Last Week in Denmark

Denmark Goes Offline, Internationals Leave & Debt Rethink: LWID S5E13

• Season 5 • Episode 13

Share episode

Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.

0:00 | 38:16

Send us Fan Mail

Offline Denmark, Talent Retention & Debt Reality: Katie and Kalpita are joined by Kelly Rasmussen to discuss Denmark’s shift away from digital life, why internationals are still arriving but not staying due to systemic barriers like jobs and bureaucracy, and how David Graeber’s ideas challenge the fear of debt, raising bigger questions about how systems impact everyday life for internationals in Denmark. 

Topics: 

(01:29) Offline shift in Denmark

(16:34)  Are there more internationals leaving than coming to Denmark?

(27:48) Why Debt Might Not Matter 

Our team:

👀 LWID Substack: English -Romanian - Polish - Spanish - Turkish - Italian - German - Hungarian - Ukrainian

🛍️ LWID merchandise:  https://last-week-in-denmark.tpopsite.com/shop

❓ Email:lastweekdk@gmail.com

Follow: 

https://www.instagram.com/last_week_in_denmark/ 

https://www.facebook.com/lastweekindenmark 

https://www.linkedin.com/company/lastweekindenmark 

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC74z1nBOfol1EiPxHPHiHnw

website: https://lwid.dk/ 

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

Katie

Hello, and welcome to The Last Week in Denmark podcast. Katie here, and joining me this week is my wonderful co-host, Kalpita, and an extra special guest, Kelly Rasmussen. Kelly is a data storyteller and advocate focused on Danish policy and how that shows up in daily life. Kelly works on data and foreign policy at Fair & Fornuftig — so sorry for my pronunciation — and writes monthly articles for The International. She also hosts The Coffee Pod, a 15-minute interview series spotlighting undertold perspectives in Denmark. So you are going to feel right at home on the podcast today, Kelly. You're very welcome, and thank you so much for joining us. 

Kelly

Thank you for inviting me. Very excited.

Katie

Yeah, how are you doing, Kalpita? How is it, is it raining in Copenhagen? It often is.

Kalpita

You know, it's not raining in Copenhagen, but it is 4 degrees, feeling like -5, so it is very windy. It is an ideal afternoon for a nap, which I have just woken up from. Ha ha!

Katie

Oh, jealous. We have three topics today that I am absolutely delighted are not about the recent election. So the first topic is the rise of offline experiences. Then we're going to be talking about, are more internationals leaving Denmark than arriving? And then finally, there's a new Danish translation of a book that is a little bit old, um, about how we perceive debt, and it's challenging traditional views about it. So that's coming up in Danish news at the moment. But first, let's talk about the rise of offline human experiences. So this is referring to, kind of, a common trend that's being called “the human rebound.” So after years of digital-first living, different trends are showing up with people reclaiming their time, their homes, and their relationships from the pressure of looking perfect online. So there's a lot of this, it’s kind of talking about things like people doing more in-person events, moving away from online dating to in-person events like “pitch a friend,” people transforming their backyards to wellness centers. And I suppose… this is something that I don't find surprising. What do you think, Kalpita?

Kalpita

I have not experienced, but I have seen people, especially those buying new homes, trying to make space either for a kitchen garden project or for a sauna, which is a very intimate part of the Swedish culture but has sort of disappeared in the Danish one. There are still some old housing where you find basements which were actually saunas, and then they are converted into storage in some sort.

Katie

A basement as a sauna? 

Kalpita

Yeah.

Katie

That sounds like a mold problem. No, I mean, I don't know.

Kalpita

I don't know.

Katie

They obviously did it. [Laughs]

Kalpita

Yeah, but maybe not after we've had flooding in the past couple of, uh, couple of years, especially with the cloudbursts and stuff. I… am I here for it? Hell yeah. I mean, love a sauna and steam, so please bring that back. But, I mean, I'm not that young anymore, so I'm not sure “pitch a friend” is something that I have experienced yet? But I suppose you would do that anyway if you found someone really nice and thought, “hey, let me hook you up with that friend of mine whom I know who is quite lonely in this wonderful town of yours, Denmark.” But other than that, I'm there for run clubs. I'm not here for fastelavnsboller run marathon…

Katie

[Laughs] That's a terrible idea. Surely, there’s so much vomiting, like, ugh!

