Political Shakeups, Fish Shortages & Bank Profits in Denmark: LWID S1E8

In this episode, hear Journalist Wizzi Magnussen and Founder of Last Week in Denmark, Narcis George Matache, express their joy at getting back in front of the mics after a three week, sickness-induced, hiatus. 

Listen to the duo settle back into the flow with a few off-the-cuff discussions on the below topics:

• Last Week in Denmark Referral campaign: WINNERS WILL BE ANNOUNCED NEXT EPISODE 
• The End of a Multi-Generational Political Dynasty 
• Political Deep Dive - The good, the bad and the darn right frightening aspects of a career in politics 
• Interest Rates & Banking in Denmark  
• Oxygen Shortages Stifling the Supply of Fish

and more...

Produced by Wizmedia.

Transcript Editor: Ioana, https://www.linkedin.com/in/ioana-nechifor/

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🎵 Music,Jack Leatherbarrow @ Wizmedia: https://wiz-media.co.uk/

Transcript

WIZZI: Welcome to the Last Week in Denmark podcast. I'm your host, Wizzy Magnussen, and I'm here with founder of Last Week in Denmark, Narcis, to discuss this week's news and offer you extra insight into what's been happening and how it could affect you. Now,let's jump in. Welcome back to the microphone, Narcis. My goodness, it's been a while, hasn't it? How are you?

NARCIS: Oh my God, almost a month. I'm really happy to hear you again. Right, it's, I think I got so many messages while we were away from, from our listeners. They were wondering what's happening? Have we, is this project over or something? But no, it's, you know, it's just human nature. If, if one of the people in the team doesn't, is not able to, to produce, then I guess we can't produce, so…

WIZZI: Yeah, it's very, it's very heartwarming to hear that people were sending in messages and stuff. That means a lot to me. So thank you anyone to showed concern or were thinking, where on earth is my news for the week? I missed it. It's really nice to have, have that connection with the listeners and have that feedback that, that this is something that you want from us, you know, because we could do this and do this and do this and if we never hear from any listeners, we don't know if there's any point. So, yeah, out to everyone that got in touch. Thank you. I'm still a little bit ill. You can hear my voice is still a little bit scratchy. It's been nearly four weeks now, which has not been fun. And we've been trying, haven't we? But every sort of time we've selected in the last three weeks to record, I've been coughing my guts up again and thinking, I don't think this is gonna work. But we're back. We're back. I'm just about well enough to, o speak to you all again. So what's new in the world of Last Week in Denmark? Do you want to just outline what's been going on for the last. Is it three weeks we've been missing? It probably is. Probably.

NARCIS: Hey, I. To be honest, I kind of lost count lately. There have been so many things happening lately. So I guess we can just look at what's happening today because still almost every week there is, there's a lot of progress in terms of the Last Week in Denmark project. Let's just maybe start with the referral campaign that just ended, well, today. We, we had a, an okay referral campaign. We got 1,000 new subscribers in the last three weeks. Which is, which is nice. It was mainly to be honest, 30% of all those subscribers were brought by four people. We had these champions, Toshali, Tila, Vikram and Makina. So the, the four of them literally brought 30% of all new subscribers, which is fantastic. And they still fighting. I, I need to be able to, to check the, the records and see which of, between, because it's a, it's a fight between the four of them, right? We don't know who will be the top three, who will got the, who will get the big prizes. So it's very curious to the last minute.

WIZZI: I was gonna say is this the announcement episode where we get to announce the winner and say ‘Well done’. But it sounds like we're not quite there yet. Maybe next week's episode.

NARCIS: Yes, we will know next week definitely who will be the winner. We need to also check the, the subscribers. Of course it's a, it's a minimum check. Of course we trust our, our participants that they, they have done properly but just as a basic check to see if everything is okay, and it's all fine. And then we will confirm the leaderboard that is shown because we also have to take in consideration the other leaderboards. Remember the leaderboard you see on the English edition is just for the English edition, but we have four other language editions. So we need to kind of calculate, take that in consideration as well. And then we will have the final combined leaderboard that we will announce next week.

WIZZI: Well, that sounds exciting. I look forward to jumping on the mic next week.

