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Bitcoin reaches historic milestone – passes $100,000

Published 5 December 2024
– By Editorial Staff
Analysts believe that bitcoin will continue to multiply in value in the coming years.

For the first time ever, the cryptocurrency Bitcoin reached and passed the $100,000 mark.

Since Trump won the US presidential election, Bitcoin has advanced strongly and his choice to nominate “crypto tsar” Paul Atkins to head the US Securities and Exchange Commission is believed to have further strengthened the belief in the cryptocurrency.

The world’s largest cryptocurrency has risen steadily since Trump won the election, from just under $70,000 on election day to just under $100,000 in just over two weeks.

At the time of writing, one Bitcoin is valued at almost $103,000. The milestone was close to being reached already in November, but instead dropped temporarily after several heavy investors chose to take the opportunity to collect their profits.

In 2024, the price of Bitcoin has so far increased by 133 percent – and analysts have predicted that it could continue to rise and reach $200,000 in 2025.

According to analysts, it is not unlikely that the cryptocurrency will reach $125-130,000 before the end of the year, and Bitcoin analyst Michael Saylor believes that it is reasonable for the cryptocurrency to reach $13 million in 2025.

The extremely positive development for Bitcoin is believed to have been strongly influenced by Trump’s nomination of Paul Atkins as the head of the Securities and Exchange Commission – the US agency that oversees securities trading.

“The whole cabinet owns Bitcoin”

Atkins is apparently very positive about cryptocurrencies in general and Bitcoin in particular and there is now talk that there will be a “crypto tsar” in the Trump White House who has the potential to strengthen the position and role of cryptocurrencies in the US economy.

According to crypto billionaire Mike Novogratz, Trump’s presidency represents a “paradigm shift” for an industry regulation of cryptocurrencies and he believes that Bitcoin will continue to rise in value going forward.

– The entire cabinet almost owns Bitcoin and are advocates of digital assets. The people around that table are very positive about this space. They are for innovation, they are for digital assets, they are for Bitcoin.

Trump has also previously pledged to create a national Bitcoin reserve, with the Federal Reserve buying 200,000 Bitcoins each year over a five-year period, until they reach one million – which then represents just under five percent of the total global supply.

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Danes boycott Coca-Cola

Published 30 April 2025
– By Editorial Staff
It seems that only US brands are currently seeing a decline in Denmark.

Danish consumers have begun to shun US brands in response to Donald Trump’s move to seize Greenland. Sales of Coca-Cola are falling – while domestic alternatives like Jolly Cola are surging.

As a result of Trump’s tough foreign policy, where he has expressed that he wants to seize the Danish territory Greenland, Danish consumers have started boycotting American goods. In particular, consumers have chosen to stop buying the American soft drink Cola-Cola, which has now become noticeable in sales.

Carlsberg, which manages the Danish sales of Coca-Cola, says that sales are “slightly down” in the country.

– There is a level of consumer boycott around the US brands, and it’s the only market where we’re seeing that to a large extent, chief executive Jacob Aarup-Andersen told Financial Times.

Meanwhile, local Danish brands like Jolly Cola are instead soaring, with grocery chain Rema, among others, saying sales of the brand had increased 13-fold in March compared to the same month last year.

“Feel disrespected”

US Vice President JD Vance has accused Denmark of not being a “good ally” for not accepting the idea of the US taking control of Greenland. This is despite Danish forces fighting alongside US troops in Afghanistan and elsewhere.

The Danes are angry. They remember those Danish soldiers’ bodies coming home, and now they feel disrespected. You can see why calls for a boycott are popular, a Danish official told the Financial Times last month.

Several consumers in Mexico have also chosen to boycott the brand, with volumes reportedly down 5.4% in the country in the last quarter.

Bank CEO’s explanation for distrust in banks: “Anti-Semitism”

The crisis of confidence in banks

Published 25 April 2025
– By Editorial Staff
Przemek Gdański – CEO of BNP Paribas Bank Polska.

It is not only in Sweden that banks are attracting increasing public contempt. In Poland, a majority of the population now says it has little confidence in the national banking system, a phenomenon that a major bank executive attributes to “anti-Semitic” stereotypes.

Przemek Gdański, CEO of BNP Paribas Bank Polska, has sparked debate in Poland after pointing to anti-Semitism as the root cause of the country’s widespread distrust of banks.

– In my opinion, the antipathy to banks is rooted in anti-Semitism. Historically, money lending, in some periods called usury, was done by Jews, Gdański said in an interview with the newspaper Puls Biznesu.

He also refers to a “lack of basic understanding” of how the banking system works, linking this to negative associations with mortgage payments, interest rates, and lending.

