My Husband Turned Off the Heat… and I Love Him Anyway

We live in a beautiful old building from 1870 in Stockholm with thick, beautiful walls. They keep us cool in the summer, but right now — after this long, cold winter — they’re still holding onto the chill.

Last night, the world's most perfect husband decided it was time to turn off the heating in the bedroom. This has nothing to do with money — our heating cost is fixed anyway. It’s purely a him issue. Apparently he’s starting to feel 'a bit warm' at night."

I, on the other hand, woke up at 3:45 a.m. freezing cold. The room was so chilly I could almost see my breath. Since then I’ve been lying on the sofa wrapped in a bedspread and two blankets.

I sleep with one winter duvet. My dear husband sleeps with two — because of course he does.

I love this man more than anything, but right now I’m seriously considering reminding him who the highest authority in this household really is. Happy wife, happy life.

If he wants his freezing wife back in the bedroom, the heat needs to go back on. Compromise is key in marriage… preferably one that doesn’t involve hypothermia.

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Why I See Socialism as the World’s Most Perfect Pyramid Scheme

For transparency and my own agenda: I am politically very far from the Swedish Social Democrats, the Green Party, the Left Party, and socialism in general.

After reading a post on X, I finally understood why I truly dislike socialism so strongly.

The author described socialism as the world’s most perfect pyramid scheme – and the more I think about it, the more accurate it feels.

Here’s the simple mechanism:You take money (through taxes) from one person who works (voter 1) and distribute it to four people who do not work but live on various subsidies (voters 2, 3, 4 and 5). In electoral terms, you lose one voter but gain four. The political payoff is enormous.

This is not a new idea. The Swedish Social Democrats understood this dynamic very early on and built much of their long-term power on it. By expanding the group of people dependent on the state, they also expanded their voter base.

It’s a system that rewards dependency and punishes productivity. And once enough people live off the system rather than contribute to it, the pyramid becomes almost impossible to dismantle democratically.

That is why I view socialism not just as an economic policy, but as a political strategy designed to create and maintain power.

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I Was Skeptical – And Then Russia Invaded

I’ve been skeptical for years about how much influence the environmental movement has had on European energy policy.

When Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, that skepticism turned into something much clearer: we had made ourselves vulnerable.

By aggressively phasing out nuclear power, countries like Germany and Sweden became heavily dependent on Russian gas. Russia saw the weakness and exploited it.

Here in Sweden we shut down perfectly working reactors, driven more by ideology and fear than by facts and long-term thinking. Now, only five years later, we’re already talking about building new nuclear power. The cost to Swedish taxpayers runs into many billions of kronor.

The bitter irony? Some in the environmental movement are now slowly admitting that nuclear power should be considered fossil-free. But this realization comes far too late. The damage – both economic and to our energy security – has already been done.

Hindsight is easy.

But some mistakes were foreseeable. When ideology wins over engineering and common sense, the bill always arrives – and it’s expensive.

Update – August 2026

Four months later the EU finally published its Electrification Action Plan. Nuclear is no longer the awkward relative at the family dinner. Belgium has fully reversed its phase-out and is even negotiating a state takeover of the nuclear assets. The slow-motion train wreck I wrote about here is now official policy.

Full post on the new blog: A Day Late and a Dollar Short – Again

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Anonymity becomes anarchy

Almost all customer service reps in government and private companies now use fake names. Governments and companies do this to shield employees from threats by dissatisfied customers upset with decisions or service. I empathize with the need for protection, but this approach only treats symptoms, not the root cause. Unfortunately, anonymity creates other serious problems.

In my view, these have been greatly exacerbated by the explosion of remote work during the COVID-19 pandemic. I know several studies claim remote work has neutral or even positive effects on productivity. But these must be weighed against potential biases.

For example, the 2026 Remote Work Well-Being Survey (published February 5, 2026, by CoworkingCafe) reports mostly positive effects: 62% of remote workers say they get more done at home, and over half report better focus. Yet CoworkingCafe benefits indirectly but substantially from continued remote/hybrid work growth—as a platform that lists and promotes coworking spaces as a "solution" for remote workers needing variety or collaboration.

Since the pandemic, remote work has surged dramatically. In my experience and opinion, this has caused a clear drop in service quality from both companies and public authorities. I'm convinced remote workers often underperform compared to on-site work.