NARCIS: Yeah, I mean that's the referral, everyone that gains some sort of reward level. So if you have recruited 2, 5, 10, 25 people, you will get a mail this week with your reward code from Bloomtree, Bloomtree Technology who have been so kind to sponsor this referral campaign. And you can use the discount level on their website. If you need a new laptop or any other IT tools that you might need, that's definitely the place to go. They're like a young company. They came to the Danish market from the US and it's definitely a company to keep an eye on. But that's kind of the referral campaign that we had. I would say what else is interesting is that we're going to be doing this tour around the country. We starting next weekend actually we're going to be Friday in Aarhus and then Saturday we're going to be in Vejle. And we are not alone. We're going to have expert in rights and opportunities related to EU Adrian Ursu. And then we will have also comedian with us. I don't know, probably you have seen her, Kriti Prajapati.

WIZZI: I have a feeling. I played an open mic night that she was at and she was fantastic. Okay, if it's the same person, very similar name if not the same person. But yeah, if she's the comedian I'm thinking of, she was live, she was amazing. So that's a really good. That's really good to have her on board.

NARCIS: That's fantastic. I heard she made this tour also around the country called Almost Danes. So I guess and she was sold out. So I guess people really are into, into into what she can produce and what she can give. So I'm really hope that I will be able to see all of you there. It's a free event. Anyone can sign up and join. We will have food and drinks as well and a chance to network and see it as a meetup for all the Last Week in Denmark fans. I mean it's, it's one way, one chance for us to actually get to meet each other and say hi.

WIZZI: And is Copenhagen on your tour?

NARCIS: Of course, we have Copenhagen next weekend on the 11th of November we will be in Copenhagen in a big beautiful location, the European Ukrainian hub which is right next to Tax ministry in Nicolai Eigtveds Gade. It's absolutely beautiful location. So if you've never been there, definitely come and check it out. That's your come to our event but also check out the hub. It's a beautiful place and definitely you should come and check it out.

WIZZI: As long as this, as long as this virus doesn't rear its ugly head again and make me poorly again, I'll definitely try and come say hi at that event in Copenhagen.

NARCIS: Fantastic. So did you hear that? If you want to meet Wizzi, that's your chance. Join us. Our event in 11th of November. And yeah, let's say hi to each other. I mean it makes it, we are all like one big family like the internationals here in Denmark. And we slowly gonna start to know each other. We slowly gonna start to know how can we collaborate together. We can create beautiful projects like for example this podcast. And that only can happen if we get to meet each other. Right? Because if we don't know about each other, it's difficult to know what one and another can bring to the table and what could happen if you create some sort of synergies. And that's kind of why we're doing this tour. We're trying to create this local anchors for the international community, where they get out a little bit from their little bubbles. You know, you, you have maybe your ethnic bubble where you meet with people from the same language, same country. Or maybe you have your work bubble or maybe you have your, if you are married with a Dane, you have your Dane bubble because of that. But in general we don't have an international bubble. We used to have it when we had a lot of international students, but you know what happened… So now because they got their…

WIZZI: They got their qualifications and buggered off.

NARCIS: Yeah, I mean the government decided that we were a bit too many internationals and they say, ah, maybe we shouldn't have so many English, yeah, English programs in here. But now they are reversing that. As you, if you read the newsletter, you probably have seen that. So definitely there will be more internationals coming in the future. But I'm talking mainly about our audience, right? 25 to 40. A lot of you have house or have a family. You are not a student anymore. You don't really hang out in those student parties and whatnot. So we also need a place, because I'm also in that age group and that category, and we need to figure out, okay, because there is a, there's a serious danger of loneliness, right, among, among internationals. And we need to create spaces where you can meet people for. It can be for networking, it can be for friendship. It can be literally to make up stuff together, to build up. Because I noticed that when you put together people who are very driven, things can happen. And I think that's what we need in every local level is, if you can, if you can find those 3, 4, 5 people who are very driven, put them together to work together, they will be able to create a space for internationals and anchor there. To be honest, I'm looking at Thisted, in Thisted. We had a similar, let's just say piloting two years ago where we tried to go to a place that's not necessarily full of internationals. And then we found there a couple of internationals and they were so… I tried to encourage them to come together, create an association and see what happens. And two years later they are still there. They are making regular events. They create like a little family between themselves in there on the local level. So it helps to bring people together because you don't know what's going to happen next. And that's why we're doing this tour.

