Surveillance, Subsidies & Weight Loss Drugs in Denmark: LWID S1E9

In this episode, hear Journalist, Wizzi Magnussen, and Founder of Last Week in Denmark, Narcis George Matache, present this week's newsletter headlines and deep dive into some of the below topics:

• CCTV 
• Privacy vs safety 
• Healthcare in Denmark 
• Taxes 
• Freedom 
• Inflation vs deflation 
• Sustainable purchasing 

and more...

Produced by Wizmedia.

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

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Transcript

WIZZI: Welcome to the Last Week in Denmark podcast. I'm your host, Wizzi 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. It's been…we've had another break, haven't we? How are you today?

NARCIS: Well, you know, I just, I just came from Copenhagen yesterday. Well, last night actually. Well, no, this morning at 3 in the morning, I arrived home from Copenhagen because you probably have seen, you already have heard, but we're doing this tour around the country and yesterday was the Copenhagen stop. We were at your home base and, and it was a blast, I must say. A lot of people showed up. We had an amazing musician and accordionist who really knew how to entertain the people. And we saw that there is, there are people who are willing to, to join and who are willing to, you know, organize themselves because there's so much more we could do as internationals in Denmark if we learn to play by the Danish rules, which is to organize ourselves. And that's kind of the message we are, we are sending around the country right now. And I'm really happy that I still have a bit of energy left so that we can record this podcast. And I'm happy you are back, slowly. I know you've been hit by a terrible sickness, but slowly, slowly, we’re getting back to having this podcast running on a regular basis.

WIZZI: Gradually, gradually getting there. Yeah. Three types of antibiotics for over a week now. Still struggling a bit. So I'm very sorry I didn't make it yesterday. I thought getting this podcast recorded was probably the priority today. So I was conserving my limited energy yesterday, but I'm glad to hear it went really well. Yeah. So what's new in the world of Last Week in Denmark, apart from yesterday's event?

NARCIS: Well, I just want to say that we are continuing our tour and next week you should definitely check out Thisted in Thisted. There are already 27 people have showed, have signed up. So we're expecting quite of an amazing evening event in there. And also we will be in our home base in Aalborg. So to all listeners from Aalborg, you are definitely invited. On event 18th of November 3 to 6, we will have local musicians. You'll be able to win movie tickets and many other prizes. You'll be able to meet fellow subscribers and people from our Last Week in Denmark family, get yourself some really, really cool Last Week in Denmark merch. So I mean, is there any reason to say no to it? I mean, what better way to spend a Saturday afternoon than talking about what, what your rights and opportunities are in Denmark? Because you know, just to share a little thing. In my twenties I managed to see almost half of the world without spending any money from my pocket. And if you're interested how that can happen, you should definitely come and join the event. It's a, it's an information that I can only share with the people who show up at our events during the tour. So that's, that's one reason to come. I mean, how amazing will it be for you to learn how you can travel around the world without having to spend your own money? What do you think?

WIZZI: That does sound good. But I mean you could become a freelance travel journalist.

NARCIS: Pretty much. Oh goodness. But besides the, the events that we have now, we, we have a lot of new articles on the website. Long form articles because you know, besides the email that we sent to you every, every Sunday, now we also have long form articles, like if evergreen content that's not based on the news, that is on our website on lwid.dk and there's quite a few interesting ones actually. There's one about learning Danish but from a com, from a very interesting perspective. I mean it's definitely an article you should read right now. There is a guide about how you should negotiate your salary in Denmark. There's even a guide for non-Europeans because we keep hearing that we have a bit too much of a focus on Europeans only. But we actually, or where, where we can, we try as much as possible to also create content for non-Europeans, because this is a newsletter for internationals, this is a podcast for internationals. So wherever is possible we will definitely try to address both sides and you will see that reflected in, in the content that we, that we produce.

WIZZI: That sounds fantastic. So what are the newsletter headlines for this week?

