A filmmaker and a crooked lawyer shattered Denmark's self-image • Hacker News Board

Re: A filmmaker and a crooked lawyer shattered Denmark's self-image

#161

Post by Gud » Fri, Mar 28, 2025, 5:38 AM UTC

decimalenough wrote: post #140

Gud wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, that TL;DR is completely false. 1) the ”owner” is long dead. 2) the foundation is set up in such a way to perpetuate itself and its goal (to better mankind), forever. Not to generate wealth for Ingvar Kamprads offspring. He hardly left them penniless. His family does not control his foundations. They have a minority vote. 3) if the world’s billionaires set up their organisations in similar ways, the world woul…

Quoting TFA: What emerges is an outfit that ingeniously exploits the quirks of different jurisdictions to create a charity, dedicated to a somewhat banal cause, that is not only the world's richest foundation, but is at the moment also one of its least generous. The overall set-up of IKEA minimises tax and disclosure, handsomely rewards the founding Kamprad family and makes IKEA immune to a takeover.

Again, mischaracterization.

1) what is banal about helping poor families?

2) The founding family is NOT handsomely rewarded.

3) unlike most charitable organizations, INGKA is set up in such a way to not rely on wealthy donors. They only use a small dividend of their massive fortune for charitable causes. This is financially responsible and is the only way to ensure longevity. Why is this a bad thing?

4) why it would be a bad thing for IKEA to be protected from a takeover, I don’t understand. Would you prefer some billionaire purchased it so they can pocket the profits themselves, instead of supporting poor families?

IKEA is one of the better workplaces. Unlike 99% of all the other corporations out there, IKEA uses their profits to help people in need, not enriching their already wealthy shareholders.

Re: A filmmaker and a crooked lawyer shattered Denmark's self-image

#162

Post by mmooss » Fri, Mar 28, 2025, 5:45 AM UTC

bufferoverflow wrote: post #76

itissid wrote: post #26

Its just people. People are the same everywhere, and are fundamentally unpredictable systems. How large groups behave does depends to a certain extent on context: by compared to others and your socio-economic situation. How they publicly expressed their values are entirely different from their behavior. This is to the dread of incumbent governments and pollsters. If you starve a wealthy man for 2 weeks he will be rea…

> People are the same everywhere That is absolutely not true. People aren't the same even in adjacent neighborhoods sometimes. Some create great environments, some create hells on earth. Source: I lived in 3 different countries + an isolated island. But you don't even need my biased opinion on the matter. We have cultures that throw gay people off the roofs, and cultures that celebrate them.

Siblings raised together in the same family can vary greatly.

Re: A filmmaker and a crooked lawyer shattered Denmark's self-image

#163

Post by cess11 » Fri, Mar 28, 2025, 7:07 AM UTC

scottyah wrote: post #57

cess11 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since the late eighties Sweden has privatised, as the euphemism goes, heavily. In particular schools and medical and elder care have become cesspools of corruption and mob activity. It's gotten worse in construction as well. Today some active politicians simultaneously perform as senior advisers and the like for so called public affairs, i.e. lobbying, firms. That is, in the open. The leader of one of the largest par…

Interesting. It really seems like wherever the power goes, the corruption follows. The good news with privatization is that it doesn't attract the corrupt looters to government and you can trust them as a culture to be a watchdog for corruption. When the government as a body is in control of everything, all the corrupt looters go there, but you can't have the private industry keep them in check unless you count on th…

Privatisation is a reactionary strategy that aims to reduce or remove democratic influence over important social institutions like education and healthcare.

The entire point of social constructs like shareholder corporations is to make it hard or impossible to hold physical persons accountable for their actions and risk taking. In some areas of society this might be attractive and reasonable, in many others that involve e.g. vulnerable persons or justice it is not.

I have a chance to influence who sits in the regional political councils, but I can't influence the board in the corporation that runs the local healthcare centers. Capitalist competition optimises for mediocrity, for excellence you need democratic institutions and accountable politicians.

Re: A filmmaker and a crooked lawyer shattered Denmark's self-image

#164

Post by florbnit » Fri, Mar 28, 2025, 8:10 AM UTC

jacobgorm wrote: post #64

reptilian wrote: post #5

Same filmmaker exposed US, UK, Apartheid collaboration and involvement in the spread of HIV in Africa, and the assassination of the SecGen of the UN, Dags Hammerskjold

Hammerskjold died in a plane crash, so did the lead partner and her husband, also a partner, at the Horten law-firm that was the center of the "black swan" scandal, very recently: https://euroweeklynews.com/2025/03/19/denmark-bound-plane-cr...

This seems so fake. They suddenly decide to go on a vacation and want to return on a small inexpensive plane that then crashes with their entire family on it in Switzerland less than 2min from takeoff?

Call it a conspiracy but I won’t at all be surprised when someone discovered they have transferred a large amount of funds to some “family friends” that look suspiciously like them but live in the Cayman Islands.