WIZZI: Well, that's how this podcast got developed, isn't it? Because I, I came and interviewed at a different event for media in Denmark. That networking group. We, we, I think we enjoyed it. I enjoyed it. And then lo and behold down the line we kept talking and now we're doing this. So. And I think you make a good point about that age group, sort of 25 to 40ish, being very much in danger of kind of being a bit segregated and a bit lonely, because it does get harder. You're not naturally, you're not naturally among your peers and your age group, so you've got to do a bit more work to find people you connect with. They're not just, they don't just happen to be part of another activity you're doing to either improve your education or your fitness or, you know, you have to, it's a lot of decision making. Where do I go and what do I do and who do I communicate with and how, and how do I actually, you know, feel like I'm part of something? Not to say that other age groups are not in danger of loneliness as well, and we all know as you get older and older and older, it can get even harder. But I think making, making meaningful connections when, as you get older does, does get harder. So I think it's a great, a great idea. Congratulations, Narcis and I will see you on the 11th.

NARCIS: I mean, it's, it's a project for us all. That's, that's what it's important to, to mention is that it's not about me or it's not about Last Week in Denmark or AMIS, the, the, the company behind. It's, it's all about finding those local people who can really bring people together. Because I can only do so much from Aalborg and I can maybe do something in Aalborg, like I have done for, for so many years. You can do something maybe in Copenhagen, but it's impossible. It's humanly impossible for us to take responsibility for the whole country. So that's why we need to find those local leaders. I don't know if should call them leaders, but somehow people have a charisma or a possibility to be able to gather people together, because you need that person who is willing to sacrifice a few weekends with the friends and family, just make sure they give something and they create a space for the international community. That's kind of the point. I want to travel around the country to discover those people, because I know we have them. I'm absolutely certain that in absolutely every little community around the country there is one person that can bring people together. But someone, maybe sometimes you need that, just that little encouragement, right? Someone to come and tell you you can do this. Look, it's possible. It's happened in other places. You can also do it. And that's kind of what I'm looking for. I want to find those local people who can really make stuff happen. But yeah, we will follow the developments in the next week.

WIZZI: It sounds like you're really sort of attempting activism osmosis, aren't you? You're trying to say, okay, here's me being active and being an activist for good, you know, for including. You're making it more inclusive, whatever. And you want that to really sort of ripple out and affect other people and sort of like activism osmosis. Yes. Right. So what is in the headlines this week, Narcis?

NARCIS: Well, you know, the, the whole week has been kind of dominated by, by one big topic. And that is related to the fact that our vice prime minister who came back for, for three months, Jakob Ellemann-Jensen, he kind of decided on Monday actually to simply say, I'm stopping in politics completely. So no more vice prime minister, no more leader of Venstre, which is the Liberal Party in Denmark. No more nothing from that moment on. He just wants to go home, spend time with his family. I heard he's going to become a father soon, but he just doesn't want to do politics anymore. He feels like he has reached probably a limit. And that's, that's the end. And that's the end actually for, for a big political family. It's a dynasty that's. It's basically ending in Danish politics because it started with his grand grandfather. He was elected in ‘64, I think, in the. In the Danish Parliament. Then his father was also elected in the Danish Parliament and actually became the leader of the Liberal Party. And then his sister got elected in the, in the Parliament, in the Danish Parliament. But his sister now left like a couple of years ago because she became the Secretary general of the Nordic Council of Ministers. So still in a very important position, but out of Danish politics. And now him, right? He, he's also the leader of the Liberal Party and was the leader of the leader party now. It was for, since 2019. Also elected in the, in the Parliament, of course. And it was prime minister. Hope, hopeful. Like, his father tried to become prime minister. He unfortunately. Well, yeah, he didn't succeed. Now he wanted to become prime minister as well. He didn't succeed. So I guess it's kind of like a family that tried really hard to get into Danish politics. But yeah, there can only be one prime minister at a time. And there can only be so many prime ministers, right? So, sometimes some dreams are not fulfilled because that was their family dream since grandfather. One day someone from their family will be prime minister.

