Författare: Nicholas

Unwarranted rewards

When we are all being asked to share the pain of weak economic performance, you have to wonder why the senior management of “private” Finnish pension companies is still being rewarded with large bonus…

True Europeans need skeptics

We enjoyed a sunny weekend in Rome. Two days were enough to convince the most enthusiastic Europeans that small Nordic countries do not need to finance that country, no matter how bad they claim to be…

An effective way to watch foreign TV on the net

I travel a lot and hate sitting in hotel rooms with bad local TV channels. Now I have solved the problem so I can watch Swedish, British, French, Italian, German, Canadian, etc. channels when I want. …

Should you pay back your housing loan?

In Sweden there is a continuing debate about repaying housing loans. The banks do not want people to repay their loans. They want to have them invest their cash in saving’s products like investment fu…

The GroupOn experience…

Two friends have both had a Groupon experience. They purchased a EUR 100 for a dinner for two at a Michelin restaurant in Helsinki for which they paid EUR 50. It looked like an offer you cannot refuse…

Hotel bookings – price wars…

During my recent vacation in Florida I stayed in four boutique hotels. I had booked most of them through www.trivago.com which aggregates many of the hotel discount websites to give me the lowest poss…

Why are banks demanding extra margins on their loans?

Banks are demanding higher margins and are making these demands against some “clients” in the courts. For the purposes of simplification for this short commentary, I took the 2011 figures of the Norde…

To be or not to be (Taxed)?

We pay taxes to have good schools, affordable health care, a safe and clean environment. You, me and our friends and families, as ordinary working people, pay our taxes alongside small and medium size…