"DECENCY" "That I may understand whatever" "Binds the world's innermost core together --Faust" "On the breakdown of the community" "To us, democracy is about human dignity." "And that means political freedoms." "The right to state your opinion." "The right to criticise and form your own opinions." "Human dignity is the right to health, work, education and social security." "It is the right and the opportunity to work together to shape the future." "These rights, the rights of democracy, must not be limited to a certain social class." "They must belong to the entire population." "Social Democrats believe political democracy has an intrinsic value." "People sometimes talk about "the rights of the bourgeoisie", but what we're talking about is our rights." "It's our democracy, which our people have worked so hard to achieve, and which we Social Democrats will always defend to the death." "At the same time, we view democracy as more than just formal rights." "We see it as a way of making people's dreams come true, of achieving social progress, of transforming society." "Former Prime Minister Hansson said, "First we secure political democracy, then we secure social democracy and social welfare." "Then it's time to take on economic democracy."" "We've always said, that once you accept the principles of democracy, you can never limit it." "Once you openly accept the principle of democratic equality, you cannot limit its application as you see fit, to only certain groups." " New capitalism emerging " " The liberal revolution " " Banking families cash in " " Massive earnings for big banks " "What things do we endeavour to acquire?" "What do we need?" "Food, of course." "Say hens." "But what is it we're looking for?" "This society... which was built to some degree on Social Democratic principles..." "It is built on them, we can say." "It isn't half bad." "People have food, they have a roof over their heads." "So people who whine that we live in a disastrous society..." "Try visiting Mumbai, or the favelas in Rio de Janeiro, where people have nothing and human waste flows in the streets." "Then you can talk about "something has to be done"." "And it has to be done now, and too little is being done." "And if we widen our view to take in the whole planet, it's horrific how things are, and that so little is being done." "So it seems to me..." "You can say, "Leave it alone, Sweden isn't so bad." "People have jobs."" ""It's not a disaster."" " But it is." "Because Prime Minister Palme said everyone had a right to dignity, a life that isn't just about working to scrape together the rent, but also a dignity, a feeling that you're a part of something bigger," "that your life has meaning and so on." "These days, when you look at the newspapers, the finance section is almost thicker than entertainment." "Why?" "They always showcase the high earners." "Who wants to read about them?" "It doesn't interest me, anyway!" "When I was a kid." "you could go to the neighbour and borrow a cup of sugar or coffee and have a chat." "You felt a connection with others, a sort of loyalty and solidarity." "You felt that you were surrounded by people who also felt a connection with others." "You helped each other, quite simply." "But that feeling is disappearing, though we still need each other, because the spirit of the day is to make your fortune, and out-do everyone in possessions or houses or whatever." " Sweden's wealthy increasing the gap " " How banks got richer in the crisis " " Huge raise to board members " " Net worth: 294 million " " Massive dividends this spring " " Billions to venture capitalists " " Their bonus:" "SEK 1.8 billion " "And it affects the children, too." "I was on a television programme and a reporter asked me if this greed has a hallmark, and I said yes, though no one wants to talk about it." "They grow a pig's tail on their arses, these people who take advantage of others." "That's why they wear suits." "Even that woman at the bank always wears wide dresses to hide that tail." "Then the interviewer asked, "Does it affect children. too?"" "And I said that the worst thing is, in the shower you can see the kids growing tails too." "So parents need to remember not to be too greedy and brag too much, because they may end up with a big fat pig's tail." "It's no fun dating a guy with a willy in the back as well as in the front." "I was just joking." "For days afterwards, people came up to me and said, "Thanks, Thommy!"" ""I know at least two people on my street who have that tail."" "One little old lady actually felt for mine." "I told her I didn't have one." ""Me neither!" she said." "Oh, I have a quick story:" "We were renting a house outside of Dalarö, and Monika said that some of William's friends were coming to visit." "She said a few of them were from the bank, "so you behave,"" ""and don't drink too much." So all these nice yachts come along." "And I'm sitting on the jetty next to some Henrik or Eskil or something and his wife," "I guess there were ten or twelve of us." "They asked me what I do and of course the ladies asked about Persbrandt." "So I asked Eskil or Henrik." ""What do you do?"" "He said, "I work with the bank's bonus system." I asked what that was." "And I