NARCIS: I mean if you give me a chance to look at the, the newsletter because you know, I came at 3 in the morning last night so I cannot remember what is interesting. But luckily on Friday evening after the amazing event in Odense, I had a chance to sit down and write the news. So let's see what's in there.

WIZZI: Whilst you gather that, I'm just going to tell the listeners. It's quite funny. This morning we're on camera talking to each other and I think Narcis looks as pale and tired as I feel. So it's good listeners can only hear our raspy voices today because neither of us are on particularly good form. But we're still here and showing up counts.

NARCIS: That's, that's, that's what's important. Right? We have to have this consistency that regardless if it's raining or snowing outside, if you're on a hospital bed or I don't know, dead, dead hangover after a very long night. We're still here to talk to you about the news of the week. And maybe talking now about parties and whatnot, I think first thing we should mention was that there is a lot of new measures that have been approved in terms of criminalities and gang criminality. But there are also some measures within that package that kind of raise some questions about privacy. Because for example, you know that restaurants and shops have these cameras that also point outwards and until the other day it was 30 meters furthest that they could film. But now they want to allow them to film 100 meters.

WIZZI: That's a big difference.

NARCIS: It is, it is three times the, the, the, the, all the direction. So basically they'll be able to film the entire sidewalk, the entire road and probably the other sidewalk as well. If I'm not wrong. If you think about it, how long is a, is a road right from every direction. They want to do this because they were able to, to find some missing children thanks to, thanks to the TV surveillance. But also means that you probably should be more careful when you walk around, around restaurants and shops and think nobody sees you. Everybody sees you. 

WIZZI: They watch…[laughing]

NARCIS: Yes. I mean you come from UK, I guess CCTV is just a normal thing for you, but…

WIZZI: Yeah, in the UK I think they got to a point where in London there was only. I'm not going to say any figures because I can't remember the actual statistics, but there was a tiny amount of London, like in meter squared where you are not on camera. It’s complete…, and I think I lived, I lived in the most CCTV rife town in the UK. You literally can't go anywhere without being on camera. So…

NARCIS: You, you experienced this for a couple of years. I mean, CCTV in Denmark is fairly new. Even the being allowed to film 30 meters was like not even five years ago. So I'm just wondering how, how is it to live in a CCTV city because I mean, is there criminality? Did it feel like it has dropped? Are people more careful about throwing trash on the street or... I don't know?

WIZZI: Well, in England, compared to Denmark, no, it's trashy. It's very trashy. And the problem is I think everybody sort of got used to it and sort of desensitized to it. So it doesn't really stop. I don't think it really stops criminals. I don't think it stops trash. I don't think it stops a lot really. Because the trouble is it's down to the police to investigate this footage and find the appropriate camera. And if it's a minor crime, if it's something they don't have time or budget to put into solving, yes, they might have all the evidence, but they're not actually going to use it. So it's kind of over the top. It's kind of, there's a camera here to deter crime, but if it doesn't deter crime, I'm not sure how much the CCTV gathered is actually used to bring criminals to justice. But it's interesting in Denmark I, I didn’t actually know that there was less CCTV here. So I've been going about my business just assuming I'm being filmed everywhere.

NARCIS: It's like a fair assumption. But now, from now on I guess we all should think because 100 meters from both sides of the street literally means every corner is filmed. Unless of course you have areas with literally no restaurants or shops, because private people cannot still, by the way, guys, cannot put cameras out there and film your neighbors or your street. That's still very much illegal.

WIZZI: So yeah, it was interesting. In the UK I had one of those ring doorbells. I got given it by my in laws and we put it on our, on our front door and on my phone I could see my entire kind of little community through the camera on my doorbell. And I started thinking, I’m not sure this is. I'm not sure this is okay. I shouldn't be able to see into the neighbor’s window. And sure enough, I kind of looked it up and there's been a lot, there had been… this is a couple of years ago, before I moved here, quite a lot of legal situations and people suing each other because they filmed each other without permission. Because of these doorbells. We stopped using it. We just thought, this is. This is not okay. I'm gonna stop using this. So, you know, it was great because you could see who's at your door and blah, blah, blah. But it did reach too far and become illegal. So it's good to note that that is also illegal here.