Kalpita

Yeah, I mean, it's, it's, it's beyond my imagination. Will you find me running in a run club? No. You will not find me running in public. Um, I go to gym for that. But then, hey, if… if running is your thing, then you should most certainly join a run club. It's a great way to network. It's a great way to find new friends as well, especially if you're a student or you've just started working in Denmark. That's if you're lucky enough. Or you're just looking to get out and do something, I think run clubs are great. Um, but also I would encourage all kinds of sports clubs and just any interest clubs as well. So this is, this is a big welcome in my world. What about you, Kelly? What do you think?

Kelly

So I think this trend has passed me by cause, like, I'm not on TikTok or I don't use Instagram like that. Um, so I haven't heard about going offline to experience my life. Um, and also, I think, like, my age, like, I'm officially an elder millennial because I have fancied Noah Wiley twice in my life as a doctor, so…

Kalpita

Don’t blame you. Don't blame you at all. [Laughs]

Kelly

[Laughs] I'm just too old, I think. But yeah, I think getting offline is generally a good idea. I'm glad that the kids today are figuring that out. My thing isn't running with other people. I'll run on my own but not with other people. But my thing is, like, improv. So like, I go out…

Katie

Oh, that’s fun! 

Kelly

It's so much fun! We're just playing pretending, and pretending is really serious. Oh no, let's find the game. No, he's just playing! [Laughs] It's so much fun. Yeah, so I think, yeah, it's great that kids are learning that they need to get off their screens, but I wonder if it's just because the apps themselves just get worse and worse as they go on, you know? Um, I don't know, this is a family podcast, but the technical term is “enshittification,” where things get worse and worse all the time. Um, so I wonder if what's happening is that people just are sick of the apps just sending them ads and reels that they don't want to see anymore, so that, in desperation, turning to running, like, it's beautiful. I love to see it.

Katie

[Laughs] I love that. That's the ultimate; we've been driven to running. That's how you know we've hit our limits. Um, but I completely agree, and I, I don't think it's surprising at all. I think especially with AI, the amount of garbage that's online has just multiplied exponentially, and there's so much that it's even faker. Like, it was already very fake before, but now it's everywhere. And like, even some bus ads very clearly have AI in them, and you're like, I thought bus ads were a safe space. I knew… I don't TikTok either. I am on Instagram, but it's mostly for food. And then, so like, I, similarly, I feel like I'm a little bit outside of this, like, very intense social media, online-driven world that people get stuck in. But at the same time, I'm getting hit with so much garbage that I'm sick of it. Like, I'm just like, I'm bored. I'm not even getting new information. It's the same thing recycled over and over. And I suppose that was already happening, but now it's just happening at such a faster rate that I'm much more aware of it. I'm just like, this just isn't bringing me any value at all. So I think… I would like a sauna, but I don't want to pay for one. So if someone would like to donate, please contact me at…

Kalpita

Yeah, I like— 

Katie

Don't have a garden, but…

Kalpita

I like the active rejection of accessibility. Um, I enjoy that quite a lot, and I hope we keep doing that even more. Because just… thinking, to think about it, not very long ago, at least five years ago, we were in the COVID era where we essentially didn't have access to the outdoors or to people and each other and connection. But at the same time, we had major access to the internet, and information, and entertainment. And now we've had so much of it. And luckily, because of the EU regulations and a lot of court cases against social media, not just in the European Union, but also in the US, and this visceral change in conversation around how social media companies have deliberately designed their product to manipulate and make it more addictive has brought, luckily, awareness among people, and especially the youth who are actively rejecting accessibility. It's really wonderful to see. Say what you may of the younger generation, there are some things that they are doing really well, and one of them is rejecting this attention span and this perfectionism that is being created and… and forced upon people. So I'm most certainly here for that. And you can see that as well, like, in when you go out in Copenhagen. Um, also just take Copenhagen fashion for that matter, and why we are on a global scale is because we are imperfect. We are a fashion city which is not trying very hard. We're very practical. We are almost casual. There’s a certain way…

Fionn

Did you know that The Last Week in Denmark newsletter is available in eight languages? Hey there, this is Fionn from The Last Week in Denmark podcast, and every week you guys are tuning in to hear me and my fellow cohosts talk about the top news of the week in English. But let's be real. We're all internationals, so not only are you speaking English every day, you're probably also speaking a bit of Danish. But you've probably also got your own native language as well, like the multilingual master you are. So why not treat yourself to the luxury of being able to read Danish news each week in your own native language? So head on over to lastweekdk.substack.com. That's lastweekdk.substack.com, and sign up for our newsletter delivered to you every single Sunday.

