 when the dublin agreement was made - according to the person who told me this, there was another proposition for letting the people apply for refugee status in the embassies, for example in finland/germany/UK/etc embassies in Turkey could process the applications in there and then let them fly to their country, but for some reason this was rejected. Don't put words into my mouth keyboard, I just said that they should've figured out some other way to solve the mass migration and refugeeing than just to open borders and let them wander freely, when the first signs of people trying desperately to get into europe by boats started to show some months ago, they should've started to plan something as it should've been clear to everyone with a functioning braincells that when the word spreads that they can get into the europe (relatively) freely, more and more people will start to come, which will then create multitude of problems. Is something wrong with the way I write, or is everyone set into "Us vs Them"-mentality so much that if I don't say that everyone should be let into europe (or finland) freely and welcomed with open arms without any hesitation, or questioning that has this been thought through, I'm then obviously one of those bastards who wants to leave people to be killed and tortured? Either you're very naive, or you misunderstood what I wrote on purpose. Do you know how how utterly **** ruthless organized crime is? I didn't mean that the migrants/refugees will start to randomly commit crimes, but that those migrants who have loaned the money from the organized crime and can't pay back will be forced to do crimes for them to pay back the "loan", and the huge interests they'll charge. You think that they'll just let the migrants pay the loan back? Hell no, the way loansharks for organized crime works is that the loan isn't even meant to be paid back, as they can then exploit the desperate people as long as they can use them, and not to talk about their family members, such as their wives, daughters and sisters for prostitution or sell them as slaves, for example. Finland has gotten some thousands of people in the past couple weeks, and if the finnish organized crime investigators are right that 40-50% of them have loand money from the organized crime, then the criminal organizations have gotten hundreds if not thousands of exploitable people to work for their organizations in here. You think those people can ever pay their loans back, which are in the several thousands of euros, plus the very high interests they charge on purpose so that the amount of the loan will multiply. Why is it so hard for people who are so gung-ho about taking migrants to think about the effects it'll have, not only the logistical nightmare to find places to sleep for the arrivals, but to feed thounsands of people when they arrive to the reception centers, but also to the migrants as well? Something like this is a **** goldmine to the organized crime, who will then exploit them, but also that they've potentially sold everything they've owned or taken huge loans when people in middle-east and also in europe have told them that they're gonna get everything they've dreamed about, and when they arrive they find out the rugged reality; they're gonna be put into the quickly constructed improvised reception centre where they're getting bland meal and that europe is very expensive, as the iraqis had found out about the finland when they arrived. Many of the iraqis who have arrived to finland wants to go back because this isn't what they were promised, after wasting thousands of dollars to come here.

There's been newsitems in YLE's (Equivalent of BBC) site that Iraqis are telling other iraqis in facebook not to come to finland because "life is ordinary" in here, and basically that Finland isn't "the promised land", I get that desperate people might try desperate things, but did they really believe the lies they've been fed about that europe is basically "the promised land", and that they'll get everything instantly they get in here? If they think Finland isn't anything special now, they should wait till the winter when especially up in the north the temperature goes to about -15c...-25c. There also was newsitems that about half of the people who's come to finland in the past 3-4 weeks have loaned the money for the trip from organized crime loansharks, and obviously, when they can't pay back they'll use unsavoury ways to get what they own...plus interests naturally. It'll just create more crime, both in middle-east and in europe as the organized crime from middle-east and east europe will spread to the europe (and to Finland too), and they'll create more crime in here, as the migrants will then resolt getting the money to pay back their debt with illegal activities if they can't get work. Just one more reason why they should've put the stop for the whole migration when it started, and found another way to solve the mess instead of letting everyone in and even encouraging desperate people to come to the europe with high-minded promises. It really looks like that only people who have (and will) really benefitted from all of this is the organized crime, people smugglers and ISIS who takes their cut from the smugglers.

Bacuna, our saviour coming on. *trollface*

The problem is that everyone thinks this is only true about someone else. There are decent and genuinely nice people out there but, there are many thoughtless, selfish dumb people for one of the before-mentioned nice people. It is impossible to know how good or bad we actually are as a species. But the best way to improve your view of humanity is to stop consuming the distorted vision offered by the media of the world. You know why media is as rotten as it is? Because A] people buys into their sensationalistic shit and B] media is filled with unscrupulous rocket polishers who are ready to exploit anything they can find to feed the people's need for inane bullshit about gossip and/or misery. Tabloids etc wouldn't exist unless there'd be demand for them.