NARCIS: Yeah, I mean, it's. It's common sense. Like you, you, first of all, it is the GDPR European law that says that you cannot film another person without permission, though there is excuses for it. Of course. That's the reason why restaurants or shops are allowed. But there are special rules about how they can handle all that film. It's it. That's why they cannot allow private people to do it because they're just simply too much regulation and it's difficult to enforce of how you handle the film because you literally can film anyone. And I mean, you can use these days for AI purposes data. Right? And you can do pretty much anything you want with it. So it's, it's a. 

WIZZI: I think that's a good point, actually. The increase in technology and the scope of technological capabilities is growing so exponentially that this is only going to become more and more important to protect people's privacy because of AI, because of voice mimicking, because of being able to make an AI version of any face you've seen and make it do something you want and then produce that. And it's just getting worse. So it's important to have this legislation.

NARCIS: Absolutely. And also if we are to think about it, I mean, it's a discussion here. It's, it's privacy versus safety, right? Because they, all these films have also helped a lot. And in Denmark, every time a child is missing, the entire country is looking, which I like, to be honest. And so these films can also be used in a very positive way. But also, people, you should be aware that from now on, police is also allowed to be dressed as civilians and they can do wiretapping. So if you're a suspect or anything, and if you see like a strange black van outside, that's certainly someone listening to your phones.

WIZZI: Way to increase paranoia amongst our listeners. Only the naughty ones. If you're well behaved, you'll be fine.

NARCIS: Exactly. If you're doing something a bit suspicious, just look out for black vans or I don't know what, what will the… Ah, if you see an ice cream van suspectly just moving around your house way too many times in a week. Yeah. It's not because they like your area or because they sell too much.

WIZZI: In the winter. [laughing] Watch out for those wintery ice cream vans, people. They're probably watching.

NARCIS: Exactly. No, but yeah, that was, that was one of the things. 44 measures against grand gang criminality. And to be honest, there's a lot of, a lot of, to be honest, landmark decisions for Denmark. I feel like Denmark is moving towards more, well, more powers to the police and more harsh punishments. So now it really has become a lot worse to be violent in Denmark. It has become terrible to try to recruit people into gangs. It's illegal now, actually was. I'm surprised it was legal to begin with, but it seems now it's illegal so. And only minors.

WIZZI: So what's the penalty if you, if you decided I'm gonna. I'm gonna recruit someone into a gang. You get caught by an ice cream truck who's been listening to your phone.

NARCIS: Exactly.

WIZZI: What's, what's the penalty for recruiting a gang member?

NARCIS: I have no idea. But I think what I’ve seen is when you say that something is illegal, it's, it's from five years up. So… But, but there's just so many small asterisk points that can make a punishment lower- two, three years, six months, good behavior, whatever. And then it can also be that you do something on a very large scale. Let's say you recruited 10,000 minors in five different cities in Denmark. Well then the scale of the punishment will also change, because in Denmark we have this idea of spirit of the law, not necessarily the letter of the law. So the judges are allowed to consider punishment based on the actual impact on society. Which is yeah, quite interesting to, to think about. And because we have the spirit of the law in Denmark is that anything can be challenged or questioned. So for example, if you guys apply for citizenship and you fulfil only 8 out of 9 things, you can write a nice motivation letter for the ninth thing. Why couldn't you fulfil it? Why is you have a good reason for it and then they have a little committee where they have to decide can we allow this person with only 8 out of 9 things to become a citizen? Because it, it's not, it's, it's again, it's spirit of the law. If that citizens show that they really belong to, to, to Denmark, they cannot stop them from becoming citizens just because they couldn’t fulfill one restriction. So you just keep that in mind that in Denmark, things can be sometimes solved with a motivation letter. Get very well at writing motivation letters, I guess.

