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NES, a podcast from the news. A hearty welcome to Jan Ludvik Andreassen, chief economist at Eik Gruppen. And yes, the world is going to hell, eh, still. >> Yes, there is tension, tension everywhere. What if the Strait of Hormuz is still closed, if the consumer price index in Norway, eh, gallops away at 3% then, and interest rate hikes are coming, eh, how does a macro analyst begin to try to understand what is happening now? No, well, I think for starters, the world is somewhat more robust than it appears in the newspaper headlines. There will be okay growth in the USA, Europe, and Norway this year. And inflation is not really a big problem. Eh, because you can't do anything about the jumps and leaps in energy prices. Ehm, and besides, price jumps are not inflation. Inflation is a process where it becomes ingrained that this year's price increase leads to future jumps and so on, as long-term processes, that is inflation, isn't it? That was one of the problems they had with that, eh, toll debate, which became very confused, is it inflationary or not, because yes, it causes a jump in prices when you increase toll rates, but if that then causes bad times in the American economy or the European economy, then it is actually deflationary in the long run. >> Here I feel like quoting Milton Friedman, this thing about inflation being always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon. That is, eh, inflation is always and everywhere a result of monetary policy or the printing press has been allowed to run. >> Yes. If you hold all else constant, but but in any case, he was on the point that it is a process. It is not a jump. The price, if you increase VAT by 5 percentage points, it's not like inflation is 8 and then we have to have interest rates at 12 or something like that, right? It is a one-time jump in prices, and and besides, that jump may be reversed, eh, if there is peace in the Strait of Hormuz. So, but what I think is in general, what I try to tell people is that the world is actually quite robust and that we should remember that the world is much less dependent on carbon than it was, especially in Europe, eh, especially Norway. Eh, it's not the 70s where everyone drove cars that were, eh, very inefficient, and all planes were inefficient with excessive use and so on. And if plane tickets become too expensive now, you can always have a Teams meeting instead, right? So, so there is more flexibility, the whole thing is more robust than we pretend to believe. Eh, I think gasoline and diesel together are 3% of the consumer price index. So, so this is very exaggerated, and people are screaming now. We must raise interest rates because we got some price jump today and so on. But that's really just nonsense because, eh, price increases in Norway, core inflation of three. If you take out housing rents, you are down to around 2.8, and then you are quite close to the inflation target we had in the old days until 2018, namely 2.5. And and if you look at other central banks, like Australia, they think inflation is between 1 and 3%, then it's okay, it's not that dangerous if we don't have an exact target, right? We should have reasonably sensible inflation, we can't calculate it precisely. Australia is a small country and so on, that's how they think in Australia, and that's how they should think in Norway. We are a small country with a large import share, and the krone is swinging wildly without anyone being able to control it. Eh, energy prices are jumping and bouncing now that there is a war. Eh, don't get carried away or calm down. But that has actually been my whole mantra all along with this crisis or war, that people are fragile. Eh, and we should have politicians who were out calming things down and central bank governors who were long-term and mature and said, relax, we will get through this war. Eh, and unfortunately, we haven't had that. Eh, but it's okay to hope that they will change. You know, one thing I am very fascinated by when we are here in the studio. The two of us, we are almost always right. So the rest of the world is wrong. Isn't this strange? Give some, give some, eh, examples of us being right. >> Yes. No, but I think we often talk about that. >> Eh, well, I just take for example yesterday, there was on Political Quarter, you know, we are over 60, the highlight of the day is to sit down with, no, Dags 18, Political Quarter is at, eh, in the morning, and that's too early for us over 60, but Dags 18 is perfectly fine, it's right before dinner, eh, and then there was this, the tutti frutti gang was going to talk about how they were, eh, cooperating with that. And for starters, the only party leader who shows up is Vedum. And what you notice is that the others are not party leaders. They are busy with, you know, they are very capable people. Liland, I think her name is in MDG, and Tuva Moflag. Thank goodness for her, she's handling the state budget. But it becomes a lot of nitpicking and some details on the budget and so on. The only one who can really maintain the national focus there is Vedum. Støre could also have done it if he had been there. He is never there when there are difficult matters. Eh, alternatively, Martinussen, but she wasn't there either. Probably more to wash with Mimir. Ehm, and then I just think it seems so very unserious, the whole thing, that you are going to talk about the tutti frutti cooperation with one party leader, and the others are more like down in the engine room working on budget details and so on. And we have talked a lot about that, that the current situation requires leadership, almost on all fronts, to reassure people, to be long-term, to push things through. >> That is my slight disappointment with Jonas Gahr Støre, especially. Now VG has a good story today where they have gotten help from Høyre to look at the government's defeats, and it shows that every fifth vote in Parliament now the government loses. >> That is to say, they either fail to get their proposals passed, or, eh, something they vote against is adopted. And then, to take the most important matters, you had this reduction in taxes, or you had the change in the climate goal, both of which are actually quite major political issues where the government is simply, yes, eh, defeated. And then I think that