Remote setups make employees "invisible": shortcomings—or outright failure to do the job—rarely carry consequences. No consequences → private companies risk long-term decline or bankruptcy as frustrated customers switch to competitors.

This market pressure doesn't exist for government agencies funded by taxpayers. I believe they should face some form of competition too—so they actually have to earn their funding.

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We used to be the best in class, now we're the class clown

As a European, I will never have to "worry about" possible interference or takeover by foreign powers. The EU has ensured this by adopting thousands of different regulations that eliminate all innovation and forward thinking so that absolutely no one will be interested in trying to take over Europe within the next 100 years.

As an example of this, one can compare the American company SpaceEx which invents rockets that return to Earth ready for the next rocket, while Europe "invents" the non-removable cap for plastic bottles...

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DEI is the only reason this can happen, in this case white women

For transparency and my own agenda, I, a white woman, strongly dislike our previous government, the Social Democrats with the support of the Green Party and the tacit acceptance of the Left Party, which governed Sweden for 8 years. In the last election, I voted for the current government.

In 2020, Sweden was governed by the Social Democrats and the Green Party, with Stefan Loefven as prime minister. This government considered that journalism is a profession whose mission is important for democracy, such as informing citizens, scrutinizing those in power and highlighting important social issues, that the then government chose to classify the profession as supporting society in the same year.

In preparation for this classification, the funding for the Swedish community-supporting media companies SVT, SR and UR was also changed. On 1 January 2019, the public service fee, which was then paid by people who chose to use a television and/or radio receiver to receive information from SVT, SR or UR, was replaced by a tax paid by everyone who is liable to pay taxes and meets certain income requirements in Sweden.

All media companies that consider themselves serious should have impartiality as their watchword, but for the Swedish public service companies it is a prerequisite for their right to exist, according to themselves.

On a page for the Swedish public service company SVT's official website, they write quote "Impartiality is the very basis for public service to exist. Without it, SVT, SR and UR would not be allowed to conduct their activities." unquote.

With the revelation of the dishonest editing of Trump's speech in the BBC "documentary", Trump: A Second Chance, it has emerged that both the Swedish public service company SVT and the Norwegian public service company NRK did exactly the same thing. It was the Swedish politically independent online newspaper Kvartal, which was founded in 2016 and focuses on social journalism, that revealed that SVT had similar dishonest editing to the BBC.

Of Trump's 90-minute long speech, SVT chooses to broadcast a 2-minute segment where they cut together 3 parts of the speech to broadcast to the Swedish public. Their intention in compiling the feature they chose to broadcast cannot be interpreted in any other way than that when Trump did not say what SVT's activist employees hoped for, they felt compelled to compose a feature of what they wished he had said.

This is strengthened by the fact that SVT edited its segment after Kvartal's disclosure, which was posted on their website on Thursday, November 13, 2025 at 12:25 p.m. On the same day at 1:51 p.m., a user on X, @evilbutterflier, downloaded the segment from SVT's website in its original format, where it is portrayed as Trump inciting his supporters to storm the Capitol. At 5:02 p.m. on the same day, SVT uploaded an edited segment with the addition of black boxes with (?!)... between each clip to clarify that their segment consists of different parts and not something Trump said in one piece.

That 3 public service companies, BBC, NRK and SVT, which operate in democratic countries and are also coercively financed to ensure their mission to provide their citizens with IMPARTIAL news, completely fail in their mission shows how enormous the infiltration of the left on socially important positions is today.

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Speaking of lies and dishonesty

For transparency and my own agenda, I strongly dislike our previous government, the Social Democrats with the support of the Green Party and the tacit acceptance of the Left Party. Politically, I am very far from the Swedish Social Democrats, their partner parties, communism and socialism.

Every May Day, several demonstrations are organized around Sweden by the Left. Social Democrats party leader Magdalena Andersson gave her first May Day speech in Malmoe this year. According to news reporting from state-owned Swedish Radio (SR), the Social Democrats, who are in opposition this term, want to change the pension system so that it benefits those who start working early to a greater extent than today. This statement is the exact opposite of what they actually did the last time they were in power.

The Social Democrats proudly write on their own website that on June 22, 2022, when they were in power last time, the government voted through an amending budget that increased the guarantee pension and thereby reduced the "respectful distance" between the national old-age pension and the guarantee pension.

The national old-age pension is paid on the basis of earned salary to citizens who have worked and contributed to the public sector. The guarantee pension is paid to citizens who have never worked and therefore never contributed to the public sector.