Re: A filmmaker and a crooked lawyer shattered Denmark's self-image

#165

Post by legacynl » Fri, Mar 28, 2025, 2:21 PM UTC

ANewFormation wrote: post #99

mr_toad wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We have cultures that throw gay people off the roofs, and cultures that celebrate them. And you could take single individuals from either culture and drop them in the other culture, and most of them would happily act and think just like the new culture, and swear blind that they’d always thought that way. It would be an interesting experiment to see how many individuals you could replace one-by-one before the cultu…

And so if you went to Saudi Arabia you'd pretend to be down with executing people for apostasy? Obviously it's an extreme example but many of the norms of a Western mindset would be no less offensive to billions of people in this world. What bias of moderation exists is that you probably wouldn't migrate to Saudi Arabia unless you were already mostly ok with their values. And if e.g. economic opportunity drove you th…

The thing is that both ideas come from the same place. People try to create a save and livable place, but they have different opinions on how to get to that place. Some more right than others, but the fact is that both have their root in the same desires.

At the end of the day, most people just want to be able to live a life, work, have children, some friends, family and health. Most difference come from the way people think they best achieve those goals.

Re: A filmmaker and a crooked lawyer shattered Denmark's self-image

#166

Post by itissid » Fri, Mar 28, 2025, 2:54 PM UTC

bufferoverflow wrote: post #76

itissid wrote: post #26

Its just people. People are the same everywhere, and are fundamentally unpredictable systems. How large groups behave does depends to a certain extent on context: by compared to others and your socio-economic situation. How they publicly expressed their values are entirely different from their behavior. This is to the dread of incumbent governments and pollsters. If you starve a wealthy man for 2 weeks he will be rea…

> People are the same everywhere That is absolutely not true. People aren't the same even in adjacent neighborhoods sometimes. Some create great environments, some create hells on earth. Source: I lived in 3 different countries + an isolated island. But you don't even need my biased opinion on the matter. We have cultures that throw gay people off the roofs, and cultures that celebrate them.

My idea was to convey was that the sense of identity attached to a people is weird. And that people are just people. You can get the same set of people(genetically, demographically same) to kill millions in a war and become pious afterwards and vice versa.

When I said people are the same it means the same people who created great environments can in all likelihood create hell within a generation span.

Re: A filmmaker and a crooked lawyer shattered Denmark's self-image

#167

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Mar 28, 2025, 3:14 PM UTC

itissid wrote: post #26

Its just people. People are the same everywhere, and are fundamentally unpredictable systems. How large groups behave does depends to a certain extent on context: by compared to others and your socio-economic situation. How they publicly expressed their values are entirely different from their behavior. This is to the dread of incumbent governments and pollsters. If you starve a wealthy man for 2 weeks he will be rea…

[deleted]

Re: A filmmaker and a crooked lawyer shattered Denmark's self-image

#168

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Mar 28, 2025, 3:14 PM UTC

raincom wrote: post #50

In the third world, corruption is very open from the clerk in a local revenue office to the top ministers/secretaries. There is a price for every service. In the West, it is hard to see low-level corruption (bribes for services) in offices. However, corruption takes form in the shape of collusion; and this collusion is pretty much legal. Revolving door, consultants, lobbyists, conflicts of interests, setting up NGOs…

[deleted]

Re: A filmmaker and a crooked lawyer shattered Denmark's self-image

#169

Post by whizzter » Fri, Mar 28, 2025, 4:04 PM UTC

guappa wrote: post #29

frantathefranta wrote: post #9

I'm fully aware that Sweden and Denmark are different countries (I lived in Denmark for 3 years), but this reminded me of the reel of Swedes playing every time I visit IKEA, where they talk about how corruption is absolutely unthinkable in Swedish society. And there's also this tidbit from the article: > Other Scandinavian nations also reeled upon watching The Black Swan. After the series premiered in Sweden, a crimi…

Yeah swedish people think like that. Living in sweden and having some experience I can tell you that there's no corruption because the police don't care to investigate it, even with proof they won't bring people to justice. Most that happens to corrupt people is that they quit job and go to work somewhere else.

There is probably plenty of it, many escape but they do prosecute it when found (especially when it involves taxes). Håkan Nesser (book author) and Daniel Kindberg (Soccer club president) are probably the most famous recent cases, there's also been a bunch of cases related to social security fraud.

Most of it probably isn't glamorous enough to warrant full page articles but you do note them popping up in news at a steady rate.

Re: A filmmaker and a crooked lawyer shattered Denmark's self-image

#170

Post by rat87 » Fri, Mar 28, 2025, 6:05 PM UTC

absolutelastone wrote: post #159

rat87 wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is an asylum seeker really legal Yes. You answered your own question. A person who is her legally is here legally. If their claim is denied (and I'd argue in many cases the bias would be towards denying valid claims then the other way around) and they refused to leave then they'd be an unathorized immigrant without legal right to stay in the country. But before then they are explicitly there legally.

Taking words out of context generally never forms the basis of a good argument. For example here you cropped out the commission of immigration fraud, which leads me to doubt you accurately answered my question. In the US at least, such behavior can lead to punishments well beyond denial of the application. Are you saying in Europe it is fair play? Either way of course the point relevant to the thread is whether peopl…

Fraud is lying

Having your amnesty application rejected (whether the court judged fairly or too harshly) is not in any way or shape fraud. Law is complex and many refugees and asylum seekers don't fully understand the law. Even hoping it applies to you optimistically would not be fraud. Fraud is only when you purposely lie to try to gain the right to stay here. Such things happen but not nearly as often as anti immigrant people claim. Something that seems to happen more often is anti immigrant politicians lying and trying to break the law in order to restrict immigration such as by withdrawing TPS by claiming unsafe countries are now safe(so people can be deported)