WIZZI: I wonder if their dream has sort of altered. And now the last one that tried, you know, the family has thought actually, is that the right dream to have? Do I… Do I need that dream? Or is my dream to be with my family and enjoy my time here? You know, perhaps it was a change of priorities. But I think we can, we can definitely thank that particular family for their service, can't we? Because they obviously all tried very hard and worked very hard.

NARCIS: Yes, they. They definitely been like, like a part of, of Danish politics for, for so long. And they dedicated so many years together collectively, all of them towards servicing the people of Denmark. So definitely we should thank them for, for their service and for, for being, for so long surviving in politics. Because politics, you have to understand, it's, it's a, it's a very difficult field to be in. It's not… I know many people imagine that it's an easy place where, you know, if you're lucky enough, you make lots of money without working much. That's completely not true. I'm coming from politics. I've been there for, for a couple of years. You need to be used to, forget about making money. And you need to figure out how can you make it work so you still have a family. Even though you work insane amount of hours. Like, it's like, do you have this 8 to 5 job? You're lucky, okay? You have to be grateful.

WIZZI: And you’re always going to come up against conflict, aren’t you? Every single policy you have, every single idea you have, not 100% of people are going to say, are going to back you on that. See, I think you've got to be quite thick skinned, haven't you? Yeah, I wouldn't survive politics, no way. And I'm always on the fence about absolutely everything. I don't know if I even have opinions because I'm always listening to both sides and trying to come up with my own conclusion. And then I think, I don't know enough about this so I'm gonna go and play guitar for a while instead. You know, think I'm, I don't think I'm built for politics.

NARCIS: You have the luxury for that. But yeah, when you go into politics, you need to be able to accept that people will get angry, accept that people come to you and criticize you and say hurtful things to you. It, it's part of the job. You have to understand you cannot please everyone. You'll be able to maybe make some people happy, but you cannot make everyone happy. So that means some people will get very, very angry at you and they will blame you for everything that's happening around society. And that's, that's kind of the, the, the, let's say, the emotional load that politicians have to take upon themselves. It's not an easy job. Very few people choose to go in this direction. And the problem is that many times, here you have to understand there is people who truly believe in politics, They're very driven and passionate, but when they actually have to be in that role, they burn out very quickly because they're, they are not built to survive. You know, you need to be a bit psychotic to, to be able to kind of cut down, right? Like, okay, he's saying bad things to me, I don't feel anything. He's saying bad things to me, I don't feel anything. So simply I had to do that because I even got myself like letters, right? Threatening letters. I will kill you one day. Okay, try your best, I guess. what can I say? Makes life more interesting. To be honest, I also had the chance to be kind of hurt because I remember first time when I got elected, some person came to me on the street and said to me, you know what? I made sure to tell all my friends to not vote for you. I was trying so hard to not get you elected. I'm a bit angry now that you got elected. But just keep this in mind. I will always be there to make sure it's very difficult for you to get elected,so…

WIZZI: See, in my life, if somebody, if I smile at someone in the street and they don't smile back, a complete stranger. I don't know why they haven't smiled back. It's probably nothing personal. I take it personally. I get really upset. Why don't they like me? So yeah, me and politics are definitely not, not in the same world.

NARCIS: But it's fine. I mean it's not meant for everyone and it's just about finding those people who are willing to take this, this sacrifice and they have the mental capacity because it's about the mental strength to be honest. It's all in your mind. If your mind is strong enough to, to protect you against any sort of, let's just say traumatic experiences that you might have to go through, then you're fine. You'll be able to survive many years in politics. But unfortunately the social media, the, the now people are more involved, they care more what's happening in politics and they talk more and they react more, sometimes a bit in weird ways. You know, sometimes they take, make a doll out of the Prime Minister and decide to burn in the street because why the hell not? Freedom of speech, they call it.