still don't know." "I'll try to find out for this film." "Someone whispered in my ear, "40 million last year."" ""For what?" but he didn't want to say anymore." "So I turned to Eskil or Henrik and said, "You make that much?"" ""What do you do?" I said." ""I work with the bonus system."" "So I asked what that meant." "Do you sit at a computer, do you sit in meetings?" "I'm working class;" "I expect people to bake or build roads or something." "Then his wife said, "That's enough, Thommy." "We're here to relax."" ""Stop asking Henrik what he does." What, isn't that okay?" ""No." "We're here to have a good time." And Monika agreed." "I was completely baffled." "So I asked him again, "What is it that you do?"" ""Let's just drop it now," he says." "So I never found out what he did apart from earning a bloody fortune." "The next day we were going to meet on the jetty and sail down and see a bit of theatre." "But no one came!" "I was all alone there." "They were all gone!" "Was it because of my questions?" "The bonus system was new to me back then." "Former Minister of Finance Sträng held a tight rein on banks and businesses." "But now the government bows to banks and business." "They have the power." "Anyway, the thing is" " I have to go now - but the thing is, no one came to that party." "That's when I discovered that certain things are very inflammatory." "I think a lot of people, nurses and things, people with regular jobs, would like to know what the hell is really going on." "You read these headlines." "A few months ago I read that four German CEOs had been hired with huge salaries because they were so good." "When I worked at Volvo, Director Gabrielsson was the CEO." "I remember one Christmas party when we got our salaries and he did too." "He got a million for running Volvo." "Then came the new generation." "But in those days, a CEO got a plain salary too." "How can it be that business and bank people making a half million a month, or maybe a million..." "Isn't that enough?" "Why should they get even more money, which regular people don't?" "Here, have you seen this sign?" "They call it Occupy." "STOP DEBT SLAVERY THE SYSTEM IS THE PROBLEM" "I won't call it touching, but it's necessary." "Wherever it starts, however small it begins." "To find out what's happening with our money." "SWEDEN'S BANKS HAVE CHEATED US!" "I was talking to a bank manager, who said "Good people need good pay."" ""Otherwise they run off to London." I said, "Let them go!"" ""There will always be others who can manage banks and businesses well."" "Stefan de Vylder, economist I agree with you, but the problem is that they set their own salaries." "And very few people check up on that." "Looking at income distribution, the very richest have pulled ahead." "In Sweden and in the US." "Occupy Wall Street talks about the 99%." "and that's quite accurate." "One per cent of high earners are far ahead." "So you have ten people sharing a pie cut into ten slices, and one person eats nine of them, leaving one piece for the others?" "Pretty much." "Sweden had a fairly even income distribution in the early 80s." "Then deregulation of finance markets began in various countries." "Their turnover has grown enormously." "And they compare with one another." "Interestingly, when newspapers began publicising bonuses, we thought that would slow things down, but the effect was the opposite." "It was like a pissing contest:" ""He made 12 million!"" ""And his company is smaller than mine!"" "I'm the best at what I do!" "Pissing contest" "The best in Scandinavia, in Europe." "Both in acting and in directing." " Thommy as Mr Greedy" "If I worked in business, I'd be the very best." "One of those people they don't want to leave for London!" "They'd want me working here at home." "When I left the Royal Dramatic Theatre I got..." "SEK 42 million in severance pay." "Because I worked a lot." "Then I left Europafilm, where several planned films never happened, and I got...33 million." "Then I worked at Swedish Film Industry, where we were going to do Miss Julie, but it never happened." "But I got 16 million for it." "For nothing at all." "Now I have a contract to do some shows that would never be popular and would never earn anything at the box office." "And that gives me 40 million." "So just in severance pay and what you could call bonuses, because I'm the best, I've made SEK 190 million in 15 years." "And I can tell you that I'm happy, but I'm also annoyed, because I know another director and actor who just retired, and he got SEK 330 million." "And of course that rankles." "Because I'm the best." "That's why I make the big money." "Of course the theatres are suffering, but honestly, I don't give a damn, because I'm worth my 350 million." "Thanks for the coffee." "Note!" "Parody!" "What is economics?" "A science created by the upper class to acquire the fruits of the labour of the underclass. --Strindberg" "The dilemma of growth:" "Nothing can grow forever" "The winter birds have become dependent on the birdfeeders." "The blackbirds fight over the dividends." "But the deer get no bonus at all." "I think people are beginning to question modern capitalism in a way." "Andreas Cervenka." "Economic journalist Because what we