Just found this community and decided to revive this a bit. A weekly topic about the books you have been reading would be a good way to do so.

I have been reading a book made by Sanna Kajander-Ruuth, "Laman lapset – mitä meille tapahtui?" ("The children of depression – what happened to us?") The early 1990s depression in Finland followed the 1980s period of economic boom, finance sector deregulation and "casino economy". Bubbles began to grow in markets, stocks and real estates, and many people exploited easily approved loans to get very rich quickly on paper by exploiting them.

All bubbles burst, and things started to get really grim in the early 90s. A huge devaluation happened, the Soviet Union collapsed, and it had represented 15–20% of Finnish foreign trade. The Finnish mark became really weak. What happened then? Investments and consumption falling, companies got bankrupt, people got under debts, unemployment rose to new highs.

As the book's title suggests, the depression hit especially young people hard. Parents arguing, mental health problems, alcoholism, possibly domestic violence, not getting enough food, being left on their own devices... many children possibly got to experience these kinds of problems. Especially children born in 1987 have been extensively studied; every fourth child has either a record in court, fines or crime; every fifth child has mental health problems; every sixth child has no education after primary school.

The consequences of the early 1990s depression still echo today, but looking at our current right-wing government with their Thatcher-style austerity policies, I feel that the very same mistakes have been done again.