WIZZI: The more episodes we do, the more the sort of theme of negotiation comes up and the power of individuals with good negotiation skills. This seems to be coming up more and more in the show and I want, and it's something I'm noticing more and more the work I'm doing and stuff. Here in Denmark, there is much more of an attitude, particularly compared to the UK, of kind of sort yourself out, you know, do as much as you can yourself. And the rules are not so black and white and rigid, although in some ways they are. You know, if you're caught breaking the rules, like for example on train systems, there's no barriers to get in and out with a ticket, which there are everywhere in England, or most places in England, you have to have a ticket to get in and out. Whereas here I feel there’s more of a kind of you’re trusted to behave. And if you don't behave, the punishments are quite severe. So it's quite a big fine if you get caught by one of the hop on, hop off guards. You can't get out of a fine if you haven't got the right ticket, you know, but there is more of an attitude of we're gonna sort of trust you until you give us a reason not to trust you. And you, you have, you have, it's, it's kind of empowering individuals into what they can achieve for themselves through their own work. You know, I quite like that. You know what I'm trying to say?

NARCIS: Yeah, I know. It's, it's. We have. I mean, Denmark is a society built upon freedom, trust and freedom. But we talk about trust a lot. Everyone mentions trust in every direction, but very few people think about the freedom part. Denmark is a very free country. People, many, the way they build certain measures, the way they organize certain things in society, have to take in consideration how free the people are in that situation. So if you compare it with Sweden or Norway, you'll feel a huge difference. Exactly because of that. Because Denmark is built upon the, the value of freedom. And people here want to feel free and, and, and, and for the state always has been very difficult to impose control or to show control. Like you said, those barriers that kind of look a bit ugly to be honest, in my, in my opinion, and it feels strange.

WIZZI: And slow everything down and cause humongous cues and an absolute stress ball of anxiety when you're trying to get through the barriers at tube stations at rush hour in England, you know, that's just so stressful. Whereas here a lot of things are engineered to not make you feel you are closed in, to not make you feel you are being controlled. Watched all the rest. It's refreshing. I certainly feel much freer here than I did in England.

NARCIS: Yeah, and, and, and in, I mean, I think even the healthcare in, in Denmark is, is, is based a bit in more, more freedom. That's why it's a bit less inquisitive. So let's say unless you really have a very good reason for them to, to look into your situation, they will not start poking around, just because, you know?

WIZZI: That’s so true. My experience recently with all my, my various diseases right now, I went to the doctor one time, I went to the doctor and I got quite upset this time and I said, is there anything you can give me to just help with either the pain or the anxiety that's coming with it or the tiredness? And he said, what would you suggest? And I was like, what? What do you mean, what would I suggest? You're the doctor. I thought, because in UK it's kind of, you know, you doctor, cap doctors, you're very respectful. Their word is the be all and end. Whereas here again you're asked to kind of what your opinion on your health is, which is only correct because we still know so little about the way our bodies, minds work that actually it has to be. I think we are more knowledgeable on what will work for us than any doctor, we've, we've not had a very long relationship with, you know, so I get where they're coming from. But it was, it was quite a shock for it to be thrown back at me and I was like, I don't know. But yeah.

NARCIS: I mean, you have to, to also look at the trends for, for, for the future here. The, the whole discussion in Denmark in the last five, six years in healthcare, at least in innovation, has been about personalized medicine and personalized treatment. Because it has been proven many, again and again that what we have created as treatments, what we have created as medicine works for the majority of the population. It never works for every person that is, and that's with that exact symptoms because, because of our DNA constructs, right, or we, we, it's impossible for one medicine to be good for all of us. So that's why in personalized medicine if they do your… a DNA scan and they will see exactly what medicine works, what, what medicine doesn't work for you, it would be easier for them to, to give you a personalized treatment. Of course this is, this is the, the ideal future, right now to get yourself a DNA scan is half a million kronas. So we are not there yet, but this is the direction, is that we go towards more and more from a generic style of treatment. Trial and error, because this is what it is. It's a, because it's generic is trial and error towards more of a more targeted personalized medicine where they will know already. Okay, we can see based on the DNA code that paracetamol doesn't work for this person. So we need to try something else. Let's see what the DNA code responds well to. I think it's amazing. I was, when I was in the regional council I was very invested in getting the, the regional council to invest more money into this initiative because they are pouring very little money into it. It's like, like 5, 6, 10 million kronas a year for research of this magnitude. It's too little.