thought would give us so many benefits - efficiency, a better society - really hasn't delivered." "I read about a previous head of the Confederation of British Industry, who said that the free market economy exists to deliver two things:" "A more efficient society than the alternative." "and a general increase in welfare in society at large." "Both of those points are questionable these days." "Capitalism is in a state of crisis." "Mikael Nyberg, author, journalist And thoughtful citizens... not the ones writing letters to the editor, but the ones in those pink newspapers that politicians read, that you see stacks of in government offices." "The Financial Times. etc." "Those publications worry about this development." "They aren't talking about successful capitalism but a crisis of capitalism." "Just as the left wing for years has discussed the inherent weakness of capitalism." "It's a century-old problem in Sweden and many other countries." "That the banks have been able to make big profits, while taxpayers shouldered the risks." "And every time they've been bailed out, they've started taking even greater risks, leading to bigger bailouts." "And so it goes." "This latest crash is the biggest ever." "And we can't afford another one." "The banks have become so big and so important to the world economy that they can't be allowed to collapse without severe economic consequences." "So you won't lose money you invest in a big Swedish bank." "The government will bail them out." "In the financial crash of 2008." "the members of the finance committee had to sign a blank check to banks, or else the Swedish economy would collapse." "Without state guarantees." "They may not set out to do this, but the way the system works, they always earn more by taking on more risk than they should." "Their growth and performance are measured by share values." "And those are determined by the return on capital." "Higher returns mean greater share values and more income potential." "So the owners and the management live in a symbiosis, while the actual risk takers, the taxpayers, are on the sidelines." "Households have become shock absorbers in the financial system." "And that's primarily related to the recent pension reforms." "Pensions are now directly linked to the financial market." "You're not guaranteed a certain pension anymore;" "your pension is dependent on the return on the securities that your future pension is invested in." "And this means that when we have a financial crash." "we'll have a direct effect of reduced pensions in the future." "You pay your taxes." "You work hard and you get a pension and healthcare." "But if you look at the maths there, the age distribution of the popula- tion, it's obviously an empty promise." "The government can't deliver, and everyone knows it." "But we go on paying our taxes." "The debt crisis we've seen in Europe..." "It arose before this Ponzi scheme even started to crumble, which is worrying." "This policy is basically the same... the same thing we saw in Albania in the 1990s." "We had several companies, all run by the same financiers, saying:" ""Invest in my savings fund and you can expect a return of 10-15% in a year."" "Investors were paid with new money coming in, just like any Ponzi scheme." "And people were selling their homes to get the money to invest in these deceptive Ponzi schemes." "Sweden is doing the same thing, but within the political system." "We're selling out public interests to feed money into a Ponzi scheme centred on the banks and the housing market." "Much of the life we're accustomed to is based on blind faith in the system." "Now it's faltering, and since 2008 we've struggled to keep it afloat." "Because if the bubble bursts." "the consequences will be huge." "And we can't accept that." "That's where we stand today." "We're used to something temporary that we thought would last forever." "The banking industry and much of the economy today has largely been nationalised." "Shareholders' equity, say in SEB, is extremely low." "Share capital is what has created its business." "and only a tiny part of that is owned by the Wallenberg family." "Most of the capital that these banks are playing with is what you could call collective capital, or society's capital." "It's money from pension funds, insurances, savings funds and so on." "Plus capital that the state kicks in when there's a financial crisis." "As a concrete example:" "Take a big Swedish bank." "Say the shareholders have contributed SEK 100 billion in share capital." "But the bank has lent out, say, 2,000 billion." "So the risk in the bank is SEK 2,000 billion, but shareholders can never lose more than 100 billion." "But society can lose 2,000 billion." "What does that say about risk-taking?" "Shareholders can take on a huge risk." "Because you can gamble with those 2,000 billion but only risk 100 bn." "The government implicitly guarantees all Swedish banks." "Banks' assets today are 4.5 times the size of the Swedish gross domestic product." "All this excess of money at the top of society." "To turn this into actual wealth, some- thing you can live on, eat and so on, these securities need to..." "You have to be able to sell them for a profit." "And to do that you