According to SPF Seniorerna, one of Sweden's largest senior organizations, the respect distance for 2025 will be as follows:

A person born in 1945 and had a monthly salary of $4,000 will receive a national old-age pension of $1,794 while a person with a guaranteed pension will receive $1,773.

If you instead were born in 1955 and had a monthly salary of $4,000 will receive a national old-age pension of $1,971 while a person with a guaranteed pension will receive $1,773.

This change was voted through exactly 88 days before the 2022 Swedish election, meaning it was among the last measures the Social Democrats implemented before being voted out. This proves what they do in power as opposed to what they say in opposition.

A revelation

My ignorance and hypocrisy have contributed to the Woke movement. The daughter of a close friend, born in 2001, has spent most of her life expressing her opinions, including those everyone knew were inaccurate, completely unchallenged with doleful consequences as a result.

My friend's intentions were "good" as she wanted to build her daughter's self-confidence and ability to stand up for herself. Unfortunately, this has led to this 24-year-old woman today being completely incapable to accept that any of her opinions are wrong.

The last time I met them, her claim was so blatantly false that I, despite my better judgment, questioned her position and countered it with facts. It all ended with her getting up and leaving the room while shouting quote "you don't understand anything" unquote.

I take full responsibility for the fact that my silence over the years has contributed to her inability to see the big picture, and if I'm being completely honest, there are probably more young people around me to whom I have done the same thing. To top it all off, my friend and I haven't spoken to each other since this happened.

However, neither I nor the world's most perfect husband have let the opinions of the world's most perfect teenager go unchallenged. He has always had to substantiate and argue for his positions.

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When did taking responsibility become unfashionable?

As long as politicians and journalists, regardless of citizenship, ethnicity, or party affiliation, do not take responsibility for their lies and dishonest news reporting, fake news will be able to thrive without the slightest resistance.

Personally, I am incredibly grateful that Elon Musk acquired X, thereby paving the way for tweets that expose past lies and dishonest news reporting. Claiming you never said something becomes impossible when someone link or post screenshots of past posts that shows the opposite.

It's incredibly satisfying when someone posts a screenshot or a link in a thread where the person who wrote the original tweet wrote something that is the exact opposite of what they wrote or said previously. I loathe people who don't take responsibility for their lies or dishonest news reporting.

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I'm tired of our tax money being misappropriated

At Sweden's largest airport, Arlanda, the Swedish Customs and the Swedish Social Insurance Agency carried out two joint inspections last year, according to the newspaper Svenska Dagbladet.

These operations prevented incorrect payments of nearly $550,000 and resulted in refund claims of just over $420,000. The frauds discovered consisted of passengers who received sickness benefit, parental benefit and activity compensation on incorrect grounds. This has now resulted in both authorities deciding to expand their cooperation.

In addition, the Swedish Tax Agency has decided to carry out special inspection operations against sham separations in the spring of 2025, that is, people who have separated according to the population register but still live together and through this fraud are entitled to various compensations such as housing allowances, livelihood support, etc. Sham separations are another example of fraud that has been discovered through increased inspections in recent years.

Because these frauds are so widespread, I would like to see the above-mentioned control efforts become permanent and ongoing. I would also see it as positive if these crimes were subject to harsher punishments compared to what they have today.

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They're just not wired like the rest of us

For transparency and my own agenda, both my husband and I belong to Gen X while our son is Gen Z. I don't know if the behavior described below is only practiced by the Swedish Millennials or if it is an approach by the Millennials all over the world.

According to the Workplace Health Report 2024, people under 30 have twice as much short-term absence compared to their older colleagues, reports SVT Nyheter. Short-term absence means that you are away from work for periods shorter than fourteen consecutive days on at least six occasions during a year.

What we hear from employers is that they perceive that employees are taking sick leave for reasons other than illness. It could be that you have been up all night gambling or have broken up with your partner, something that the older generation would never be home from work for, says Charlotte Valleskog, chief psychologist at Feelgood, one of Sweden's leading health companies.

Thankfully, Gen Z seems to have adopted a completely different attitude than their predecessors, the Millennials.

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Uh oh

In the Swedish pension system, the individual controls part of his pension money by being given the opportunity to choose a fund in which this specific part of his pension money should be invested. The world's most perfect husband, who usually has 100% control over his investments, has missed that the specific fund he chose many years ago changes during the year he turns 56. 