WIZZI: I call it being a complete…mhm

NARCIS: Yeah, exactly. I mean, I mean there has to be some limits. But I think while politicians in the past could have easier time, today's, they're much more scrutinized, way more. There's way more journalists, way more media that's covering them, way more concerned citizens that are using the tools that they have at their disposal. It's much more difficult. So that's why actually we are noticing a relative decrease of people who are actually interested to join politics. The youth parties, which usually are like schools for future politicians, are literally empty. Young people don't, they're afraid of, of taking this, this step forward. And that's bad because at some point someone needs to lead us. He cannot be like, oh, there is no politician good for us. Well, it's not really good for us because someone needs to do this, someone needs to take on this. So we need to find a way. How can we somehow reform the way a politician reformed the idea of a politician so that that job still exists 10 years from now? Because if we go in this direction, nobody will want to do it. It's no reward with a lot of pain. It's not worth it.

WIZZI: I wonder if a key, a key element is certainly the absolute explosion of self publishing. You know, we are all, we can all be seen online now. Anyone. You don't have to have a degree in journalism, you don't have to know the code of journalistic ethics in order to write something about anything you like, and anyone can see it. It's quite a circus, really, because it used to be that if it was published, you could be pretty sure whoever's written that fact checked had relevant sources. Because otherwise, if you talk about just the big, big national papers when that was all there was, that would have to be backupable. You would have to be able to show your sources, show where your data came from. And you would be in so much trouble if you broke the code of ethics or if you published incorrect information or if you misled your readers. You know, apart from. There's. There's slight nuances with different papers for different political parties, but I'm not going into that. But one huge problem is now it's just not censored, it's not controlled, it's not contained. And maybe that's great for freedom of speech and everything, but it does mean that anybody that gets an ounce of notoriety is suddenly, you know, up against the bad side of celebrity, you know, where you can be criticized, scrutinized, had a go at, death threats, everything. And anyone who doesn't know anything about you can just decide to treat you like that online. It makes online a very dangerous place, I think.

NARCIS: Yeah.

WIZZI: One reason why it does, I mean.

NARCIS: But I don't want to. I don't want to kind of discourage people to, to go into politics. There's different levels of politics, and local politics, luckily, are not just, it's not the same level of stress. So, guys, remember, you have the right to go into Danish politics regardless if you are citizens or not. You can use that right and go definitely into local politics. It's a great place to practice, to see how it is and to impact directly your, your daily life. Here we're talking more. Once you go a little bit out of local politics, right, you go on the regional level, you go on the national level, European level. We have European elections next year. So I'm talking here more of a, of a large, larger size of politics. On the local politics. It's. It's still okay. Of course, it's not perfect, but it's still okay. So don't, don't take it wrongly. This is not a discouragement. I really want to encourage you guys to go into local politics. That's one way we as internationals can represent our own rights, our own agenda in here and, and defend our place in society. Because, you know, Danish society is built in such way that whoever organizes, whoever represents, gets a voice and gets, let's say, to sit at the table where decisions are made. While if you are not doing that, if you are not there, then we have to depend at the mercy of others to mention us. And we shouldn't be at the mercy of others.

WIZZI: And in the spirit of balanced reporting. This isn't reporting, this is a discussion. But in the interest, balance the plus side of all the negatives I just brought up about social media and self publishing and everybody has a voice. ,the good bit is everybody does have avoice. You can make a difference. And you don't, it's a lot easier. There's a much sort of simpler vehicle for success and for getting your voice heard and reaching the right people that do agree with your politics and making your way. Those, those social media tools can also be very beneficial if you have good intentions and you want to get your voice heard. So. Yeah. So moving on, Narcis, let's call that our deep dive segment, shall we? Because we kind of went with the flow on that one. But would you like to introduce whatelse is what the other headlines say this week?

