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While the private labour market rapidly deteriorates and only master’s high-achievers obtain secure employment in the public sector, poverty and disparities are spreading rapidly in Norway. And it becomes worse year by year, in direct contradiction to what the speechmakers in the Storting promise. An important cause is that all citizens are surrounded by money parasites: leeches that individually suck small and large amounts out of the life force of your economy. This does not trouble the upper class, but it destroys the night’s sleep of the working class. They are surrounded by enemies and parasites.
The authorities are a substantial factor in this monetary leakage. The public sector is the largest parasite that is to be paid by you, without delivering anything in return, and 25% VAT (value added tax – merverdiavgift) as well as the “document duty” (dokumentavgiften) (also known as the moving tax) are perhaps the most glaring examples. Everything you buy is 25% more expensive than it needed to be. And if you are to move now, all your savings disappear to the state, in exchange for nothing.
The document duty was originally a fee for genuine paperwork and extensive public document processing from the time when a large flat cost 50,000 kroner. Since then it has never been adjusted, and if you buy an ordinary flat now, a considerable amount disappears to the state. Everything is digital and untouched by human hands, so it is pure theft. And the whole thing began with the introduction of “value added tax”. Do you buy something? Then the state shall also have money from you. It is insane, but so normalised that no one protests.
The state also allowed private companies to become money parasites
The authorities yielded to private parasitic activity at the beginning of the 1980s, when they granted permission to charge an “invoice fee” (fakturagebyr). No companies in reality have any right to charge this “fee”, since the operation of the company is to be included in the prices – but the authorities nevertheless permitted the practice. No one cares about 30 kroner here, 50 kroner there, and 75 kroner for nothing. An invoice fee is in practice a fee for choosing to be a customer of precisely that company.
From there the way was clear for parasitic activity in exchange for nothing: charges, fees, mark-ups, rental components, co-payments for every single small purchase you make. The electricity companies are perhaps the most creative, with lists of mark-ups that no one understands – companies that are merely an unnecessary and price-increasing intermediary between those who produce the electricity and those who use it. Plus VAT, naturally.
Pure exploitation, without you receiving anything of value
What is sinister about this parasitic activity is that it is not market-driven or the result of a good or service. It comes in addition to the price you pay, without any entitlement to the money, without you receiving anything more for the money, and without delivering anything in return. It is simply theft – because they can do it.
The parasites need not relate to whether what you pay extra corresponds to the good they deliver – and now “subscription” is arriving in full force on everything from electric cars to apps on your telephone. Do you buy something from us? Then we shall have money every month for what you in fact own. And people accept it.
The sky is the limit
The state and the municipalities are the most sinister parasites, for they can in principle raise municipal charges to whatever they wish, so long as there is a majority for it. And precisely that is what they do, because politicians require more money to squander on tasks that have no relevance to the core tasks of the public sector. You cannot even refuse or cancel the purchase. Pay and keep quiet. There is a majority for it!
This could not have happened without the digitalisation of our money. The money flies out of your account by automatic debit, and you simply no longer have any idea what you are paying for. You have only full knowledge of what comes in – and that is always too little. That is simply how parasites function:
You are not to notice that they are sitting there sucking the blood out of you until you are dizzy, anaemic, and wondering why you never reach the upside.