The equity fund he chose, AP7, is transitioning from initially being a 100% equity fund to gradually transitioning to being a mixed fund consisting of 67% fixed income funds and 33% equity funds. My husband discovered this yesterday when he received the annual information sheet from the pension authority. He demonstrably missed this information last year because he turns 58 in August this year. His disappointment with himself was noticeably palpable.

He immediately logged into his retirement account and sold off his entire holdings in favor of another fund manager who is not making this change. When I chose to invest my part of the pension money, I did not choose any of the AP funds, which means that I am not affected by this.

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It's obvious that I'm a hoarder

I am a very competitive person, despite being in a car I even challenge motorcycles at red lights, was known from before, but also understanding that I am a hoarder was unpleasant.

The goal of our investments is for us to live on dividends in the future, but I already feel a lot of resistance to withdrawing the dividends instead of continuing to invest them. The competitive person, or if it's the hoarder in me, who constantly wants to beat yesterday's numbers will resist any withdrawals from the portfolio in the future.

This also applies to our points balance on our Amex account. It already bothers me that we will use all our Amex points this summer as the plan is to either travel somewhere in Europe or to Florida in America and thus use the points to partially pay for the plane tickets.

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Why is it always a woman?

A female editorial writer named mrs. Jonna Sima Bank at one of Sweden's largest newspapers, Aftonbladet, writes in a tweet at X about a speech by Ebba Busch at the CES technology fair in Las Vegas the day before yesterday. Ms.Ebba Busch is the party leader of the Christian Democrats in Sweden and was rightly praised for her speech.

Mrs. Jonna Sima Bank, and the newspaper Aftonbladet have written several editorials about Ebba Busch in recent years, almost bordering on an obsession with her. In the tweet, mrs. Jonna Sima Bank wrote quote "And speaking of speeches – yes, I also think Ebba Busch did well in Las Vegas! But the message itself was a bit off. It is hardly curiosity and hard work that built Swedish prosperity. Welfare, redistribution policies, free education have played a greater role..." unquote.

To claim in all seriousness that welfare, redistribution policies and free, I assume she means tax-funded, education has played a greater role than hard work and curiosity is a clear lack of insight and understanding. Without hard work and the creation of successful businesses that generate both corporate and income taxes, you cannot offer your citizens welfare and tax-funded education.

Or does mrs. Jonna Sima Bank believe that tax revenue is created by redistributing money that doesn't exist...

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I'm afraid that tomorrow many people will be here singing from a completely different songbook

For transparency and my own agenda, I strongly dislike our previous government, the Social Democrats with the support of the Green Party and the tacit acceptance of the Left Party, who ruled Sweden for 8 years. At the last election, I voted for the current government. I deeply dislike socialism, communism and wokeism.

First of all, I feel for everyone who has lost a loved one, a friend, their home or their belongings in the terrible fires raging in California, USA. I hope that everyone who is entitled to compensation actually receives compensation.

Unfortunately, I am convinced that at least a couple of insurance companies will not survive this, which means that there are policyholders who will not receive any compensation. Regardless, large amounts of value will be lost because insurance companies always write down the value.

I wonder how understanding the residents of Los Angeles will be when they realize that they will personally lose large amounts of value due to the lack of dams, fire hydrants, etc. These have not been a priority issue in favor of DEI, which has resulted in many fires not being stopped or contained. My personal experience is that people are willing to signal goodness until it affects them themselves.

I believe we will soon see demands for the resignation of both the governor, mayor and fire chief.

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When the agenda trumps facts

Eight days ago, the Teachers' Union and SKR, which is a membership and employer organization for all municipalities and regions in the country, received help from TT, Sweden's national news agency since 1921, to get Sweden's largest newsrooms to spread fake news. The news from TT that assertive parents are now bringing their lawyer to their children's development discussions is completely in line with the "right" values ​​that guide the editorial staff.

Among other editorial offices that took note of the news is the state-owned Swedish Radio (SR) flagship program Studio One, which had a twelve-minute feature on the news. In the segment, a serious Monica Saarinen, host of the Studio One program, says in the announcement quote "That some parents also bring a lawyer is a new and growing phenomenon that is being noticed by Sweden's teachers" unquote. The guests in the program are a lawyer who has never personally assisted any parent but who believes it is important that parents receive help, and a local chairman of the Swedish Teachers' Association who is upset.