need to extract a surplus from the real economy." "The more the bubble, this abundance of securities, grows the harder it is to get real value out of these fictitious values." "That makes the whole system start to shake, as we see in Europe today." "It's like gambling at a casino with unlimited chips." "You have a different attitude to risk when you know that you're the one paying for it." "The Bank of England has done some interesting studies on this." "There was a time in the 19th century when bank owners had full liability." "If something went wrong it came out of the owner's own pocket." "In those days a bank owner could go bankrupt." "That's not the case today." "These financial institutions aren't gambling with their own money." "They're gambling with others' money, with yours and mine." "It's a sort of fiefdom - like the old feudal system." "The government has allowed a modern aristocracy to manage society's assets exactly as they see fit." "So the banks play a central role in the economy, they're its hub." "Every aspect of it cries out for a planned economy, but this system, which has already been enshrined in society, is ruled over by a tiny financial aristocracy with no interests beyond making themselves richer." "It's what they live for." "Don't you think they're a bit small?" "How about one of these?" "You think so?" "I'm not impressed by them." "Aren't there any with diamonds?" " Yes, but you're upgrading." " Right." "I'll take one of those." "Is that a Breitling?" "That's what what's-his-name had." "the movie star." "But this one is very nice." "I think I'll take it." " Gift wrapping?" " Please." " That's 400...?" " 450." "450,000." "I think it's worth that." "Great, thanks." "I'll just wait here." "So...that's that." "The stronger the upper class is, the greater the tendency to social decay." "I think that explains a lot of what's happening in Sweden today, because there's a lot of irrationality and senselessness going on." "Letting the infrastructure collapse, the railways fall into disrepair." "Letting the social infrastructure, the school system collapse." "It may seem strange:" "Why are the capital owners doing this?" "Why is capitalism consuming itself and undermining opportunities for new growth and social development?" "I think we should turn that around and ask why we had capitalism with social development for a few decades." "The reason was that the capital owners of the day were challenged, threatened from below and forced to comply." "The whole way we buy shares has got out of control." "Originally you bought shares in a company you believed in." "The company makes profits and you get a dividend." "That's old school." "But we've left that far behind." "We have a middle class slumping into economic depression and social decay." "The systematic stupidity is expanding, because there's no resistance to it today." "Hi, where are you?" "Yeah. we went to the Maldives." "but I thought it was terribly boring." "There was nothing to do!" "There were beaches and sand and all, but nothing to do." "So Caroline and I went to New York for a while." "And that wasn't bad." "What are you doing?" "If I bought this today, I'd have to pay SEK 2,500,000." "I think you've got yourself a deal." "I want this." "This is a done deal." "I want it." "And I'm worth it." "I just have to ask:" "That boat that Gustav bought..." "Did it have a helicopter pad?" "Or did he have the helicopter on..." "There is space for the helicopter!" "In 1971 the United States abandoned the gold standard." "And that meant the whole world did." "The dollar had been the final outpost for pegging currencies to gold." "But the US wanted to print new money to fund the Vietnam War, so they didn't want to keep the gold standard." "Since then. all currencies." "the global financial system, is paper based, to put it simply." "It's called fat money, currency without intrinsic value." "If we look at economic trends since 1971." "we can see that debt has increased dramatically." "Some people think these two situations are related." "Because in a paper-based system you can always print new money." "Much of what we call the finance market and the problems it faces are based on the fact that we have this excess. which has resulted in these financial bubbles." "Which burst if they aren't constantly fed with new capital." "So why has the finance industry been mushrooming for decades?" "Because someone realised they can charge clients a percentage of the managed capital - it's always a percentage." "A percentage of your account, of your pension, of your fund." "And that creates a finance industry that wants to expand wildly." "Because the more money they manage, the more money they make." "The venture capital industry is exactly the same." "Someone realised that while it's fun buying and selling companies, if you do it as a fund where the managers charge 2% per year, plus 20% of the profit, then that's an awful lot of money." "And then others got the idea to do that and a whole industry was created." "Jacob Bursell." "economic journalist As I see it, the reasoning behind the reforms of recent years, the school reform, the healthcare reform. was to benefit business." "To make it possible for individuals