Kalpita

Um, in the way we perform our fashion choices and related. Not so much about commercialising fastelavnsboller with the run club though. I'm not, I'm not on that extreme of the spectrum. But yeah.

Katie

That’s so true. I didn't even… I, I forget that about Denmark because it feels so normal. And then when I go home to Ireland, I'm like, “oh, people are wearing shoes that aren't comfortable. I forgot that that was an option.” Or I really, I have such a, like, crystal clear image in my mind of when I first moved here, I went to Copenhagen first, and I was there for two months. And I remember seeing this woman, and I was working a startup at the time, so I was like, “I'm gonna be high-flying corporate business lady,” of course. And I saw this woman who was wearing a blazer and sweatpants, and she looked so cool, and I was like, “I will never be cool enough to pull off this look. I will look like a homeless person who fell into a blazer while I was out and about.” And then I was like, “oh, maybe this is too cool for me.” And then I moved to Aarhus, which is nice. So there we go. That's it. [Laughs] But I suppose as well, I think it's, what's really nice about this is, kind of, and seeing this trend amongst older people or adults, let's say, is that there's so much going on in terms of limiting phones in schools and kind of trying to get kids and younger people in general away from screens. Because now, as you say, we have the evidence; we know how harmful it can be. So it's nice this is rippling through to adults as well. So kids are going to see an example that, okay, people are coming off their phones. And there's been like significant increases across the board in these, kind of, more in-person events and less digital, in the sense that, you know, 40% of people in Denmark report feeling less stressed when they invite friends over without worrying about tidying up. In my personal upbringing, I did not know that was an option. Of course you have to tidy up. If you're like, “well, I can't let them see my laundry, this is terrible!” So now I'm like, okay, everybody can come over now. The “pitch a friend” events have seen a 50% increase in participation in Denmark over the last year. The sale of backyard wellness products like the saunas and the hot tubs we were talking about have increased by 25% in Denmark in 2023. Did not know this was so normal. We do not have this in Ireland at all. We would break it or it would be poorly built. And then participation in the running events has increased by over 30% in Denmark in the past two years. So this is hugely evolving over time, which is just really, really nice to see. I can only see it as a positive for people, but also for us as a world to get off our tiny phones.

Kalpita

There was also conversation about how knitting and knitting clubs have grown, which is very cute, I think. I would love to learn how to knit, and maybe 2026 is the year I, maybe, do something with wool and learn how to knit. I don't know. Check in with me before Christmas. Um, but yeah, I have also actually this year decided to be, um, investing my time in slow living. So basically being conscious of, um, not picking my phone. And I must admit, it hasn't been as successful as I thought it would be for obvious reasons. But, Katie, I agree with you that all the information out there is repetitive, and it becomes really, really boring, and it's not stimulating at all. Do I find myself in a run club? Probably not. But there was, there was this TV show called Kender du typen?, which is “Do You Know the Type?,” which is basically a personality profile of people who are a bit extreme or are very peculiar about certain things. And there was this manuscript writer and director called Emma… Anna something, sorry. Um, either way, she was invited on the show to be interviewed and to, uh, I think it was to interior decorate her home. And the hosts were a bit surprised to see that she had not actually cleaned up. Of course, she vacuumed the floor and, you know, she cleaned out the stains and stuff like that, like any normal person would do. But she didn't, um, like, pick the kids' toys up from the sofa, or she didn't, um, sort of put the bed together, whatever. And, in her opinion, she is trying to reject the perfectionism of the fashion or the design world because she thinks it's giving an impractical and unreal image of what life actually is. Am I here for that? Hell yeah! Do I care if someone's not cleaned up? I don't. If some— if I'm invited at someone's place and they've not picked up a paper from the floor, I'm not going to judge them. Or, you know, if they, if they've not done the dishes after making a meal for me, I'm absolutely okay with it. Um, I don't think any of us are that judgmental as people. If we were, if we were to go to somebody else's house and say, “ew, look at that, ugh!” You know? Or you step out of the house and then backbite, saying, you know, “oh did you see the kitchen?” Or anything like— nobody does that. Everybody understands on a human level that that's absolutely okay and normal, and we're just getting by one day at a time. Everyone's trying their best.

