LWID S3E1 | New Format, New Co-hosts, Top 3 News

We're back with a new format in season 3! Stay updated on the top issues that has happened in Denmark, and get to know our panel of co-hosts as they discuss them. This week Narcis sits with Kalpita, musing about petty crime punishments, rising prices of electric cars and the decline in passion for reading in Denmark.

Dive right in:

1. More about the new format (00:24)
2. Decline in love for reading among children (04:24)
3. Prices of EVs are going up... due to phase-in of registration tax (14:28)
4. Harsher punishments to be meted out for petty crimes (22:52)
5. Feedback? Here's where to find us (34:04)

Have questions, ideas or feedback? Write us at lastweekdk@gmail.com. See you next week!

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Website: https://lwid.dk/

Chapters

• 0:24 More information about the new format
• 4:24 Decline in passion for reading amongst children
• 14:28 Rising prices of electric vehicles
• 22:52 Stronger punishments for petty crimes
• 34:04 Feedback? Write us at lastweekdk@gmail.com

Transcript

0:00

[Music] Hello everyone! This is the first episode of Season 3 Last Week in Denmark podcast. I hope you have missed us. We are coming back with a new concept, this time with a lot more voices that can entertain you and inform you about what's happening in Denmark. In a shorter concept, because time is precious and we know that the less time you spend on listening to the news, the better. So we will use the time that you can give towards information as efficiently as possible. So from now on our podcast will be just 30 minutes long. They'll be focused on three main stories from the previous week that are, let's just say, more interesting for our international audience. By all international I mean people with another ethnic background that live in Denmark. So as I said, we are six co-hosts and in each episode you'll meet a mix of two. Today this episode is being run by me, Narcis George Matache and together with me I have Kalpita Bhosale. Hiya! Hello Kalpita, welcome to your first time on Last Week in Denmark podcast. Yes, thank you. Super, super excited. I know our audience doesn't know this but we actually, I know you had a trial run with some of the co-hosts and from what I understand was it went quite well. Yes, successful one. We spoke about the three top news of the last week which was mainly Donald Trump and yeah, he's been a highlight for many, many weeks though. And probably even more from now on unfortunately. I'm so glad we're not talking about him this week though. So happy. No, no, no. We decided to choose some topics that are not necessarily, let's just say, related to the current geopolitics. And I will very quickly introduce the three subjects we're going to cover today. We will be talking about reading. It seems that there is a, well, they call it, it's a phenomenon. It's called reading hate among children. Children who literally hate reading and that's a thing it seems these days. So we're going to cover that as of our first subject. Then we're going to go into electric cars. It seems that they are getting more expensive and more and more as the years will pass towards 2030 until when, well, literally, there will be obligatory. So then it doesn't matter anymore. So then the third subject we're going to cover today is about petty theft or petty crimes, better said, and the fact that the government has decided to take a much tougher stance on it. And there are some changes from 1st of February that might affect actually some of you and might make you want to go and take a look at your bike and see, well, is this actually mine? Yeah, also where you buy it from is also important. Exactly. But before we jump into it, Kalpita, how was your week? Week has been very, very interesting. I was invited to dinner yesterday at a very good friend of mine and she has three young kids and the middle one is about, I think somewhere between six and nine years old. And as a special treat to me because I am a very lovely guest to them and they love me. I am one of the kids read a story for me from his very own book. So that was very interesting. I have never been read a story to buy a little kid and that was very fascinating for me. And that happened because one of his friends' mum posted on Instagram where her child was reading loudly at a library and he sort of got into this competition of, you know, oh, I can read better than him. And then he decided to sit down and read the story. Of course, everybody had to drop everything and listen to his story because now he was reading a book. But that's very interesting now that we also have this reading hate or dislike from children from a young age, which I think is very, very concerning. And to most extent, I think it's the attention deficit that kids have, especially with screen time and a lot of trouble with parents also not introducing reading at that young age to the children as well. Do you have any experience with kids not reading? I mean, it's a bit early for me to say my daughter is three years and a half. So right now, right now we are just fighting with, well, fighting. We have to deal with the fact that we have multiple languages in house, so we have to jump between books. I mean, if you look at our little library, you can see books in Romanian, Polish, English, Danish. And we definitely read, but I think this is about hate for reading. I think it's more for children who can read by themselves, right? This whole trend is because they made a statistic on reading and they noticed that only 14% of fourth graders in Denmark love reading or like to read. And it's even worse because if you compare it to a previous statistic from five years ago, it was a 20%. So that's quite a steep decrease. It wasn't very high to begin with. One in five children likes to read, but now it's even worse. And imagine if he gets to under 10% in the next period, there will be literally one in 10 children who actually likes to read. It will become a rarity. It will become like something very special if you see a child reading. Imagine it might be at some point that you read a book in the class and then the other children