WIZZI: Absolutely. Who's funding the research currently?

NARCIS: The regional governments. The, the, the, the five regional governments are putting money into this because the state doesn't really have a direct focus on healthcare because healthcare is a competency on the regional level. So that's why. But anyway, enough about freedom and healthcare. Let's see what else we can find in the, in the newsletter. Oh, you probably have seen that a lot of people were discussing this this week about taxes, right? Have you seen anything about taxes this week? 

WIZZI: No. 

NARCIS: No, that's fine, that's fine. I mean, it's just everyone has been started to talk oh there's, there's coming now higher deductions so we can keep more of our salary. People who have very high salaries, they were very happy because now they have to pay less top tax and so on. Well, we have to keep one thing in mind first of all, the, the tax reform, it's still under negotiations, it's not completed.

WIZZI: So don't crack out the champagne yet.

NARCIS: No, well, yeah, the, there is still like 500 million kronas to be decided how they will be spent. That's like the negotiation reserve, let's just call it between the parties. And it will be rolled out in the next six years. So it will not be rolled out all at once from 1st of January next year. It's, it's gonna be slow increases over the next seven years because they are spending money. Because you know when they have to stop you from paying too much, you pay less. That means they have to take the money from somewhere else. So now they are spending money from the future. They don't actually have this 6.75 billion kronas for tax cuts. They think they will have them in the next seven years as extra money in the budget, as profit.

WIZZI: And where's that extra money going to come from, do they think?

NARCIS: They are assuming economic prosperity somehow. Denmark will, we, we haven't… And if you look around us, Sweden, Norway, they are facing an economic recession. That's why both of their currencies are, are, got, got much, much weaker. It got much cheaper for us to go in vacation, ski vacation in Norway, in Sweden with Danish krona. We haven't. We are not facing an economic recession. Of course it's mainly because of our pharma industry. But it is the situation.

WIZZI: It's also because of Novo Nordisk's new drug, new weight loss drug that in the Times, one of the British papers, the Times said Copenhagen is paved in gold. Copenhagen streets are paved in gold thanks to Novo Nordisk who developed the weight loss drug. And that’s. It could be said. I've heard it said that that is why Denmark is not in a recession because of the success of this one drug.

NARCIS: Yeah, it's, it's a big, it plays a very large role I would say. I mean it can also be reflected in the fact that Novo Nordisk now wants to make the largest investment in history of Denmark. Business investment, private business investment. They, they have, they want to invest 42 billion kronas in, in Kalundborg just to make a huge, huge facility. A super facility where they can produce their active components in this weight loss drug. And that's going to create 3, 000 jobs. So a lot of people are, I think gonna start moving to Kalundborg. A lot of internationals that be. That might become the new international city around Copenhagen. But yeah, I mean you, you can, you have to just to think about it. 42 billion kronas. You could build twice the belt bridge, the great Belt Bridge, you could build it twice. Or you could actually build all the five super hospitals in Denmark with this kind of money. I mean look at it. We gonna spend 6.75 billion on tax cuts. 6 billion. They're spending 42 billion to build a bil, like a very large facility. Just to understand the magnitude.

WIZZI: Just mind blowing. Isn't it?