here we see, you know, that Jonas Gahr. I don't really know what he's doing. But I can imagine that right now, most of the world's leaders have other priorities than talking to Jonas Gahr Støre. I am not the central actor here, except for letting oil and gas flow from Norway. And we are already doing that. And then there is Jens Stoltenberg, who I had, you know, Jens, you have said before that he is, eh, one of the people who has made the biggest impression on you in a positive way when you met him. >> While I experience now that rumors say that he is almost never at work in the Ministry of Finance. That is something you cannot, eh, spread, but these are rumors I have heard from others than you. Eh, and and I also feel that now he is not here either, pointing out and giving such a. I get a very strong feeling that the ship, eh, is being steered by a cabin boy, and the captain, I don't know where he is. >> No, well, I have often thought of Jens as a bit of a special guest star in this ensemble, then. He comes in and is supposed to save something, and then it's not possible for him to take any greater responsibility than he does, really, without looking like the boss of the whole shop and taking the shine off Jonas. But in general, when I start writing my everlasting book project on political economy, eh, I always start with, or I started this book with, intellectual history, and then these ideas, what kind of rules of conduct do they create for politics, and it depends on whether you are a capitalist or a communist or whatever you are, eh, that becomes ideology, that set of rules of conduct, and then there is the implementation in Parliament, and then there is the performer at the top, the one who has to make all this hang together, from the ideological basis to the rules of conduct to the performance. That is the person at the top. I haven't been very fond of discussing the people themselves. But what I think is that, eh, Fremarti has a very nice, eh, direction there, right? Adam Smith ideology. Eh, freedom for all. Do what you want with whom you want, for all time. Free trade. Implementation is lower taxes and fees and deregulation. And then you have a great lady at the top. Sigrid. The Labour Party has not really, has lost a bit of that thread back to what, what is actually the point of their project. Eh, and I think that is also a big problem for this government, that, so they cling to, we have a budget agreement, and Vedum because he asked for this, or promised this, agreement with Høyre. But a budget agreement is a very flimsy basis for a parliamentary majority. That is, a marriage cannot be based on, like, eh, credit, debit, and a certain balance at the end of the month. A company must have a culture, right? That Steve Jobs talked about at Apple. What makes Apple great is our goal, "Make a dent in the universe." And everyone who works at Apple is rich enough to just quit and become a pensioner and play golf, but they want to be part of this goal. And that is the goal that, for that matter, both the Labour Party lacks today, and that the government lacks. And you see that very clearly too, and people don't take it seriously when party leaders don't show up for, eh, Dags 18 to discuss government cooperation. The only one sitting there is Vedum, and he then appears almost by walkover as a great statesman, right? And nothing against Tuva or Liland, but, you know, they are so down in the details of the tables because they have to be to handle that budget. So they can't take that role. And then I actually don't think Jens can take that role either, right? Eh, it must be Jonas or someone of the younger ones who I think will take over, who must take that role. So it's just, I don't know, whether one should criticize the person so much here, but rather think about the system, you know. So Labour had an ideology of what they were doing, you know. Better working and living conditions for workers. That also included building housing for people, because having a home was a human right. So a good home, not just a home, a good home, Reiersen said, was a human right around 1981-82. And then, during the Labour Party's time, the first section of the national budget was about housing construction. But what are they, what are they really aiming for now, traveling around the world and interfering in conflicts they can't possibly have? Especially good at, eh, Jonas and Bart Eide and Jens are better at these matters than anyone else in Norway. But they are not good enough at it to interfere in the Middle East, in North Africa, in Afghanistan. They shouldn't be there at all. Stay home. And that, eh, thing there, I think the whole Labour party is going a bit inward now. What is the point, eh, of the business? Eh, and then let these personal squabbles resolve themselves. >> They have touched upon this with, eh, Tonny Brenna, who talked about how she highlighted that the Labour Party has always been a materialistic party. >> Yes. >> And that was, for me, a bit of a relief that now it's like, it's about providing good housing, letting people get bigger TVs, to put it crudely. Because, of course, eh, and I have noticed that, eh, throughout this debate around the monarchy with the Epstein files, where I think I get an understanding, this is the middle class, we, the middle class, who react because we think, what are these people actually doing? Others have, we have to work 8 to 4 or 9 to 8, quite many hours, and be sharp during those hours. And then we are quite tired otherwise, and then we sit down on the ergometer or, eh, in front of the sofa. Depending on the, eh, weekly form, right? But, but it's quite, eh, being a middle-class person, whether you are a plumber or a chief economist or a podcast host, it's actually quite tiring, like an endurance sport. >> And then you get this feeling that these people here, they don't care about any of our challenges. That is, when, eh, with the price of gasoline, my commute becomes even more uneconomical from Lillesand. >> And inflation. >> You can sit on that train that never runs, then. >> Yes, right? That is, but you get this, eh, and then they have had this big project, you mention this international one, but the other big project is the climate project, and where I feel that almost everyone in the solid middle class, we have now come to an realization that