will be like mobbing you because of it, because it will not be cool anymore if you're the only one in the whole class who reads. Yeah, but that's the thing, right? Back in the day and how I developed my reading habit was when we read aloud in class. No matter what the lesson was, our teachers made us read aloud. But at the same time, like when you say fourth graders, I remember when I was in fourth grade, we had dedicated half an hour, 40 minutes, once a week, where we could take a book from the library. Even if it was a picture book, it didn't matter as long as you picked a book and you sat down and you went through the book. The teacher wasn't looking at you if you're reading the book or if you're reading word to word. As long as you skimmed the book, you had the book in your hand and you sort of developed this association with books. But at the same time, I think it's also important that the world of reading is opened up for children and not restricted to books. Also, because when you're forced to do something, especially with the kind of accessibility we have in Denmark, it's important that children or anybody for that matter who wants to develop a reading habit should just read. It doesn't need to be a book. It doesn't need to be a specific news article or anything. Just read. You can start with reading signs. You can start with reading your food packages just to see where it's from. Or whatever else you're interested in that food and develop sort of a liking from there towards reading. I think it's essential because I remember there was an article and also research a couple of years ago where children couldn't hold a pencil and write with their hands. Or do simple mathematics and this seems to be a growing problem in and around the West, especially developed countries where basic things are becoming a dislike and kids are becoming incapable. I think it's ridiculous that kids can't write with their pen and paper. What should we tell parents at home? What can international parents take lessons at home? The only thing I can imagine from what you said in the beginning is that if we read in the presence of children, so in the evening after you have made dinner, after you have eaten, in that let's just say one magical one hour between seven and eight in the evening, right? If you as a parent, instead of looking at TV or at your phone, if you pick up a book and you read, I think the children might be more encouraged to read as well. Or even when they're younger, just reading often with them out loud, as you said, I think that might make them more interested to read. I think that's my only direct advice I can say from my side. But what would you advise parents to do in this case? I would strongly advise having a no phone hour where you yourself as a parent pick up something physically that you can read. And it could be your kids' storybooks as well. Read aloud to your kid or just absolutely anything. You know, you get free flyers and free advertisements and free supplements in your postbox from the municipality and all of that. Read those. Put your child together with the family and try and read that aloud. And if you're not a Danish speaking person and you read English or whatever language you read in, it doesn't matter what the language is. As long as that liking and that, you know, children imitate what parents do. And I did the same as well. My mom reads, my mother-in-law reads, everybody in my family reads. We had this book exchange as well. One of my mom's brothers used to come over. He'll read a book while he was staying with us for a day or two. He'll leave the book behind and take another book with him. But also, if it's hard for parents and kids to sit together and read, I would also suggest try the libraries because libraries have storytelling sessions as well. There are many independent bookstores that also do storytelling for children. Maybe encourage those, take your kids and, you know, it could be like a playtime as well with other friends in the school and, you know, then it becomes like a group activity. Also, with my friend's kid, I realized that a little bit of competition is also nice, you know, because he wanted to show off that, oh, he reads very slow, I can read better. And that encouraged him to actually immediately open his book and read to me. But the fact is also that my friend reads. So, you know, the kids also feel like, okay, I also have a book because my mom has a book or, you know, that imitation is also important. So I would encourage going to libraries and checking out what's there for the kids or independent bookstores in and around your municipality. No phone once a week, at least for an hour. That would be really good. Also, maybe encourage kids to do something with their hands so they're not dependent on things that are only screen time or that's, you know, really fast, high-paced. And I mean as international parents, I mean, if you're not used to reading fair enough, it might be hard, let's just say, road or mountain to climb. Think about this, most of the international are seeking more connections than they have, right? And especially with Danes as well, what better way to do two things at the same time, getting used to read and getting more connections, join a book club, go to your local library, bibliotech, and ask for any local book clubs they have. They have them in Danish, they have them in English. There's hundreds of book clubs like sprouting about all around the country. So what better way you get to read, you show your children the love to read, and you make new connections. It's like the perfect trifecta, right? Absolutely. I mean, I'm part of three book clubs. Three? Wow. And that's one of the things I did when I first came to Denmark, some eight, ten years ago, is that I looked for a book club. And it is a great way of connecting and having some social contact, especially if you're a single parent or if you're in Denmark and you don't know anything, you're still looking for a job or in between whatever it is. I would also suggest that maybe online book clubs, if you don't find anything in Denmark or something that you don't relate to, maybe you have a different language other