[03.08.2011, 11:24] I have spent the better part of my summer holiday at my holiday home in Saaremaa and like every post euro reform visitor to Estonia I had to get used to the myriad of copper and brass coins that have replaced the myriad of ridiculously-low denomination kroon bank notes. At least the maintenance cost of the new currency will be lower - or so it should be - because small bills have a lifetime of down to six months while coins last for decades.

[08.03.2010, 16:27] It has been a tough year for those of us who write about Scandinavian business in the Baltics. Scandinavian media have been full of reports that explicitly equal the Baltics to bankruptcy. This has been the most marked in Swedish media where the Baltics have been blamed for the tough times that Swedish banks, notably Swedbank and SEB, are going through. Little line space has been devoted to reflections regarding the following: 1) how much money did the Swedish banks make in the Baltics before they started losing money and 2) who made the decisions that lead to the uncontrolled credit-fuelled boom.