to run their own nurseries or care homes." "But the consequence is that mums take their children to nursery, unaware that the nursery, say the Ekudden Pre-School, is at the bottom of a chain of six different companies, two of them registered in an office park at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam" "and one a legal firm on Guernsey run by a consulting firm in Stockholm." "And a significant part of their operations involve maximising profit by using intra-group loans and avoiding corporate tax." "So the children have become a sort of commodity in an industry that is very efficiently industrialising welfare." "It's a corruption of society." "The systems that have been implemented for social services are a legalised form of corruption." "No one is expected to do anything without making a profit." "Whether in the form of bonuses or a nursery headmaster getting the opportunity to buy the school for the cost of the furniture, and suddenly becoming a millionaire." "It's legalised corruption." "If you have a procurement to operate a nursing home, where the lowest bidder wins." "and the owner's stated goal in their annual report is to earn 20% per year and sell it after 5-7 years, what can they do to maximise profits?" "Cut operating costs." "There is no other option." "You have a fixed revenue from the state, and you have your costs." "Obviously, to make a profit you have to cut costs." "You don't have to be Einstein to work out that this might affect quality." "Those who borrow the most money in Sweden aren't the poor." "If you look at household debt-to-income statistics." "the relationship between household debts and incomes in the country, it's not the rural households up north that have most debt." "It's the affluent suburbs of Stockholm." "They top the list." "Those are the most debt-laden households in the country." "Not just in absolute terms, but in relation to income." "The richest people borrow the most." "So those who have lived within their means are the losers in all this." "Those who have borrowed a lot are the winners." "That's one way the people are footing the bill." "This is a Red Admiral butterfly." "It flies from the Mediterranean over the Alps all the way to Sweden." "The Painted Lady butterfly comes all the way from East Africa." "They are all embraced by the charity of nature." "The Swedish political system is interwoven with this banking system." "Looking at two of Sweden's biggest banks today, you have SEB, which has strong ties to ties to economists on the right wing." "Then there's Swedbank. which has strong ties to social democracy." "Politicians are often on these banks' boards." "Like Anders Sundström." "Klas Eklund was a Social Democrat and became chief economist at SEB." "Tomas Bodström was Minister of Justice and is now on the board of a nursery school." "Björn Rosengren, former Minister of Enterprise, privatised the national phone company and now advises its main competitor." "Jens Henriksson, from the Ministry of Finance, now runs the Stock Exchange." "Ex-Foreign Minister Laila Freivalls works for an investment company." "Ex-Communications Minister Ulrica Messing works for a property investor." "Former Prime Minister Göran Persson is now a consultant for JKL." "I wonder if anyone knows what he really does." "Then there's Erik Åsbrink." "former Minister of Finance." "now an advisor at Goldman Sachs." "a global investment bank." "Per Nuder, former Minister of Finance, now an advisor for EQT and an owner of the portfolio company Swedegas." "And Tomas Östros, the financial spokesman of the Social Democrats, now CEO of the Swedish Bankers' Association." "So they're not exactly rookies." " Now Östros believes in bonuses " "Per Nuder is now an advisor for the venture capital company EQT." "He's an advisor for the Albright Stonebridge Group, and he's a member of the Social Democrats' platform committee." "Their job is to develop the party's next platform, its mission statement." "This is in an era when the Social Democrats are deeply divided over the issue of how welfare should be funded and organised." "And I can't imagine how this couldn't create tensions..." "Moral issues." " Rich getting richer " " More children living in poverty " " Tougher laws against begging " " Sweden losing ground in welfare " " Income gaps growing " "I attended the Polar Music Prize, where Power to the People was sung." "I happened to be sitting with all these heads of industry." "I was sitting in front a friend who works in the business sector, and when he sang that, I said, "We have to applaud that."" "Maybe I imagined it, but there sat Wallenberg and all these bankers, and he sings Power to the People." "It was strange." "They came for the Polar Music Awards and Ola Salo sings that." "It's just that refrain over and over, and everyone is applauding." "There was more applause up in the balcony." "Here it was more restrained." "Among the whole Wallenberg and Bonnier sphere, applauding this "Power to the People"." "It was so obvious:" ""We're at the wrong party!"" "I should have asked someone. "Do you believe in power to the people?"" ""So what are you doing?" "Are you going to raise wages and everything?"" "It was sort of topsy turvy." "We have always known that heedless self interest was bad morals, we now know that it s bad economics." "Franklin Delano Roosevelt. 