than English and Danish, and you want to have some kind of connection, that's also a great idea to do. There is a TikToker, he's English though, and he makes videos on how to teach your kids to say words, but also encourage reading habits. And I mentioned this specifically because I know that there are many, many children who suffer with, not suffer, but they have either dyslexia or they're slow learners or whatever, or they have ADHD or anything like that. My husband's dyslexic as well, but he does try to sort of get the reading into his, not daily, but at least once a month. He's for sure reading something or the other. But that TikToker, he has some really good tricks and ways of making kids read and build their patience in identifying words and how to pronounce words. It's in English though, but maybe that's a starter and you can develop that in your own language. But enough about reading, we passed the time for discussion on that and I think we covered it quite well. Let's move on to electric cars. Kalpita, are you planning to buy an electric car? No, I'm not a car person to be honest. I'm very, very public transport dependent. I love public transport. In fact, if electric cars are becoming expensive, I say make public transport free. Make public transport free? I mean, not the craziest idea. There are cities in Europe who already made a step to make public transport free, fair enough. And I know you live in the city, you live in Copenhagen. So for you, public transport is quite a thing. But I live somewhere else. I live in a near a large city like Aalborg, but I still live near, like in the suburbs. In the suburbs, you'll never have perfect public transport. We're talking about the bus every hour and it takes one hour with the bus to reach the city. So a car is still very much needed in here. There's no question about it. We ourselves have plug-in, electric plug-in, which is like half electric, half diesel. I think not diesel gas, maybe. Yeah, one of them. I'm not a big car guy either. Let's just say. But what's happening is that electric cars are becoming more expensive. Actually, in fact, every year starting this year, already from this year, electric cars will become 8% more expensive. Only because of the gradual phase-in of the registration tax. Many people don't know, but for quite a few years now, electric cars didn't have registration tax. So that made them a lot cheaper than conventional fossil fuel cars. It made them cheaper and it got us in a situation where every second car bought in Denmark is electric, actually. And they expect in 2025 that 70% of all new cars bought will be electric. So we're definitely going towards a place where most people have electric cars. Because why? Well, electricity is cheaper than diesel and gas, right? So that's one. It's cheaper to leave your car overnight to charge at home than to bother. There's no more this fear that the car will run out of electricity because the range now is much higher on the new cars. It's even up to 400, 500 kilometers. And even without that, they are now building so many charging points that almost every parking lot literally has a charging station somewhere. And maybe some people don't know about it, but actually parking fees are much lower for electric cars than a normal car. Conventional fossil fuel. So there's a lot of these things that are out there in terms of electric cars. But I think the most important fact that we need to remember ourselves is that from 2030, you will not be allowed to buy cars which are not electric. So you will have to buy electric from 2030. Yeah, I think that's a bit of a shame because like I said, I'm not a big car person, but the fun of having a car which is on diesel or petrol is just a whole different level. And I know most car fanatics will agree with me. But at the same time, I have a question of, I'm wondering how does this 8% benefit the economy or the government in any way? What does this 8% go to? No, it's basically because think about it. The government was having quite of an important income out of tax registration of cars, car tax registration. But because now one in two cars is electric, means that the government is losing a lot of money compared to what they predicted they will get in. So now they slowly, slowly, because if all cars will be electric, right? Because we are here only talking about new cars, cars that are acquired now. We're not saying that in 2030, people who have fossil fuel cars will have to stop using them. Probably they will have to stop using them in certain parts of the country anyway. But we are talking about acquiring a new car, right? So if the registration tax you paid once, you paid when you buy the car. So if all cars will be electric and the registration tax is no longer there, then the government is losing an important source of income. So of course they had to bring it back. But right now there's a whole discussion between them and there's a strong lobby coming from the automobile industry, also from the dance industry. They are trying to convince the government to open the discussion on car registration tax and actually replace car registration tax with road usage tax. So to not matter if you buy a car or if you own a car, but if you actually use a car. They think that this way people will be determined to use less their cars or maybe only use it when they really need it instead of using it all the time. So but the whole idea is to find a way to implement a real time road user system, which we are talking about quite of an extensive IT system. And if we're looking at the whole valuation of tax for properties, then I'm afraid about any sort of large IT systems and how well they will do in the future. Yeah, I mean if you fancy being monitored every time, wherever you are, that's how it will probably look like. But then that brings me back again to being a public transport supporter, so to speak. If I am paying so much and if the government is already or if someone's lobbying to, I'm reading the news, it says common road tax for everyone. And as you mentioned that if someone actually uses the car, then they get taxed on it. Then why not better the accessibility of public transport? Because