Norway will not solve this alone. This, eh, it becomes too expensive. I, exactly when it comes to climate, I am actually very much in line with Greta Thunberg in Sorsand, but at the same time I see that we cannot solve the problems ourselves. But if we take a step back again and start a bit with intellectual history, because I actually think that's what you have to start thinking about, and then you have to go very far back to the ancient Greeks, and, eh, Aristotle was working on this, what is the goal of life? And this was before the Christian era, right? So there were no such things. Eh, and then he thought, well, the best thing you can do is try. What you can do then to be happy is to try to become the best possible version of yourself. And then I have a kind of reflection around this, what it entails. And that is, of course, material prosperity. He took it almost for granted, right? Those philosophers walked around and had everything they needed, including slaves. And, ehm, but then he says it's not enough. Man is not a cow. You must have something up here. You must have an ideal. You must have something you strive for. And little did Steve Jobs, he talked about, I am a big great American. Much of what he picked up was that he spent a year or two, I think, in India where he sat and meditated with some Maharishi or Marishna, or whatever that guru was called, and he picked up some tricks from this guru, how, and he gathered many followers who sacrificed everything to sit with him there. He says, no, eh, something like that would have been cool to have in my company, that people were there not because of money. They get enough money and so on, but they are there because they believe in this. And I think that's a bit like the broad masses. That is, there is no point in raising interest rates now. The most interest-rate-sensitive sector has completely collapsed, the housing sector. The Labour Party must figure out what the purpose and meaning of that party is. Eh, to find back to the roots, I think. Eh, government work must be found in some form, some more firmly established, but more than the agreement itself, a feeling that you have a project, you want to realize common goals, right? Ehm, and the monarchy, they must, in some way, I think they feel life is completely meaningless, right? Eh, like Ari Behn who commits suicide, a lot of drug problems in the royal family. Ehm, and I have said that I think being a crown princess without any work tasks, it is almost forbidden for you to do anything sensible like carpentry or welding or, eh, cleaning toilets or something like that. You have to sit there and just wave your hand. So you are forbidden to do anything sensible your whole life and just be pretty and ornamental and have children. That must be one of the worst jobs in the world. That is, she must have been, I saw that. We must play the royals better, but they must get better work tasks. They must have more meaningful things to do. Eh, and again, don't attack Märtha Louise and the others. Say you are a fool and you will be a better person and so on. Look at the system instead, what it is. And it is a bit captivating, you know. I am half Danish, eh. And Queen Mary, she has somehow managed to cope with it. She is the most admired woman in Denmark, right? And a great lady. Eh, came from Australia. Eh, what is it that they draw from the royal family there, or what can we as a society learn from the Danish royal family to play our people better, I would think, at least my 62-year-olds, right? They are nice people, all those people in the royal family, but how can we create systems that make them, that we play them better, in a way, eh, and, eh, Aristotle also said that, you know, you can't alone try to become the best possible version of yourself, which not only includes material prosperity, but also that you have goals, something to strive for ideologically. We must be in a society of like-minded people. And what I have thought about is that we must create a culture in Norway that tries to become the best possible version of yourself. If you fall into crime and that type of thing, then we must have a way to exclude you. That is, get rid of you. We can't have it that you are in there committing rape and then you are out on the street again after three years, and then there is a new rape, and then it's, oh dear, oh dear, now there are new social workers in place and so on. We exclude people, eh, and then we bet on, no, those who are going to live in Norway, they have this, this is like a low, a common project, I think, eh, that those who are here, they can do whatever they want, whatever they want, because everyone has different goals in life, but they must try to become the best possible version of themselves and help others in the same endeavor. We had such a project, and that project, I think, was Christianity, that it is there. >> Do you think you are exaggerating? I am so old that I was present at the hell debate in the 70s. It's completely. >> And tell me what that was. >> Yes. For those who have forgotten. Yes. >> No, right? He was very, you know, from the podium, right? Eh, I don't remember the exact cast of characters, Ole Ole Hallesby, precisely. >> Eh, the liberal, what was his name again? Yes. >> Right? And exists, and who should end up there? And >> If you drop dead this very moment, said Hallesby, the man from the Inner Mission, then know that you can end up in >> Mhm. Okay. So if you don't, but what I'm trying to say is that maybe we should just start all over and make some new rules, but that we need to get more of these parties, then, eh, and I also noticed, why is it again we have a tax commission where we can, like, broadly agree on tax policy? It's for the Labour Party, they have no tax policy, so it's very convenient then if we can create such a commission that solves that problem, then we will be done with that matter. But that they, again, on an area-by-area basis, political parties must have strong, distinct positions, then they must come together in a community and forge a long compromise, and then people say, yes, this is moving us in the right direction, these tutti frutti gangs. And more broadly, and all parties must do this, all private individuals must do this, all companies must do this. What is the purpose and meaning of what we are doing? Eh, we have