Other major editorial offices, TV4, Aftonbladet and Svenska Dagbladet, also chose to report on the alleged problem without fact-checking the information. According to the newspaper Expressen, only one writer, Moa Berglof from Sydsvenskan's liberal editorial team, tried to get answers from SKR and Sweden's teachers. Established media is digging its own grave!

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Stop wasting other people's money

For transparency and my own agenda, I strongly dislike our previous government, the Social Democrats with the support of the Green Party and the tacit acceptance of the Left Party, who ruled Sweden for 8 years. At the last election, I voted for the current government. It was the previous government that went to bed with Northvolt and invested enormous amounts of tax dollars.

Yesterday, an extraordinary owners' meeting was held to discuss Northvolt's acute liquidity crisis and the company's enormous losses. Northvolt's communications manager Matti Kataja writes in an email to the state-owned Swedish Television (SVT) quote "Northvolt is satisfied with the result of today's extraordinary general meeting, where the shareholders voted for the continuation of Northvolt's operations" unquote.

AMF's equity manager Anders Oscarsson, who has invested $16,000,000 of Swedish pension savers' money, attended the owners' meeting and states that he is positive about the future. Anders Oscarsson continues quote "The lenders have to make some concessions, but that's what this whole process is doing right now" unquote.

Most people who have not invested money in Northvolt have the ability to realize that the company will never make a profit. To make the factory in Skelleftea a success and profitable, the factory must be freed from two major problems, all debts and Northvolt's management whose main talent is finding investors, not building battery factories.

For Europe to get its own battery factory, Northvolt needs to go bankrupt and the only way that will happen is for pension companies and similar companies to stop wasting other people's money.

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I was like a bull in a china shop

When I enter work mode, I lose both space and time. Apart from having to manually enter each individual dividend into the correct cell and delete by hand them at the end of the year, my Google Sheet is fully automatic and calculates everything via connections between the different pages in my spreadsheet and Google Finance. Even if I could, I would never give Google Sheet access to our endowment insurances.

After being in my own world for almost two hours, deleting all the 2024 dividends and making some minor adjustments, I got a feeling that something was wrong, very wrong. And then it hit me, I had forgotten to make a copy and had made all the changes in the spreadsheet for 2024 and not 2025, meaning all the information about 2024 was completely gone. When I discovered the error it was 11:10 p.m. and the world's most perfect husband called it a night.

Which was good, because when I calmed down the next day, I realized that I should have been able to restore the document to before I made all the changes. Luckily, it was extremely easy to restore the document to the "correct" version and the only thing I lost was two hours of work.

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When you misunderstand your assignment

A Swedish trade union that has confused its mission, i.e. that they should protect the interests of their members, with Sweden's foreign policy, is the Swedish Port Workers' Union. Starting at the turn of the year, the union intends to block military equipment to and from Israel in Swedish ports, reports the Goteborgsposten.

This became clear after a vote among members of the Swedish Port Workers' Union this week. 68% of the members of the Swedish Port Workers' Union voted for blocking. The union's vice-chairman Erik Helgeson says quote "you have to do the little you can" unquote. The union's website states that they will start working on how the blockade will work after the turn of the year.

Johan Grauers, head of negotiations at the employers' organization Ports of Sweden, announces in writing that quote "the appropriateness of exporting and importing military equipment to and from other countries is a political issue, which is determined by the parliament and government" unquote. Whether Ports of Sweden, like last time when the union blocked Russian transports, will take the union to the Labor Court remains to be seen.

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Reality bites

For transparency and my own agenda, I strongly dislike the Woke movement and DEI. I would never want to get a position because I am a woman, I want to get the position because I am the most suitable candidate.

I was a big fan of the American giant the Boeing Company the Common Stock (BA) until I was informed that the company's management had adopted DEI. For several months I did not believe the American man who informed me that (BA) had chosen to embrace DEI. I couldn't believe that a company like (BA) would risk its brand, human lives and the company itself on the altar of DEI.

But after several accidents, internal problems and now the latest accident in South Korea and a grounded aircraft, I have to believe him. I have absolutely no insight into (BA) so I know nothing about management's current strategy, but I sincerely hope that by now they have identified the real problem and rehired the older and more experienced employees (men) they lost due to DEI.

A woman with the "right" values ​​in HR can never replace an older man on the shop floor with experience and knowledge of the company's products, no matter how "wrong" his gender, color or age may be on paper.

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