there is nothing more sustainable than that or biking. But then like you said, there are many, many people who stay in the outskirts or in the countryside where accessibility is not that easy. But the problem is the cost of it. You have to understand that having a bus running every 20 minutes in my village will be almost all the time 80% empty. It's not feasible. It's not feasible for public finances, it's not feasible for environment either because it will still be a bus running on things. Of course it can be an electric bus running, which is fine, but then it's electricity that we have to pay from our public money. So I'm all fine about more buses, but it's still not going to be very efficient to be honest. No matter what, it's difficult to replace the car with public transport in the outskirts. That's just how it is. So we just have to accept the reality that the future is a blending of the two. Maybe, yes, the car should get out of the big cities, fair enough. Maybe at the entrance of the large city there's a huge parking lots. You just park your car, then you take the transport to anywhere you want to go. Yeah, fine. That will make the cities more breathable, that will make the cities better. But in the outskirts, nobody will ever be able to find. I don't know unless you find a way that these buses are so efficient and electricity is so cheap, then it doesn't matter. Then yes, run it every 20 minutes empty. One person in it, no problem. It doesn't mean anything because it's simply that cheap to run it. But when will electricity become that cheap? Is that even something that we are aiming for? Because if all the cars will be on electricity in the future, that means the demand on electricity will be higher. Correct? So if the demand on electricity will be higher, then that means the price on electricity will be higher as well, unless we find more and more sources of electricity out there. Exactly. So it is not all that sustainable either. But then it's also catch-22. We leave that to the government. Exactly. But speaking of electric cars, we have a good segue to the next topic that we're discussing is petty thieves and petty crimes. Petty crimes, such a funny name. Misdemeanours, if you call it in English, right? Have you ever been exposed to petty crime? Not personally, no. But I mean, yes and no really. I worked with an e-bike company in Copenhagen. Very, very popular, very, very cool. Extremely controversial as well. But we did work closely with the police at the end of the whole saga of stealing e-bikes. It is a nuisance, to be honest. And I don't think e-bikes and stealing e-bikes are batteries to e-bikes, whether it's a cargo bike or your whatever, city bike or your off-roading, if you're using electric off-roading bikes. I do not believe that they are petty crimes because that's a huge market as well. But apart from stealing batteries and just completely picking up a whole e-bike in itself and then selling that on the market is also a very, very big business. Millions and millions involved in that actually. But I also live near a netto which has petty thieves coming in and out and stealing all kinds of things. You imagine and they have stolen it. I've seen people walk out from the netto with things under their jackets, filled in their pockets and they just as soon as they step out, they are off. By the time you even tell the person behind the till saying, "Hey, that person just saw him steal like a whole six pack or something." And by the time you go out to even see them, they're not there. So my question is, one thing is to find them, but how are we going to find them to find them? To find them to find them. Yeah, because if the thief isn't, if you can't find the thief, I know for a fact that especially e-bikes and batteries that are stolen on e-bikes, you will never find that person. You don't know who this person has just out of the blue when you've just popped into a shop to get whatever, has just taken your bike or taken your battery and you're just left with either no bike or just a bike without a battery. And how do you find this person? What's important here to notice, I lived in Denmark for 15 years. I came in Denmark in 2009. I came into a country which did not know what petty crimes were. The stores in here had no cameras. Many stores had no people. Literally, you just put the money into a box and you get out with what you need from that store. That was the level of trust back in 2009. You have to understand that Denmark has gradually gotten used to the idea that it's changing as a society and the fact that now you have cameras in stores. Of course, we are not at the level where you need to hire security at the entrance. I'm not sure. Maybe some parts in Denmark already went to that level of, they just say, protection and security that you see in, for example, Eastern Europe or actually France, Germany. But in Denmark, it's always been the case that you don't have to bother with such small things. Problem is lately shoplifting has become a bit too much. The many stores are kind of... Because many times those were being... They looked at the situation and thought, okay, people steal for three reasons. One, because they are very poor and they need to eat, fair enough. And many times stores will close their eyes to those people because they knew that, okay, it's going towards saving someone's life, fair enough. But then the second reason why people were stealing in the past was because of fun. For the exhilarating thought of stealing something, for the Russian adrenaline that you get. There are people who literally want to get a kick out of it and they just do it for that reason. But now, unfortunately, there's a third category that's emerging and that's why now the government has decided to step in with a new law. It's because now we have people stealing as a business. They're literally going to stores, they steal stuff and they resell them on social media. It's crime as a business. It's a new thing. You can hire people to do all sorts of things, but you can also just take other people's products and resell them. It's literally a business. So that's why the government came with the first attempt at