Kelly

Oh, I don't know, Kalpita, because I've had people say, “oh, do you know what you could do? You could put all these toys onto Reshopper, and then sell them.” Like, I have had comments from people. “Oh, all this, this clutter. There is stuff you can do about this, Kelly. You can definitely get rid of all this clutter.” So I think there are some judgmental people when it comes to… [Laughs]

Katie

Were you just like, this is my stuff. Please, please don't sell it?

Kelly

No. [Laughs] I just went, “oh, thanks for the tip.”

Katie

You should invite Kalpita over. She's much more polite.

Kelly

Yeah, yeah, you can come around.

Kalpita

Thank you! Um, but that's the thing, right? Because everybody, whoever is walking around judging other people, is one saying that they can do it better and is also, uh, basically reflecting what is being told to them, that it… any home, any fashion choice, any design needs to be clean, needs to be tidy, needs to be in this perfect way. There isn't space for something that's not perfect. But that's also nice, that's also good. Take the art industry for that matter. Art, the art industry is not about perfectionism. It is, even now, continued to… to gather attention because it's not perfect. There is something or the other that is not fitting in the art world, which makes it more attractive, which makes it not mainstream. You know, Banksy came out— not came out, but you know, we now know who Banksy is. Does his art still have significance? Of course it does. But it also had significance because you didn't know the guy, because there was this certain mystery, there was a certain imperfection about it that, you know, it wasn't a complete loop. And that's the thing with perfectionism, right? You want to tie everything with a nice, neat bow and convince people that this is the best foot forward. And that's… that perfectionism about putting your best foot forward is not necessarily really productive. So don't, don't go to Reshopper.

Katie

You keep your stuff. Keep it on the floor.

Kalpita

Yeah.

Katie

Keep it! 

Kalpita

Yeah, exactly! Or you just put them in a box and just chuck it away if that's what makes you happy, you know?

Katie

Passive-aggressively leave it in your friend's homes so that you're like, “this is clutter, like, what are you doing?” 

Kelly

[Laughs] “Oh, I heard you like toys!”

Katie

Yeah, but speaking of things that aren't perfect, I'm gonna move us on to the second topic, which is the question, are there more internationals leaving Denmark than arriving? So I suppose this is a thing. It comes up from time to time to kind of talk about, you know, people come, they study, and then they leave. So what is the investment? Are we setting up the… the job world right so that when people come here to study, there's somewhere for them to go? But what are the actual numbers? What is the actual data behind, are there more internationals coming or leaving? Kelly, do you by any chance have some thoughts?

Kelly

I happen to know the answer to this. Yes, um, there are more internationals coming, um, than are leaving. And the numbers of internationals arriving is increasing. In 2022, there was a big spike because of the Ukraine war, um, so it was 58,000 coming. But now it's kind of settled. It's plateaued at about 31,000. Um, and yeah, net migration, it's trending. Um, but actually, the— you can't talk about the trend of net migration because the change is so small from, like, the average. It's basically just statistical noise. So for every two people that arrive, there's about 1.3 that leave.

Katie

Wow.

Kelly

But there's a bit of a nuance here. EU immigration is down, and EU emigration is up. But that's, you're seeing that across Europe. You're seeing that across the EU. That's because of Brexit, and it's because of, you know, global events.

Katie

What global events? Is something happening, or… [Laughs] I like that we made the same joke in different ways.

Kelly

[Laughs] Yeah, like, reality's writers have just got run out of ideas, and they're just like, “oh, let's have more wars.” Um, yeah, so there is… there is something going on with EU migration, but yeah, so net EU migration has more than halved, but that doesn't mean that Denmark isn't doing a good job attracting people. It's just one of those things. Um, okay, the top emigrating nations right now are the Danes themselves, they're at the top, Romanians, Ukrainians, people from the USA, and Poland. So this is people, like, USA especially, that tends to be the exchange students. So this is people that have come with the intention of going home quite often because when their work is done or when the… the war seems okay back home, so they can go back like the Ukrainians. Um, in terms of net migration… the top net migration, so the people that are coming in more and more, are Ukraine. So there's like, there's a bit of a paradox there. Um, the Nepalese, Germans, Bangladeshis, and Iranians. So the… the top net migration in the last five, six years are those nations. Um, Denmark has said, politically, caused a big political shitstorm about Nepal and Bangladesh. Um, so [Laughs] the ones that are being more and more attracted to stay, doesn't want them for some reason. I don't, I have not understood that logic. I don't know why they don't want them.