NARCIS: Remember when we talked about the blasphemy law that they try to stop people from burning, you know, religious books in front of the, of the embassies? Well, the law, obviously it's in a process. There can, it can still be amended, the draft, before it passes. So the law hasn't passed yet. It's still in the process of being amended. So there had been made some changes to it. It's no longer about all objects for religious importance. It's only about writings of religious importance and it's only for religions that are, let's just say, recognized in Denmark. It cannot be now any sort of religion or anyone who says this is now my religion. So it has to be. It's about more specific, a lot more precise. And the police union actually is very happy for that because now they have an easier job to actually stop people from doing it. Because okay, that's writing. This is the religions that are accepted. You shouldn't be right burning that thing, point. You know, it makes it easier in a way. And that's, that's something that you can read in the newsletter. You can also read about the fact that, you know, we, I don't know if you have read the previous editions of Last Week in Denmark, where we talked about the fact that there is an oxygen depletion in, in the coastal waters. Simply there's no, fish are dying and a lot of fishermen are complaining, saying that they cannot catch the same or almost nothing compared to the previous years. And now there is all sorts of initiatives coming from various political parties, groups of political parties, because it's common in Denmark for different political parties to work together and make common proposals. And I think the biggest, let's say, showdown in that direction will be with agriculture. It will be the biggest discussion how do we make agriculture to be less polluting and how do we make them really to transition towards the green, towards the future, basically. And, and here also I would like to mention, you have to understand another reason why Jakob Ellemann, the leader of the Liberal Party, has resigned was because of the discussion, should we have a carbon tax on agriculture? And he was willing to accept that, even though the Liberal Party of Denmark has been created by farmers, farmers represent their traditional voters. So there was a huge infight inside the party because of that, as you can imagine. And I think that's kind of going to continue with, with the, with the new leader. So it's going to be interesting to see, because right now agriculture is being very protective of their own interest and they will do that. And, but at the same time, there's just so many reports that are not going in their direction. So it should be interesting to follow the developments here.

WIZZI: So the effects of the lack of oxygen and the lack of fish and stuff, do you believe or will that, or has that caused an increase in price of fish?

NARCIS: Yeah, definitely. I mean, we have, we are experiencing more or less a shortage of fish on the global market. So you probably should have seen an increase in the price of fish. Yes, of course. And talking about prices, let's talk about interest rates. Right? The banks are making so much money. If you have a lot of money in your deposit account, let's just say in your bank account, your bank is actually using those money to make more money. And are you wondering, do you get anything out of it? Because when they, let's say you have a hundred thousand kronas, they will, they usually keep that money at the National Bank of Denmark. They get 3.6% interest rate. So that means they make 3.6 on your 100,000 kronas, while they give you what? Some cases, if you're lucky, they might give you 1%, some cases they might give you nothing. You really need to look at your bank. And if they're not, if you have, let's say, a sensible amount of money, 100,000, for example, which is not uncommon for most of us in Denmark, if you have that kind of money, you have to look, okay, which bank can give me the most by keeping my money there? Because a lot of banks right now are using this opportunity to get very rich. You'll see that Danske Bank, Nordea and and all the banks are reporting incredible profits this year. Incredible. And even the Ministry of Business is actually encouraging citizens to call the banks and be like, please raise your interest rate for my deposits or I'm moving away. And he's actually encouraged them to do consider moving away. There are 60 banks in Denmark and now it's just about finding the one that's willing to, let's just say, share part of the gold with the customers. No bank will give you 3.6. They will want to keep some of that money. But I don't know. I would move to a bank who would give me 2%. That's also unrealistic. I haven't heard of anyone who is willing to give 2%. But the point is, we as customers need to push a little bit the banks. First it was the energy companies who made bank, right? Now it's the banks who, who are getting riches as hell. Also on us, because they are making money from the National Bank because they are using our money. They're making money when they give us money because we have to pay incredibly higher, because they have two choices. They either keep the money at the National Bank or they lend it to us at, at interest rates higher than 3.6%, obviously. Otherwise they have no reason to give you the money. It's much safer keeping them on the deposit. So to, to take that risk, that gamble, they just give it to you for 5%, 7% or that kind of interest rates. And then they also have all these hidden fees, for God's sake. Because they complained that for years there was a negative interest, so they couldn't make any money from deposits. Fair enough. And they had those huge extra fees. But now what's happening? Like, okay, now you're making money from three different directions, at least. You have to let go somewhere. Either give more to the people or reduce all those hidden charges or do something because people's trust in banks will just go down. If you're willing to rip us off in this way. I just definitely say, take a look at your’.. don't be complacent about this. If you have any sort of money on your bank account, try to see, okay, how can I leverage this in my favor. And the banks, I think are gonna start fighting. There has to be a competition. There's 60 banks now. It's a chance for smaller banks to be like, time to get some of those customers that Nordea has. 