enough calories, proteins, and t-shirts. What is the purpose and meaning? And then we say, if you are going to live in this country, you must have that kind of goal. This actually relates a bit to what I think is the background for today's conflict in the Middle East and why it is so difficult to find a solution. And that is because these mullahs or ayatollahs in Tehran, they do not want to be part of the Western world. They do not want women to have freedom. They want Israel to be wiped out. And that is important to them. That is what is important in life. It is not to get a new car or cocaine or attend a conference or sit on Anniken Huitfeldt's private jet or the Ministry of Foreign Affairs or whatever they are doing, right? What they want, they want medieval rule that is not economically efficient, that is not liberal, that is not Western. Eh, and they are completely honest about it. And the same in Afghanistan. Eh, and then we must deal with the fact that, okay, but such people, we should not, we should not be doing that in Norway. So those who come from these societies to Norway, they must not have that kind of goal in life, that their local communities should be like that. Here I think there is a danger, right? With that debate about parallel societies, that, eh, we cannot allow such communities to arise in Norway where we have, like, very, eh, strictly religious medieval times. And besides, 80% of the probably Iranian population also doesn't want that. So, you know, it's not really a criticism of Islam or Muslims, right? Most Muslims don't want this stuff. We must not let that small group terrorize the majority. >> How do we prevent that? >> No, so it's a very, eh, thing. It's one of three, then. Either you can convert and say, become like us. Eh, the second is that we must bomb them to the Stone Age or destroy their civilization, as Trump says. And the third is perhaps what we are heading towards, a way to live together. And you shouldn't be surprised that the USA and Iran agree to set up a toll station in Hormuz and share the revenue. >> And Trump has actually proposed or considered that idea? >> Yes, he has considered the idea. He is a guy who wants to make money. He doesn't really have many other goals in life. So, so, but what can be said about this type of, eh, discussions is that you get more of a real-political discussion about what we want and yes, and what they want, and how we are going to handle the fact that we disagree. Either we have to kill you, or we have to take out the Iranian regime. Alternatively, we have to find a way to live together. Eh, and that's probably what they are sitting and discussing now, as we speak. Yes. In Pakistan. Eh, where they are meeting now, and all credit to Pakistan, eh, that they have stepped in here, and had it not been for them, there would probably have been a rain of bombs over Iran. They managed to get that agreement in the last elite. Eh, there was something unresolved about whether to take care of Lebanon or not. Ehm, Israel and the Americans say that no, Lebanon was not part of the agreement, of the arms embargo agreement. The Arabs in the Gulf, who are partly opposed to Iran. Eh, so the Arabs in the Gulf and Iran itself, we believe that it was part of the agreement that Lebanon should, there should be an arms embargo in Lebanon. The Pakistani mediators, they actually give the Arabs and Iran the right that Trump and Netanyahu are wrong. Lebanon was part of the peace agreement. But anyway, this is going on, who knows, right? We have no idea. We don't have enough information. We are not in the room, we are not. So we will see how this turns out over the weekend. But I guess, Iran has now become a very poor country. Eh, these, one thing is that they want the rest of society back to the Middle Ages, but they are also very corrupt themselves. Eh, Khamenei, the new, eh, leader, son of the old leader, he has amassed 30 billion kroner. 30 billion, mostly stolen from the state treasury. While he sat in the prayer room and was noble and wise and wanted the rest of society back to the Middle Ages, he lived in luxury, eh, every time he is in London and has a lot of property in London. Eh, and all these people have, you know, they send their daughters to American universities and so on. So, ehm, so they need cash, and Trump wants cash, and there is a deal to be done here. Eh, so that's the way I guess it's going, maybe because I'm trying to be optimistic. It could be that in the end they say, no, you know what, this isn't working. We actually have to scrape out that ayatollah regime from Tehran. Just like, eh, when you have cancer, you have to remove every single cell from the body. Who knows? But, eh, that so many countries are now involved in this, and China has also entered the arena and is putting heavy pressure on Iran. China has factories all over the world. Eh, East Asia, where they are located, is the area that has tightened and higher energy prices because they are still quite, eh, dependent on hydrocarbons, not very energy-efficient, right? Strong economic growth. So, so, like, I think, this has been said a thousand times before, but I think there will be some kind of agreement between the USA and Iran, which is fragile and will surely have its small breaches with some missiles here and some murders there, which will hold because the other alternative is too rough. >> But now I feel like making a big point here because what you are talking about is >> Mhm. You draw a, or I think from what you are saying, you can draw a line from a kind of >> a kind of loss of meaning and meaninglessness in the Labour Party >> that we lack a proper project. >> Yes. And lack of project. That was a good way to put it. >> Yes. To that we have gotten a leader for the free world, then. >> Yes. >> Who has no other project than to earn even more gold, and to become even a little richer. So his, he is, in a way, this materialistic longing for this materialistic party is somewhat embodied by Donald Trump. But then you feel at the same time that this person who, in one moment, goes to war against these terrible ayatollahs >> who threaten to annihilate Israel and hold their allies and proxies in the Middle East in an iron grip. Eh, and he is supposed to remove this iron grip, then suddenly he shifts to being able to say, let's share the profit