1937" "This is Richard Wilkingson." "We're in York in England." "Richard and Kate have been conducting research on how income gaps and lack of equality harms society as a whole." "We see more patients who were hurt by violence than who have appendicitis, or asthma, or diabetes complications." "Victims of violence are a huge group." "Based on our studies." "monitoring trends since 1987, we've seen clear changes." "A lot has happened in the 21st century." "One big change is that both victims and perpetrators are younger." "From the age of 10 to 17." "That group was never in the statistics before 2000." "Today they make up over 16%, where in 2000 they were 8%." "So the figures have doubled in 12 years." "And that has led to changes in other factors." "We see more attackers per victim." "Increasingly, weapons are used, so that the perpetrators don't risk being hurt back." "Another important element we see in the statistics is that much of the violence is directed at the head and face." "In street violence, the perpetrators are often unknown and in large groups." "If one starts kicking, the others join in." "Before the year 2000, kicking injuries made up 7% of the injuries we saw." "Now they're 49%." "This is the result of a kick in the crotch." "It tore off the artery in the scrotum, creating such pressure within the scrotum that blood has been pressed all the way up to his navel." "The pressure is so great that the blood vessels are blocked off." "Now this is a situation anyone would be lucky to survive." "Fortunately, the knife wasn't removed from his chest: it was like a cork." "And he did survive." "If someone had pulled the knife out, he would have been dead in three heartbeats." "Another very significant change in the 21st century is that girls have increasingly begun taking after the boys' behaviour and hitting other girls." "Girls' violence has increased from 8% in 2000 to 20.8% of the total number of street-violence injuries last year." "An upper class, a power class, that is increasingly distancing itself from the rest of society." "That lives in a different world from everyone else." "And that honestly believes that we're living in a new era, that the old capitalism and industrial society are gone and we're in a post-industrial information society." "It looks that way to them." "They can say, "We don't have assembly lines anymore." "That's gone."" "But in fact they're running harder than they ever have before." "And the assembly lines encompass more and more parts of the economy." "The service sector is becoming industrialised on principles from companies like Toyota, Japanese car manufacturers." "So developments in the world outside, below this... this upper crust, may look completely different from what they can imagine." "The more they draw away from society, the dumber they get." "Just like the French upper class prior to the revolution." "You know the Marie Antoinette story, "Let them eat cake"." "Whether or not it's true, it reflects a relationship, where the aristocracy is completely divorced from the rest of society, while living off the rest of society." "But they don't know where all their advantages come from." "They imagine it's because of their own creativity, their superior skills, their leadership, which are now being rewarded in a new way." "Because it seems that way." "They live their lives in their crystal palaces." "So it's no wonder... that they don't know how things really work." "But that's not the real problem." "The problem isn't that they don't know how poorly off others are;" "it's that the working class is no longer visible as a class of its own." "Like it was in the beginning of the 20th century when it rose up and the collective became visible as a motivator for social change." "That's where we are today." "The collective force needs to step forward again." "One night I had a strange dream." "I dreamt I was at a space station deep in a forest." "Lying there in my bed, I was shot out into space, like a space ship, into the sea of stars in the Milky Way." "There was a captain on the ship." "We passed the moon, with its craters, mountains and deserts." ""See the American flag down there?" the captain said, turning to me." ""No, not really," I answered." "But I did spot the boot tracks of some of the astronauts who'd walked there." "We approached Mars, and I saw mountains and valleys and the mouth of what was once a mighty river." "And a frozen lake." ""Once there was life here," the captain said." ""All the planets were inhabited." "People, farmlands,"" ""cities with towers and turrets, civilizations."" ""Labourers living by the sweat of their brow."" ""But it was all wiped out ages ago." "It's all laid waste,"" ""and no one knows why," the captain said." ""Our little blue planet is all that's left." "We're all that's still alive."" ""We can only imagine the life that once pulsated here."" ""But what about decency," I fretted." ""That can't have been wiped out, it must have survived."" ""Decency," the captain mused after a moment's reflection." ""Let's hope that's still out there, though observed by no one.""