The statement has sparked criticism

The statement has triggered strong reactions in several media outlets, including the liberal newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza, which describes it as a “storm of criticism” against representatives of the banking sector for sweeping use of the term anti-Semitism as an explanation for institutional criticism.

The background to Gdański’s reasoning is the historical link between the Jewish diaspora and financial activities. Industry representatives warn that explanations based on “historical prejudices” risk overshadowing more concrete causes, such as fees, interest rates, and a perceived lack of transparency.

Previous opinion polls in Poland have indicated relatively high levels of trust in the banking sector.

IMF chief: World economic order is being reshaped

Published 24 April 2025
– By Editorial Staff
The IMF says that current tariff levels are unprecedented since the Great Depression.

The international economic order is undergoing a complete transformation due to increased uncertainty over US trade policy, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

The global economic system under which most countries have operated for the last 80 years is being reset, ushering the world into a new era”, writes IMF chief economist Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas.

While Donald Trump has imposed sweeping trade restrictions and tariffs, the influential organization has lowered its global growth forecast, predicting in its latest report that world growth will fall to 2.8% down from 3.3% last year.

Existing rules are challenged while new ones are yet to emerge”, Gourinchas continues, describing how tariffs today are at levels not seen since the Great Depression that began in the 1920s.

He argues that the sudden tariff increases and broader policy uncertainty could significantly slow global growth going forward and has lowered the forecast for US growth to a weak 1.8% from 2.8% in 2023 and predicts further stagnation next year.

145% tariffs against China

US trading partners such as Mexico, Canada and China are also expected to be hit, according to the report with Chinese growth falling to around 4% due to attempts to counteract US tariffs. Most EU economies are also expected to grow much more slowly than before.

What Trump has done is impose a blanket 10% tariff on almost all imports from around the world as well as tariffs of at least 145% on Chinese goods. Additional tariffs have also been introduced against many other countries but these have been paused until July, and in the meantime new trade deals are being negotiated.

The Trump administration argues that previous trade deals have been unfavorable to the US and that the country has been economically exploited in various ways and that the tariffs should restore some form of fairness. Anyone who responds by raising tariffs against the US can expect even higher trade tariffs as punishment.

“Desolate mood”

The uncertainty and volatility that has characterized the trade war, and the fact that no one seems to really know what happens next, is described as having been crucial to the shaking of the world economy.

The IMF report is officially presented this week in connection with the organization’s spring meeting in Washington, and the Swedish Minister of Finance Elisabeth Svantesson is in attendance.

– The mood is desolate. A lot has changed in just a few months, she says, and believes that the reality has become worse than first predicted.

– Around the world, we can now expect growth to slow down. This affects the US, Sweden, but also the poorer countries that are so dependent on free trade. This is causing the foundations to shake a lot, the Minister continues.

Swedish economics students can’t do basic math

Published 20 April 2025
– By Editorial Staff
Many economics students at colleges and universities don’t understand things they should have learned back in middle school.

Many economics students at higher education institutions in Sweden today lack basic foundational knowledge in mathematics – and are unable to do things they should have already learned in lower secondary school.

Experts warn that students’ inadequate skills pose a security risk – as sensitive tasks have to be carried out in other countries instead.

Over the weekend, professors and teachers at five Swedish universities raised the alarm that the country’s economics students don’t understand math – they can’t round correctly, convert decimals to percentages or calculate fractions. Many are also said to lack a basic understanding of the subject, and are unable to recognize when or why they have made mistakes.

As a result, educators have been forced to lower standards in subjects such as business administration and spend considerable resources trying to explain arithmetic and other fundamentals – taking time away from much more important matters.

Ultimately, this degeneration means that Swedish financial accounting needs to be done in other countries – because the knowledge may no longer exist in Sweden.

Becoming dependent on other countries

Christina Östberg, professor of business administration at Karlstad University, is highly critical and believes that the low level of knowledge in practice poses a serious security risk for Sweden.

– It’s not really good for any party that we’re passing on sensitive information. It is not good that it goes across the country’s borders, she says in an interview with the state radio SR.

– It’s a security risk, and we’re seeing it in many areas and questioning it. If we become dependent on other states, there’s a risk that the connection could be cut. What happens then?

Targeted efforts are needed

She notes that even ordinary individuals should be able to calculate basic things like VAT or discounts when they shop and that economists must of course be even better at this.

Östberg notes that some financial tasks are already being carried out by companies based abroad and says this increases the risk of sensitive data falling into the wrong hands.

This is also expected to become more common if nothing changes, and to increase knowledge levels, she wants to see major investments in business education at colleges and universities but also earlier efforts aimed at primary and secondary school students.

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