NARCIS: It is, it is. And it makes sense they made so much money based on people who are fat around the world. Although I'm a bit angry because in, in Denmark people were able to get subsidies from the state for this drug. And I'm like, well, it's a bit unfair. I mean, why am I paying with my tax money your drug slimming drug. Drug slimming medicine. It's, it's not exactly a, I don't know, a life threatening thing. I mean, I understand people who are in a very, very serious situation, but there are people who, let's say they just wanted to lose 20, 30 kilos and they still use this drug. And that was annoying to me because that's a waste of, of taxpayers money.

WIZZI: I get where you're coming from because I mean, it's difficult, isn't it? You can't say, you can't generalize ever about anything. But there's different types of people who are going to be allocated this weight loss drug and the people who really need it, the people who perhaps have mobility issues or physical issues that mean they cannot do enough exercise to keep themselves healthy and their heart is now under pressure because of the weight gain that's occurred and they're in danger. I do not reject the idea of subsidizing this drug to help them have a better quality of life and get healthy if they, if they can't do it themselves. I think where you're coming from is where is it a sort of lifestyle choice in a way you could say.

NARCIS: Because right now the, the, the regional councils have announced budgets and they have shown that due to this drug, the medicine subsidies increase severely and they put pressure on this, on the budgets. So they might be forced to completely take out subsidies for the drug. So the people who might actually need it will end up not getting it because too many people are using it. And I saw people, I saw people in my, let's say extended circle who used that drug and they were not in a situation to not be able to move or…

WIZZI: Not life threateningly overweight kind of thing. Yeah. Not. Not having enough of an impact on their healthy life, you know?

NARCIS: They did it for beauty.

WIZZI: Yeah.

NARCIS: It was more of a cosmetic change and that's what bothered me. It's like, it's a very expensive drug. It's not a cheap drug. So there's a reason why Novo Nordisk made so much money.

WIZZI: So to you, it's kind of on a, it's in a similar vein to subsidizing plastic surgery, you know.

NARCIS: Yeah.

WIZZI: Cosmetic beauty wanting plastic surgery. It's, yeah, I see what, I see where you're coming from, for sure.

NARCIS: But yeah, I mean, that's how the situation is. And to be honest, the, the calls are that to stop subsidies for this drug next year completely. It's, it's, it's just if you look at the medicine subsidies, just this drug alone now is 50% of the entire thing. And that's, that's terrible because that puts also pressure on other medicine that might have to be cut off from subsidies. Because remember, in Denmark, you do not pay the real price for medicine at the pharmacy. You pay a maximum of 40% from the real value. So if we had to start paying actual prices for medicine, which we might have to in the future because simply the regional councils don't have enough money to keep paying for it, we will see what it means to actually pay for a Panodil, even, that actually has a real price on it.

WIZZI: Well, I dread that because the amount of money I've spent on medicine in the last eight weeks since I first caught whatever I caught, you know, it's just outrageous. So if that was, that's only 40% of the full price, it would have crippled me, absolutely financially rippled me, all of the medications I've needed in the last few weeks, you know. Anyway, that is kind of time up for us today. Nurses, is there anything else you'd like to announce or discuss before we sign off?

NARCIS: I mean, I would like to encourage people to really take, take a look at the newsletter this week. I mean, there is a lot of other interesting things out there. There's going to be a flying tax. Well, it's proposed. It still needs to be approved. So remember that part. So we will have to start paying more for flying. You can see discussions about how we're going to spend this 68 billion kronas from the future. Because literally, if you keep hearing people saying fiscal leeway, it literally means money from the future. They expect a certain increase in the economic activity and then they put, okay, this much money coming to the state budget, this much money we, we're going to have to spend to keep the country running. This is profit. And then they have to discuss, okay, how do we use this profit? And they expect a 68 billion kronas per, profit, which is not much if you think about how much Novo Nordisk has put into the Kalundborg facility. But that's, that's the money. And you can see how they will be spent. You can also see how the different parties are positioning themselves in a tax reform. And it actually might give you a really good idea of their general stance. We're gonna have elections next year and it's already good for you to start understanding. Okay, where I am in, in the whole political spectrum of Denmark. What's, what's, what's. What's the party that kind of speaks most to me? Because in the end we should, yeah, most many parties might not be speaking English to you, but you, it's your own choice to see, okay, I identify mostly with Green Party or identify mostly with the Socialist party and whatnot. And then in the economy side, you'll see that we finally got to almost 0% inflation. However, remember, inflation means that there is still an increase in price. It's just a 0.1% inflation. It's just a very low, low increase in price. To see an actual reduction in price, we need to see a deflation. Literally means a minus, a negative inflation. And that's when we can say, ah, there is a minus 5% inflation. That means generally, on average all prices in society have declined. So yeah, just keep that in mind that it sounds great, 1%, 2% inflation. But if you really want to be like, oh, but I haven't seen the prices falling down in the store. Well that's, that's not what it means.