from controlling this place, if he suddenly sees, yes, he has talked about this, but then he sees the business opportunity. And then I think that we are back to that, that this meaninglessness, it is not just the Labour Party or Donald Trump there, but it becomes the problem of the entire West. And that is why I, I jump back to Christianity, because I believe that the West is about two things. It is about Jerusalem and it is about Athens. That is, science paired with Christian morality, Christian Jewish morality. And we have the result that we have thrown out Jerusalem, so to speak. It has also become that we have thrown out Athens because we now find all sorts of new pseudo, eh, theologies. And that is why I don't really want to let go of that, because I think this search for something new or something like that. I actually think we need to go back to good old-fashioned Christianity. I >> No, I will take that. I think we have a lot to learn from our Muslim countrymen, so to speak. Ehm, eh, and that is probably a great project, by the way, for better integration, that we try to learn from them, not just preach to them. Eh, but we can take a step back again to intellectual history, then you can imagine that in 1453, then the Ottomans manage to break down the walls of the last remnant of the Roman Empire, right? Ehm, >> Conquer Constantinople. Yes. >> Yes. And then all those scholars flee from Constantinople to Italy. And that falls around the same time as Gutenberg, the priest, who can, eh, publish things. And then they translate these old, ancient Greek things from Aristotle and Plato and that gang there into Italian and spread it, and the ideas spread very quickly. Probably Europe was quite ripe to think something other than that, eh, Old Testament wrath that we had been dealing with for, like, almost 1000 years, right? From the fall of Rome. So the Roman Empire fell first in 1453, but Rome fell in 84 or something like that. Anyway, so, eh, so Europe is Christian, and how do they then handle, eh, Aristotle, like, build on this? And there is a guy named John Locke, who is actually the founder of all capitalism. Ask me, then, he comes up with this idea that in the Bible, the creation story, it says: "God created everything, and therefore owns everything. And then he created man in God's image. God created everything. Therefore, he owns everything. And then he created man. like himself. And then Locke says, yes, but then you have to follow all that man creates, and then it is owned by man. We are our own gods. We are our own gods who are allowed to own everything we create. And remember, this was a time of general, and especially outside of Europe, many societies were like, we share everything, like. So then private property rights came in, and then the colonial era came, and people took this idea of private property rights and in, like, Indian tribes and God knows what everywhere and said, "No, now I'm taking this land." Eh, no, but it's common. No, no, but common doesn't apply. We are mini-gods and we have private property rights." Eh, and then they built up, like, capitalist ideas from that. Because when everyone is to own their own, what becomes the main concern for those who own their own? Well, it is to protect their values both from internal enemies by having a strict police force and external enemies by having an army. So, so, like, that's the, eh, thing. Ehm, and, ehm, what can one say, is that the way forward? Eh, should we only think about ourselves and mine? Eh, and, and I am friends with a Muslim woman, she says that no, it is also nice to be able to live for something other than oneself. It can be that you live for, eh, the mission, or you live for your religion, or you live for taking care of your old parents, but not just thinking about yourself. And, eh, it has struck me a bit, perhaps some of the reason why people are very unhappy in Norway today. 40% of the Norwegian population lives alone. We are too much on our own. I have a lot of sympathy for the Loneliness Party. I think it's very okay. What do you do? You are now 35 years old, you have a career, you have an apartment, you have a car. Eh, and you sit alone and watch TV, right? Typically, like, a bachelor with 3 TV remotes and a gin and tonic in front of him on a Friday, right? Eh, and now you've been on Tinder and you've been out, and nothing is happening, and now it's starting, you're 35, like. And that's when I think there's a lot about that, that it's much more important to discuss, and there we can learn from other cultures, that they are more, like, eh, you know, Pakistani cultures, then everyone lives in a huge, gigantic house of 400 square meters in Høybråten, right? Right? And they don't sit alone. So, so we, and I think, at least, that given that there are a million Muslims or foreigners in this country, not all are Muslims, but 1 million foreigners in this country, then the way forward is not to go back to the time of nationalism, that Christianity, it is to go forward. Don't we have a common project, all of us, let's say, 4.5 million who are white from, eh, Europe, and the one million who come from elsewhere? Can't we create a common project, eh, that includes, then, eh, protecting
Private property rights. There should be peace in the streets. There should not be gang crime with rapes and boys being beaten senseless in Oslo East. The drug gangs must be caught and the clans must be dissolved, and that sort of thing. But don't we have a common project and and and here I think about other dimensions. We are going to have, we are going to aim for the Olympics. I am for that, by the way. I feel like every generation, every 50 years, we must afford ourselves an Olympics. It is expensive, but if there is a party, there is a party. But make sure it becomes multi-ethnic, right? One thing I noticed in Turin, which was very nice to see. But there are only white people there from Norway. So, right, if you come from Somalia, you are cheering for some guy who runs fast in cross-country skiing, right? No, of course, you don't give a damn about the whole thing. Try to make this more of a common project in a way. Otherwise, there will be another Olympics in Norway in 2040 or whatever it is. Will it be a new source of exclusion and division and so on? So I really believe that the Aristotelian project is somewhat