WIZZI: Now, I must say, coming from the UK, which is not known for fabulous banking and very generous banking systems anyway, but coming from there, it's been a shock how many fees there are involved in for me in running a business, you know, and a lot of that is bank fees because I have, you know, multiple accounts and for business and for personal and a joint one with my husband and stuff like that. And it's just, it all costs so much money. So just having money costs you a lot of money here. So I think, yeah, the idea that if we as individuals start putting pressure on them, and I guess it sounds sad, it shouldn't come to this, it should all be fair and, you know, but if we do put pressure on them, start threatening to leave. I mean, it's the same with insurance, isn't it? If you, if you get a renewal quote for your car insurance, I think a lot of people are aware now you do not accept next year's renewal quote without phoning them because when you phone the company, they'll probably take a third off at least if you threaten to change your insurance provider.

NARCIS: Oh, my God, I didn't know that. It's interesting tip. So that's definitely another thing. But what you should know is that it's not that difficult to change banks. They might make it sound difficult, they might be like, oh, but there was a 12,000 kronas change fee. I mean, yes, please check your contract, see what you signed. Unfortunately, sometimes we sign stuff that we're not aware of.

WIZZI: Yeah, the devil's in the detail.

NARCIS: Yes, but definitely check it because it might be easier than you expect to change your bank. It is normally very easy to change your bank and you should use that in your favor. And I'm a bit annoyed here because this works great for people who have money, but for people who, for example, like me, who rented my loan money for a house or something, this really sucks for us because we are kind of trapped with the bank that we are right now. They are making hell of a lot of money. Like my, my payments have increased significantly this year just for the sake of us not spending more. I understand the concept to keep inflation down, we need to spend less money. But it's a bit annoying to me to see that the people like us who have lent money have less money and less and less. And people who have any sort of money but maybe no loans, they make more money now. So literally, whoever is kind of rich gets richer. And us, who are poor because we had to lend money, we are getting more poorer. It's really an annoying system that's kind of, we use the poor to alleviate the inflation. So next time you go to the store and like, oh, the prices have come back to normal, be thankful to the poor people because they are the ones who paid for you to have cheaper bread.

WIZZI: I think the interesting thing is, and I don't know if it's always been the case, but certainly in my experience and what I've learned in history and stuff like that, money makes money. It's hard to make money when you have nothing. When you have money, it's a lot easier to make more out of it because money is such a, such a high valued thing, you know, it's not even a thing, it's not even a commodity. It's just money. But money makes money, which is not, it's not a good thing, is it? You know, But I mean, here we could go right into, into the, the benefits and drawbacks of capitalism here, couldn't we? And we could be talking all day.

NARCIS: That's a whole different discussion. I'm just a bit. I just, I just want us to at least acknowledge the situation that it's, it's the inflation goes down because poor people spend less money. It's just, that's how it is because you, if you have money when there's an inflation, you were happy because you make more money just by having money on your account, or at least you should. The fact that the banks, the Danish banks are keeping you from making any money, then you should definitely use this chance to be like, guys, you, I know you're making money now just because I keep 100,000 crowns on my account. Please share that with me a little bit. Half. Let's do it. 50. 50.

WIZZI: Let's do a deal. Maybe we should all be approaching the massive banks like that. Find a, find somebody who works there that you get on quite well with, become quite friendly and quite familiar with them and then say, right, I got a deal for you. I will give you this much to keep in my pot that you may use if you give me and just do personal deals, I'm sure. I mean, if you're brave enough to try, please let us know how that goes. We'll get you on this podcast, we'll interview you and see if it's a possibility.

NARCIS: I mean, that's what I love about Denmark, right? It's in Denmark is all about standing up and voicing what you have to say, right? It's such a beautiful society in that way that, that if people organize and then put pressure on whatever happens out there, things can happen, right? That's exactly what the Minister of Business said. Guys, it's in your power. There are 60 banks. Make them compete. Literally, make them compete.

WIZZI: Thank you all for tuning in today. We hope you found this podcast informative, interesting and of value. Narcis, thank you for your time. It's been lovely to catch up and I must say it's made me feel a bit better. When I woke up this morning, I thought, can I handle this? But actually doing some activity when you feel just about well enough can make you feel alive again. We'll be back next week on your favorite podcast platform. Just search Last Week in Denmark. Thank you very much for listening and goodbye for now.