Katie

Yeah, it's a bit baffling. We, we did that as well on the podcast. We were like, what, what is the plan here? Because they were like, “we really need you. Ah, no, wait, sorry, go away.” It was… it was so weird. It was so confusing. 

Kelly

[Laughs] Yeah, yeah, yeah. 

Katie

But it is a funny one, isn't it? Because I feel like this is something you kind of come across day to day in the sense of, it feels like people are leaving or people are unhappy in Denmark, like internationals who are then like, “oh, I want to leave, but I can't,” for this, that, or the other reason. Um, so I do wonder why this kind of comes up so often. Because it sounds like it's pretty static. And, and across everywhere the same changes are happening. So it's like if there's something dramatic happening in Denmark, it's happening in Europe overall. So I suppose I wonder why this topic comes up quite often.

Kelly

Because retention is going down. 

Katie

Ah!

Kelly

If you want to keep people for five, ten years and working in your international company, and then they go home before they need medical services, before they need pensions, um, they come and they work, they do their best years of their career here, and then they go home when they're going to need services. If that's your plan, that's not working because they stay for three years, and then their spouse can't get a job, and they go home. So, that's the problem. But that— and retention has been trending down the whole time I've been here. I've been here since 2008, and in 2009 they were saying, “what are we going to do about retention? It's terrible. It's like 60%.” And now it's 50% over five years. Um, so yeah, that's why, that's why they're talking about it. It's not net migration they're talking about, it's retention.

Kalpita

… people back. Is it a good job market that people would stay back for? Affordable housing, maybe? I don't know.

Katie

I did this thing, this kind of going through, like, the… the stats that they were throwing out, and it was like 50% of internationals leave within five years, 70% of non-EU workers leave within ten years or 12 years. But then I'm like, “okay, but why? Are you asking them why?” Because it's, it's probably because it was impossible to find a job, or there was only, like, you know, they could only find, you know, waitressing jobs or dishwashing jobs, and they are in fact a qualified nurse, and they would like to do their job. So yeah, I… what kind of work are they, how are they looking into this, I guess, is my next question. I don't know that anyone knows, but it's that kind of, “okay, we know there's a problem, but do you know why? Are you gonna fix that?” Or are we just gonna talk about the question?

Kelly

There was a survey, um, by Digital Hub, he looked at IT workers, tech workers. And they interviewed dozens of people and asked them, because they'd already left, “why did you leave?” And it was, it was things like, um, the bureaucracy was unmanageable, the rules kept changing, so they could never relax and stay, or the rules would change, and then they would need to leave because of the rules, or their spouse couldn't get a job, or they got laid off and then they couldn't find a job. So we've got this paradox at the heart of this report that they're saying that there is a tech skills shortage within this country, but people with tech skills that get laid off cannot find a tech job to be able to stay in the country. So I don't know how that works, and no one's explained that to me, and no one's looking into that either. They describe it, and then that's the end of the curiosity. And I would love to know why that is happening.

Kalpita

I don't think anybody understands why it works the way it works. Also because, my perception of it, is that there are people who are there for a short term who are interested in finding out and trying to translate that into policy. At the same time, the government, and I have to say, the… the current government, even if it is [understate but not understate], you know, they have done a very good job of attracting international talent, especially related to technology and, uh, different other skills that we need. At the same time, they've done a very bad job of retaining them. But they have totally ignored this very, very big chunk of people that already exist in society who have the same skills as any other international recruited to come into Denmark. And that gap between the people that already exist and getting a new lot of people has never been bridged and has never been looked into. So there are people who are skilled, there are people who are capable of doing exactly, if not more, what new recruits are able to do and bridge that gap. I think there we will find a lot of value and some success with retention as well. Because why would a nurse or an engineer be stuck doing a dishwasher's job or a labor-intensive job just to make it in Denmark? And even if they did it, what dignity do they have and their own perspective in Denmark at the same time? Because if you don't want them, and then they will be off their, on their way. At the same time, if you want to retain people, then look at the people that already exist instead of recruiting new ones, because that costs a lot of resources as well. So it's not easy to recruit new talent, nor is it easy on the economy to let them go, even if they're going at an average of three years.

