If one finds oneself, it can be far without the lives of others that it is easy to lose understanding of their lives. Or empathy, as it is also called. Then one can end up with a stable many and rare words on top of each other.

This is a chronicle. The chronicle expresses the writer’s attitude. You can submit articles and debate posts to VG here.

EGON HOLSTAD, commentator in VG’s collaborative newspaper in Tromsø

Here I sit and writing in a single-digit number of degrees it is a little twisted to realize that others may get dizzy in the summer heat, but I sympathize with them. They know where they live, say. And they have chosen it themselves.

Erna Solberg, for example, our previous prime minister. This week, she took her two deputies, Henrik Asheim and Tina Bru, on a short trip to Copenhagen, among other things with VG in tow. From the trip we could see cheerful pictures from the three who swung, cuddled and whimpered through a heyday of fun rides in the roller coaster, as well as waving helium balloons.

Erna wanted a blue balloon, of course, and got a big, blue one that was shaped like a shark, or possibly a dolphin. Everyone laughed and smiled, both Erna, Tina, Henrik and the blue haidelin.

Men politicians want usually to sell in political messages when they offer up to dance in this way. Denmark and the amusement park were not chosen at random, the Conservative three-leaf clover wanted more than just to pose for some fun pictures. The message was twofold. One was to show that now it must be allowed to tulle a little, go on holiday and burn off a little buck on fun. But that now everyone must also flow in. An expectation of seven rent increases by 2023, rising fuel prices, rising electricity prices and rising food prices are just some of the backdrop. Moderation now, folks.

Solberg says next that she will introduce an activity obligation 37 hours a week for all social assistance recipients under the age of 40, and that in the next parliamentary term it should be extended to apply to all social assistance recipients. It should pay to get up in the morning, she could add.

“Put at the forefront, there are many out there who need a friendly push behind, including part of a boys who have sat too much in the boys’ room”, she says teasingly. Whether she is thinking of ministers who have tampered with commuter housing and illegally demanded money to live the boys’ rooms in their home municipalities, but it is allowed to hope. When VG asks her if it can not quickly become many who have to pick up rubbish under municipal auspices, the answer is of the more separate kind.

“Picking up rubbish is also an important job. There are many drug addicts and others who thrive on it and in that way get money for a living », she said, apparently in all seriousness. At least no attempt has been made to deny it afterwards. Greetings from the amusement park in Copenhagen.

Language is power. And language matters. What documentation does our former prime minister have, which tells us that those she continued to insist on calling “drug addicts” thrive on picking up rubbish, but we are probably many who would have chosen other words and phrases here. This is clearly how it can be heard when you lose contact with the grassroots, if not the one who is in your own party, but with people, not just billionaires.

These statements, with a call for moderation and garbage collection, comes in addition a few weeks after the parliamentary majority, with a unanimous Conservative (and with the help of a unanimous Left, Frp, and Sp) decided to increase the salary for themselves. We can only hope that the wage increase will make it less tempting to tamper with commuter housing and travel expenses in the future.

Wage growth is it more who want. For example, the trade union Norsk Flytekniker Organisation (NFO), which at the time of writing is on strike to get a salary increase of 60 kroner per hour, while the flight technicians organized in Fellesforbundet on Monday night said yes to an increase of four kroner per hour.

60 kroner in hours, that is. I add. It is, after all, 40 kroner less than the poor house offers to Ukrainian refugees who have nothing, or to drug addicts (or “drug addicts”), you know, those who think it is so pleasant to litter. But it’s during the day. Not in time.

Now the demand has been met with notice of lockout from NHO from next Sunday, so that «forced wage board» can already be heard in the distance. Both strike and lockout are legal means both parties to a case have, but it asks if most people have any particular sympathy with the NFO here, when long-awaited summer vacations fuck up demands for salary increases no one else has the like to demand.

For us who is completely on the sidelines here, it is also involuntarily funny to hear how indignant and disappointed NHO itself is here, as they think the aircraft technicians’ reason for being attractive in the market is unmusical. That high wages are a means of being attractive in the market is something that usually makes sense in those circles.

Precisely why served DNB CEO Kjerstin Braathen NOK 15 million, Telenor CEO Sigve Brekke NOK 15.1 million and Equinor CEO Anders Opedal NOK 18.1 million last year alone (with various bonuses, pension accruals and other benefits). Because it is “necessary to be competitive in the market, to attract the best people”. Imagine how quickly we would have had to settle for whether the above salaries were, for example, half as large. Just the evil thought itself is barely enduring.

On the news broadcast Tuesday night I also heard about a Norwegian couple who, due to trouble with a plane to the resort sitting somewhere in southern Europe, will have to take an extra taxi ride of around 5,000 kroner. So there are many who are struggling at the moment. Later in the broadcast, I also heard that the Opera is struggling to sell out its performances where the tickets cost 900 kroner per person, and that these should now be further sponsored by the state.

“For who can afford to pay 900 kroner for an opera ticket now?”, as film and theater producer Stein Roger Bull philosophically asked. The answer is probably “Those who had it before”, in an institution which in 2021 received 704.1 million in state aid. Subsidies for the opera have increased by 80 percent since practicing in Bjørvika opened in 2008. The state already sponsors each ticket with more than 2,000 kroner. At least I know of a few other places in Norwegian culture that the state could contribute more – and get more culture for more, for the money.

It is hard times for many now. Exhortation about moderation is also fine when you read that the loan application for private homes is bigger and more even. Because it will be tougher for most people in the future.

But then it can be okay to go round with oneself before one laments over one’s own alleged misery, while those who really suffer are completely drowned out by whining and moral admonitions from the top of the food chain.