eternal. How to try to become the best possible version of oneself. And then John Locke gives the answer to that. Build on Christian values. So that is his interpretation of it. It is private property rights and defense, and so on. And then it has evolved to become global and so on. And then perhaps we feel a bit empty, a bit of emptiness about that and that you then try to learn other cultures and at least since they are already here, get them integrated. Let us have a common conversation about where we want to take Norwegian society forward. And here I actually believe that the monarchy can play a good role. For example, we see now that we struggle a lot with addiction, both in Parliament and so on, around Norway. And perhaps the monarchy could be a kind of patron for Blåkorset and God knows for all such organizations, to try to talk together about how we lived good lives. Now I imagine the school trip of Marius Borg Høiby after his prison sentence, where he then went to school, there was always some ex-convict who came to tell us that you must stay away from drugs. It's cool the first year, then it's just sad. No, but right, again, I am very, it is almost a hopeless task. You come in a bit like having 50 wheels on the wagon in the royal family. You are perhaps not particularly academically gifted, and you have, surprisingly, been told that you cannot do carpentry or plumbing or cleaning or anything like that, because royalty should not be involved in that. So I met an old childhood friend, and I almost said to him, you know what, Marius Høiby, he would have had it better if he had grown up in Høybråten, where I come from. I actually believe that real people, you do physical things and get tired from it, as you say, and then you come back. So in general, you must find sensible tasks in life. And then the royals. That will be something in the national thing going forward. We can, we can well shift over to AI and productivity and that, because it is somewhat related. So I start my days once again. Illegally working. Yes, fortunately, I hope that is outdated. Around 1980, at Jarlsberg Breweries. And do you know what they made at Jarlsberg Breweries? Jarlsberg Breweries. Yes. Beer, I think. Yes. Coca-Cola. Yes. It was, it was, I think it was Helsegel. You mean Carlsberg Breweries? No. No. Jarlsberg was it? Yes. Yes. It was located, I think Helsegel was the location now, over at Alnabru. And then they moved over to, and that's where I, I wasn't near the machine, but it was old stuff and it was dangerous and so on. So they moved over to where Smartklubb was, you know. And now there is a Power store across the street, a giant facility. And there I got a job as a summer temp. And it was, I think it was 300,000 bottles per hour that went past me. I sat on the assembly line, and I was supposed to take out a straw if it came, because it gets washed, but the washing machine can't remove the straw. So Jan Andreassen, I got perhaps the only job that is really adapted to my IQ, and that is to sit and watch the bottles go by by the thousands, and take out one, it was about two bottles per hour where there was a straw that I had to take out. But the productivity, I think it was four times. So you moved from one old plant to the new one, and production per worker increased fourfold, and then it increased again when the whole thing was moved out to Nittedal. And Gjelderåsen. And now you can make incredibly much cheap beer and cola, Solo, and so on. And even worse was it on a company visit a few years ago at Heineken's plant in the Netherlands, and there you can make beer for 20 million people in one plant. And then you can say the same about the farms. We have halved the number of farms since the turn of the century. We have gone from 250,000 farms after the war to about 35,000 now. And they produce more and much better food than the 2,500,000 did. And by the way, if you take the Chinese approach and build such a gigantic facility of 100,000 square meters in 20 stories, you can get all pig production in Norway into one building. But then it ends up in the situation that Heineken is actually not good beer, and people think it's okay to pay triple, like 100 kroner, for handmade beer. So from microbreweries and so on, when you have guests and you have bought a roast and want nice things, and perhaps with the pig farming, that you think it's okay that they roam the fields. I remember we always bought food from Grøstad gris at Meny, and it was from a TV screen, for goodness sake, and these pigs roam in fields with some music and so on, right? And those sausages, my wife would rather buy one from First Price. So what I'm trying to say is that also that productivity discussion, and we must become more productive, prioritize growth and so on. Yes, should we? I mean, if you have enough t-shirts and you have enough, you have enough sausages and so on, but maybe you want to have better quality of things. So, by the way, I was in Italy now, right, and there is a producer who sells t-shirts for 40,000 kroner each. Because they are absolutely unique. Even though you can buy a t-shirt on the street for 10 kroner. He makes it fly. And perhaps we should focus on gourmet beer, gourmet sausages, and so on. We should not build one plant to make soda and beer for 5 million people where everything tastes like swill. And that also makes me think, so I think much of that prioritization debate that Martin Bekk held is a bit beside the point, that people don't want to work themselves into debt. They want to have quality. They think they are doing okay. They don't need much higher living standards than they have today. But they want to have a safe and good life and so on. And then you come back a bit to that John Locke world where we all just have to grab and become as rich as possible, and that's it, that that falls short compared to the Aristotelian ambitions that you must try to become something more. I mean, there is something more, we are not cows. We must have more material goods. The point that Steve Jobs understood and exploited to his advantage in motivating employees. So if you read Steve Jobs' biography, it's a bit funny. He says, "I treat my closest colleagues like shit. I am the worst employer you can get." And I, but they are all billionaires. They can walk out the door if they want, but they want to work