Kelly

It would save them so much money to just keep the people that they have instead of going to other countries and recruiting people for three years. Like, it would save them so much money to recruit within the country of the people that are already here. And I don't know why that business case hasn't occurred to these people that are making these decisions, but that's for better minds than mine.

Katie

It does feel like there needs to be an overall decision generally in Denmark of, do you want internationals here or not? Because it kind of, it kind of goes both ways. They want the internationals, but only for a little bit of time, and only for these very specific jobs. But then it's only going, as time goes on, because there are declining birth rates, the population is going down, you are going to need more people. There's shortages in, in a number of areas that are really, really critical. So you are going to need more people from other places, but you need them to be able to have a life and exist here, not just invite them over, and then be like, “ah, fill out all these forms, and we'll talk to you in six to eight months.”

Kelly

[Laughs] Yeah. Yeah, I love how the, the language of… about us is so dehumanizing, like, and I don't think they even realize it when they say “international arbejdskraft, international arbejdskraft.” That hasn't got the word “people” in there anywhere. So they… we don't have families, we're just a workforce, we're just, uh, we're just widgets that you just slot into your kommune, and then you pay the taxes, and you do the jobs. And then, um, like, Sonneborn was so pleased that they could have, like, a really good adult-to-child ratio in their bornehavns, and were so pleased. And then you look at how many people, um, work there, are of working age, and they're from international, um, environment, or that they're actually commuting in from Germany. And then it becomes clear how they can afford to have such great services, is because there are so many foreigners who are working there, either as immigrants or commuters, or whatever, you know, internationals. Um, it's wild.

Katie

It's maddening, some might say, but I'll take this point before we all go into a frenzy trying to think, like, “this doesn't make sense.” And let's move on to our final topic of the podcast today, which is about a book. It's not a new book, it's about 10 to 15 years old, and the man who wrote it is quite dead. But it is in the news at the moment because it has recently been translated to Danish. And the book is about debt and the first 5,000 years, and it's by David Graeber. And it basically challenges how we perceive debt and why we should be less afraid of it, which I find very difficult because I am afraid of everything, including debt. Um, but I suppose, what, what is your feelings about debt? Like, we say debt, or I have debt. I don't have any debt, but I also don't have any assets, so maybe that's why I'm like, nope, no thank you. But, uh, what, what general feelings come up for you guys when we talk about debt?

Kalpita

I fear debt for obvious reasons. I don't want anybody after me or after my family when I'm not here to collect the debt. And I'm just like you, Katie, no assets, no debts, just free bird. After I'm dead, nobody is going to be affected by it, and I leave nothing behind either. I came with nothing, I go with nothing. Pretty much like that. But I do understand, and of course David Graeber has been very, very, um, not… controversial would be the wrong way, but he has been very outspoken about certain things. I've not read this book in specific. I have read Bullshit Jobs, and there was another anthropology book written by some of his students on his work, which I found very, very fascinating. And I understand his… his perspective and where he's coming from. Do I completely agree with not paying my debt and then having that issue become an issue for my family or loved ones? Not really. But I do agree with him that the system is built in a way that you are always in debt once you start your debt cycle. But, Kelly, you've read the book, haven't you?

Kelly

I have read the book. I'll give you a quote. The very first thing that he writes is, “if you owe the bank $100,000, the bank owns you. If you owe the bank $100 million, you own the bank.” 

Kalpita

Yeah.

Kelly

That's, that's how he sets the book up. Um, so he… he's an anthropologist, he's not an economist. And the, the story of commerce and the story of trade is that when you have a chicken but you want some shoes, you go and you say, “I will exchange this chicken for shoes,” and then you get shoes. And then people are like, “Oh, I don't really want a chicken. I want a sandwich.” And so you invent money so that you can… you can do the trade. But he says that that's not the history of money. That's not how money got made. Um, the history of money is that, um… okay, so there was a, there was a civil war. I can't remember which country, it could be Britain. Um, and the army wanted to be able to advance on, like, new, um, frontiers, and so they would need to have food and shelter when they start to get to the new front line. And so what you would do is you would go to a house, and you'd say, “you need to feed me and you need to look after me.” And then the house might say no. And then what's your army gonna do, right? There's only so much food you can put in your backpack. There's only so much water you can put in your backpack. The camping equipment back in those days was terrible. So you really did need people to look after you. So what they did was say, “okay, if you live in my kingdom, you have to pay me with a certain coin. And you can only get that coin if you look after the soldiers.” And so that is how money got invented in that particular society, was if you, um… you, you owe me this to live here, and so to get this, you need to do this. And so the history of money, um, is built up mostly on war. And then you get, um… he talks because it's, it's 5,000 years of history, and we don't have very long to talk about it, but, um, the history of capitalism now is of the West going to the East and extracting resources and saying, “you owe us this,” and using people as slaves. Like, saying that they had to work for no money, and moving them around the world, and extracting value from people's lives and from the resources in their countries, and saying, “you owe us this. This is your debt.” And so then, like, we have… have you seen the musical Hamilton about Alexander Hamilton?