stopping these petty crimes. But to be honest, I'm not sure about the effect. I think, for example, on shoplifting, right, they raised fines from 500 to 1000 kroners. And it always... The fine has to be higher than the product that you stole. And then if you steal repeatedly, then you have that amount to just multiply itself. Okay, fair enough, I guess, to stop some people who steal because they're hungry, but you'll not stop the people who are reselling because this is too little. It's just a business loss, you can say. You put it under the category business loss and you move on. But I think the biggest impact, and I think many people listening to this should pay attention. We mentioned it at the beginning of the podcast, is that bicycles. From now on, from 1st of February, the police will be allowed to make random checks without a reason. They don't need a reason why they stop you, they just stop you. And they will check your bike ID. And if your bike ID is reported stolen, you will be going under burglary and bike theft. And that's a bit more serious accusation than shoplifting, actually. Yeah, actually, as far as my knowledge goes, the police have been doing that already because when I worked with the e-biking company, the police had started looking at the number. So I think it's applicable to most e-bikes especially and probably your other non-e-bikes as well. That the frame of your bicycle has a number on it and you just need to find that number. And your battery will also have a number on it. So if you get a legit bike, but maybe your battery is stolen, you never know. And police, I think, I was working about three to two years ago. So I know the police have been doing this for at least two years and they're randomly checking on bicycles. And they were specifically checking back then for the brand that I worked for. But I'm sure they extended that to other e-bikes as well because it doesn't matter what e-bike it is these days. It's just a matter of getting the battery especially because that, like you said, it is an organized business now. It's also not just e-bikes. We're talking about all bikes, especially normal bikes. Because in the past, to stop you, they need to suspect you. We suspect that you might have stolen this bike. So you had to be starting with the presumption of you might have stolen this bike. You look a bit funny. But now, literally, they can make a let's just say today, this morning, we're going to take this street and every bike, a thousand bikes that will stop will pass. All of them have to be checked. So that's the difference. Now they're allowed to do more of it if they want to. And that's why many, because for example, you might have been more exposed because probably they were you, your company was often reporting those bikes being stolen. The company, the police was looking for those specific bikes, but now they will look at any random bike. So what I suggest is that go, is there like a place you can look if your bike has been stolen actually? No, there isn't. I was also going to ask if there was a way to call the police or have something online where you can check if so and so numbers on bikes or so and so registration of e-bike, for example, is a stolen bike. Like, you know, there is no record per se. Going back to two years, I know police checked specifically our brands and they stopped absolutely everybody. And they also stopped e-bikes who use similar battery sizes. So it wasn't just our bikes only, but it was other bikes who use similar batteries because once a battery is stolen, then you, then you can use it to any bike as well. But I would strongly suggest anybody who's buying bikes out of a Facebook marketplace or something like that, you have to have to be sure of who you're buying from. If this person is a previous owner, if they have any legitimation for all of that, but also things like electronics, your max, your, your phones, all of them come with registration numbers as well. So you have to be very careful if you're buying anything that is especially expensive or has a higher value, then you have to be careful with who you're buying from, where you're buying from as well. Even places like Vinted and all of that, where you get used products, you have to be very, very careful with them because you never know. This thing can also extend to other products. So it's not necessarily just this and this could also be, I know for a fact that this is coming off the experience that our company had because we had, we unfortunately played a huge, huge role in, in, in, in, it wasn't the company did anything, of course, but it was that our bikes were used for serious crime. And that's why our company became the forefront of all of this. And I know these rules are also coming off of that experience because it's not just the theft of a bike or an e-bike or similar products, but it's also, like you said, organized crime, but also it's used for, for doing different serious crimes as well. So it's, it's, it's not just a small thing, it's just like a spark for bigger and different things that also getting involved in it. So it's fine if you forget a train ticket or a bus ticket, but do not buy a bike or a product off anywhere where you don't know it's legit. Exactly. And with that, we finish the podcast for today. This has been our first episode. Thank you so much, Kalpita, for, for being here with, with me tonight. It has been an absolute pleasure. Thank you. We are, by the way, recording on a Saturday evening. So that's why we're going to usually probably going to hear in the next episodes that it's in the evening that we're recording. You're listening to this on probably Sunday afternoon, but I hope you'll enjoy our first episode and you'll listen to the next episodes. We promise you we will be every week there with you. Also, if you have any feedback, please do not hesitate to write back to us or share it on wherever you're listening to the podcast at. Super. Then thank you so much for tonight and see you another week. It's not a guarantee that the same two hosts will be here, but I know for sure, Kalpita will be with you, will be with you next week and I will see you some other time. Thank you.