for me because we have "Make a Dent in the Universe" as a goal. So if you have such a goal, then I think that is the project, whether you are talking about the Labor Party, tutti frutti, or the monarchy, or for that matter, Norwegian society. We don't have, we must find some goal, and then we must, we believe we must include, try to learn from our new countrymen, who are not so new, by the way. Many Muslims are now third generation. There was that famous question Steve Jobs asked John Sculley when he was going to start at Apple instead of Pepsi. Do you want to sell brown sugar water for the rest of your life? Do you want to change the world? Yes. And John Sculley switched. And then it ended up that he later was involved in kicking Steve Jobs out of Apple before he spent a few years getting back in the CEO's chair. But I, but what I'm thinking about, what I'm thinking about, we all have to try to create. So we are not cows, and we must have goals in life. But what you see more and more now is that people also want to work together with, marry, or spend their free time with people who have something positive, want to improve themselves. You don't have any of that dangerous. I remember when my daughter was growing up, I was afraid she would fall in with the wrong friends, right? Because if all your friends have given up and are using drugs and so on, then you will become like that yourself. So it is very important to create an environment. And fortunately, you have now found very good friends. So it has gone very well with her. But that environmental effect, I think, is also easy to underestimate. And that is what society tries to create. If we go back to that productivity thing, then I mean, especially when you consider how many people work there, 2500 farms. Now we are down to 35,000, right? It's just over 1% of the working population in agriculture. Industry is drastically reduced. 20% of the population, the workforce, was in industry in 1970. Now it's 7% and falling. I got new figures today. Industrial production is falling. Service industries. And this is where AI comes in, right, and is going to streamline everything. And I think most things can be streamlined. Take almost all such question-and-answer cases, diagnosis of diseases, even whether you are guilty of murder or not, just run it through AI. No need for that courtroom and proceedings and so on. And self-driving cars, so we don't take all transport workers. So it's just how many mistakes they are willing to make, right? Okay. Just self-driving cars. Then we go from, like, 200 deaths in traffic to 500. Maybe it's worth it, right? Drop all the lawyer prosecutor stuff and so on. We just let him go, whether the guy is guilty. We get a good number of innocent people in prison, but we save a lot of money. Case processing in the public sector is a bit more hit or miss, but we can fire 10,000 public employees. So I think again, you come back to a discussion that is very easy, productivity increases dramatically if we do all these things. But is that the kind of society we want? And for that, I think I read a lot about AI and tried to keep up on YouTube and listen to debates and lectures and so on, and then we have it very big in the project itself at work, and then I think, yes, we can try to get AI to solve everything and then accept that it goes a bit wrong, and maybe it's net cost-benefit sensible, like, is that what we are, what are we for in Eika, and I think that will be the big question with AI. AI can replace everything, but do we want it to replace everything? And then I think in a market economy, it's not entirely up to us, at least not the private sector, because it's clear that if AI can solve a lot, then you might think, no, I don't have the group, so we'll wait a bit. But then Sparebanken booms, and then B booms, and then Eika has to follow suit, and in the big picture, and I must admit, here I think I might disagree with you a bit, because I think it's fantastic development that if we could now, if we can get to the point where we get rid of a lot of lawyers, a lot of case handlers. Nobody likes lawyers. No. No. Right. Even a lot of judges, or, I mean, this is a bit, this is a bit like us, you know, like, I wasn't the best with a hammer, but I could read and write something sensible, and suddenly everyone can do, like, junior jobs in consulting that are just about gathering information. All of that will disappear. And I think that's good because then, I mean, yes. Yes. Isn't it? Yes. Yes, I agree. Market forces are at play here. By the way, our stated strategy, so I'm not revealing anything, is that we will be close followers. So we are making big investments in AI, rest assured, but we are not quite at the forefront. We are letting others take the hiccups along the way. And it's also about, right, if you can have automated planes, you don't need pilots, but 99% certainty is not enough, because a couple of planes will fall down a day, right? So there's that. And when it comes to our young people, it's clear that they have less productivity than before. But on the other hand, we have all been young, and we need to learn. I write books, and I find it very fun, mostly to learn myself, and with great help from AI, by the way, because I pick things up here and there much easier than I did in the old days. I had to look up in encyclopedias and so on. I saw an interview with two, it was a Financial Times video that problematized it. So after a law firm, he said, "Great, we're dropping all apprentices, we're just having seniors." And the other said, "No, we don't use AI for a good deal of things." For example, writing meeting minutes. We do that by hand. The young people must do that. Why? Because it's an important part of learning to become a good lawyer. To learn to pay attention to details. That you capture what everyone has said, and you capture the essential, and if you miss the essential, and so on. Yes, a lot of what I've talked about with lawyers. A lot of that stuff is about exactly what happened, right? Absolutely precisely, like, raw, right? What actually happened here? Facts, as it may be. Yes, precisely, granularly, like. And you don't get that if you constantly refer to AI and so on. You have to do that yourself, right? And you have to dig around in these laws and old judgments, court judgments, and so