Katie

I know of it. I haven't seen it.

Kelly

Okay, you know of it. So one of his big achievements was to create the national bank in America, and how he did this was to make the states assume debts for, like, on a national basis. So there were states that were very affluent because they were built on slave labor, and then there were states, like New York, that didn't have that, that weren't very affluent. So they, they kind of sucked up all the, the debts, and then that's how they were able to, um, extend credit. And fast forward to, you know, Ford, the… the businessman with the cars? He said if the average American understood how the economy worked, there'd be a revolution tomorrow. So this book is well worth a read. I cannot do it justice. But debt is not… like, it's been turned into this morality thing. Oh, you shouldn't owe people money, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But he is suggesting that perhaps what you shouldn't be doing is insisting on rent for all your money in this financialism of capitalism. So it's a very long argument. It's, like, a few thousand pages of an argument about this. But yeah, so like, you know, do you remember the crash in 2008? Okay, so that happened because the financial system was allowed to be deregulated, and that happened because Nixon needed money for the Vietnam War. So he said that the dollar wasn't connected to how many, um, how much gold they had in their vaults. And so the, the dollar was free-floating, and then this created chaos for all of, um, of the global south because they were not able to get in on… on the party of, of currencies, uh, being more valuable or less valuable. And then, because the, the currency wasn't pegged to anything real like gold, um, this allowed financial deregulation to occur, and then oligarchs start stealing resources from their countries, and money starts sloshing around all around the world. So, one of his suggestions, one of his, um, pleas, is for maybe we have debt jubilees like they used to have 2,000 years ago. So every now and then, hooray, no one owes anything, we're back to zero! And maybe that could help people because, like, did you know that the… the top cause of bankruptcy in the US is having a catastrophic illness?

Katie

Yeah, I'm not… I didn't know that, but I'm not surprised. It’s terrible.

Kelly

Right? That's… that is ridiculous! Like, money is this made-up thing. You don't have to ruin people's lives just because they got sick. You don't have to do that.

Kalpita

So there is hope that all them toys, Kelly, could someday be collateral and currency.

Kelly

I guess there's always hope. There's always hope. The thing is that the form of capitalism that we have now, he argues in his book, is limited by resources. You can't keep extracting from the planet, from the people, and expecting 5% interest every single year. You can't expect that to continue forever because it is an isolated system, and entropy only increases in an isolated system. So this form of capitalism, the way that we're running it, where you expect your money to grow by 5% every year, is causing inflation, and it's causing human misery. So perhaps we people should imagine something better.

Kalpita

I mean, I'm here, I'm totally here. If not in two years, in five years, all debt goes back to zero. I can get my house and a sauna, and five years from now whatever I’ve paid…

Kelly

Yeah.

Kalpita

Yeah, whatever I've paid, I've paid. And you know, et voilà.

Kelly

Yeah!

Katie

This is probably why they don't do that, this exact conversation. “Everyone would be like, I'm gonna get a car, I'm gonna get a sauna.” La, la, la, la!

Kelly

I guess it would have to be a surprise, yeah.

Katie

Yeah, yeah.

Kalpita

Well, if they say that I have to be in a run club, then maybe that's the only thing that'll probably get me in the run club.

Katie

Ah, but listen, those are all our topics for today. Thank you both so much for joining me on the podcast, and great to meet you, Kelly. Thank you so much for bringing your insight. 

Kelly

Thank you. 

Katie

And thank you, everyone, for listening.

Kalpita

Thank you.

Katie

Until next time, bye.

Head Shot

LWID

Host
Head Shot

Kalpita Bhosale

Guest
Head Shot

Katie Burns

Guest
Head Shot

Kelly Rasmussen

Guest