WIZZI: Historically, how many times do we go into a deflation? How likely is it that we will go into a deflation?

NARCIS: It, it's, it's very rare event, to be honest. Normally what the banks or what the state is aiming for is a 2% inflation. That's a, let's say a healthy line of inflation that has been kept in the past because prices increase every year, because wages increase every year. So somehow the, the real wage has to stay the same. So that's why this year the wages have increased quite a lot. Many, many people have experienced a very big increase in their salaries while the inflation rate is very low. So now it's just a question of when will the interest rates for the bank loans will go down. They will not go down very soon because people still have a lot of money to spend. And if people start spending those money tomorrow like crazy, which Christmas could make that happen. That's problem because the more money are out there, the higher the inflation is. So if people will be conservative this Christmas and not spend too much, we might see a lower interest rates faster. Otherwise I'll keep it, I'll give it a couple of years before we can see the interest. Even though the inflation is so low, the interest rates will take a while before they follow as well. So now for people like me who have loans, that sucks. But what can I say? We'll have to survive.

WIZZI: I've got really into sort of sustainable purchasing now. I suppose I can call it sustainable purchasing. Basically, I'm finding everything I want second hand.

NARCIS: Okay.

WIZZI: And particularly there's one particular app where you can buy really great, amazing amount of things. And because we're in the EU, you can buy from various neighboring sort of EU countries. In the UK you can only really buy from the UK unless you wanted to pay lots of postage since Brexit. But anyway, I'm having a great time. Instead of scrolling through social media endlessly, I'm scrolling through this app endlessly looking at favoriting things I'm interested in purchasing, then spending a couple of weeks thinking about it and then deciding to spend 50 kroner on a really nice jacket. You know, 50 kroner on a leather jacket, that’s one of my deals recently. So you're buying secondhand. You can also select that you only look at new with tags if you don't want second hand. But you still want to purchase cheap, not from an actual business. So that's just one way of thinking about it. And what I always used to do when I had no money at Christmas is just make presents. I knit. I, I know how to knit one type of hat and one type of scarf. So two years. And so for two years everybody, one year everybody got a hat and the next year everyone got a scarf. And then I've done homemade hampers and things like that. So I like to make Christmas instead of sort of buy Christmas. So maybe that's a good way to keep inflation down.

NARCIS: Well, it's. It's only one way. Lower consumption, buying less new products. That's. That's the way. And that's, that's the message from the banks, guys. Keep it in. Don't go crazy this Christmas just because prices are... Remember, prices are compared to last year prices. And last year prices were hell, they were extremely high. So a 0% inflation is unrealistic. Anyway, it's only because last year prices were just so goddamn high. Because if you are to compare with the previous year prices, the situation is completely different.

WIZZI: And on that note, thank you for catching up today Narcis. It's been lovely to see you. I'm glad yesterday went well. I'll let you go and nurse your hangover now.

NARCIS: Don't say that I'll have a hangover, but it's just more like I had to travel all night. You know, let's not mention people the Ukrainian wine I had yesterday event.

WIZZI: Thank you all for tuning in today. We hope you found this podcast informative, interesting and of value. 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.