on. Because then you become a bit creative yourself in figuring out what kind of legal argument you should have and so on. And that's a bit like, I also had an old friend who was an architect, and he always drew rough sketches before the digital took over, so he got a feel for it himself. And perhaps architects who are starting should still draw a bit, so they get a more intuitive feel. But for most people, and I think that's a correct observation, these entry-level jobs will be paid less, and there will be fewer of them. So Brynjulf, the professor, he was asked about it on Davås, actually, by Bloomberg, and "Dear professor, what do you recommend your own son to become in this world with AI and all that stuff?" "No," he said, "I told my son that you are good at math. But you are not good enough to make a living from it in this world." What is really important is the interface between humans and machines. And to achieve that, you have to learn to know people. Understand how they think, what drives them, and so on. So instead of sitting at home in front of the PC and trying to calculate and so on, you go on a mountain hike in California with a group of people where they have set up a discussion group, like a trip, you know, like now we go together and gather firewood and make a fire, and everyone has to leave their mobile phones at home, and now we will get to know each other. And then I thought, "Wow, this is brilliant." Right? It's exactly like my childhood was. We just didn't have a travel agency making that arrangement for us. We just did it ourselves. But I actually think that has always been the case. Know your customer, know your employee, find the right friends, get the right spouse. It has always been the essence of human success, that you understand people. And even more so in the future, I think it's so easy now that we fall into these silos. No, you are Christian, and you are Muslim, and you are a criminal, and you are royalty, and so we must try to have some common project, common activities. And then we have come, perhaps because I am from the West End, I am a bit tougher than Jonas from Slemdal. I would say that if you are a real professional criminal and bother people, perhaps you should not be in Norway. This is a society for those who try to make the best of their lives and are not a harm to others. So I think something like that, especially the Labor Party, must come back and figure out what they actually want with that project. Because that international focus and peace stuff has completely failed. Except for, like, a huge life lie still in the inner chambers of NRK Jungtorget. That this is a very important thing for the world, that Norway is flying around there, messing around with billions of kroner, and wasting it on things we don't have the prerequisites to understand or solve. But we must return home, in a way. Return home to Norway. Yes. But what do you think, if we are going to land here, but if we are to take what will be the next big economic project for Norway? Do we have anything? Many people are running around saying what we will live on after oil now. Yes, yesterday, or the day before yesterday, a nuclear power committee, a nuclear power review committee, as I called them, released their report. And many are talking about how we need some big economic projects for our small open economy. But do we really? No, I have, at the risk of being fired, proposed that Norway should have hired labor from all over the world. But perhaps a milder variant where it becomes a new Switzerland. But perhaps Switzerland has gone a bit wrong. It has become a playground for the rich. And I think you see increasingly greater tensions in such societies. So that wealth tax discussion and that exit tax discussion and so on, that has now become global, including in Switzerland. And in general, I don't think Norway can become like Qatar with hired labor for 30 kroner an hour from Kerala in India, or Switzerland with a playground for billionaires. But the most important thing, I think, is that Norway becomes a good place for people to live in the right age, right? It becomes a society for people who want to try to become the best version of themselves, and then it becomes a society of like-minded people who try to cheer each other on. Okay, I'm an economist, but right, and the neighbor is a ballet dancer. We have nothing in common except that we are both trying to become the best possible version of ourselves. Right? It's a cool society, and not a nuisance to others, and not like, we're not going to steal anything, and we're not going to rape, and we're not going to plunder, and not kill, and so on. So, and we're not religious, we can be religious, but that's our inner conversation with our Lord or with Buddha or your congregation, mosque, and so on. That's perfectly fine. You should not be a nuisance to other non-believers or others with other faiths. Then we will have a place that is very attractive for people to move to. Especially because we are a place without state debt. And when you move to Norway, you get your pro-rata share of the oil fund, which is now 4 million kroner per person. And there is beautiful nature, and it is nice to live here and so on. But that nuclear power stuff, I think that's a bit of a detour, because as I say, industry will never be big in Norway again. And those halls they are building now, that power goes to the new industry, which are data centers that use, I think the Skien uses 2-3% of Norway's total power production, will employ 400 people, right? That's the new modern industry. And we have more than enough of that. It doesn't matter if we have it in Norway or not. And by the way, nuclear power is very expensive. It is free for anyone in Norway to build nuclear power. But no one will do it with their own money. We do it with taxpayer money. So I have, it's a bit like Havin. It sounds nice and fine, but unfortunately, there is no economy in it, really. Shall we let that be the last word today? Yes, that was a very nice conclusion. Thank you very much for coming, Jan Ludvik. Thank you. If you like this podcast, you can support iNyheter, either by a VIP transfer or to a bank account. You see our numbers on the screen now. Don't forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel and follow us on X, Facebook, and other social media. M.