Scandinavian Airlines, the semi-official air carrier of Sweden, Denmark and Norway, seems to be neither big enough nor flexible enough to resist market incursions by its scrappy competitor, Norwegian. Having taken the local market by storm, Norwegian’s colorful boss, an ex-fighter pilot named Bjørn Kjos, now intends to pick off long-distance stretches, like Oslo-New York, that Scandinavian (a.k.a. SAS) has neglected or overpriced. Analysts see a major threat to SAS despite partial ownership by the three governments. SAS chief Mats Jansson has even begun responding to Kjos’s frequent zingers in the media, including a claim that SAS’s fleet was decrepit. “Kjos seems more like he’s in the communication and entertainment industry than the airlines,” Jansson told DN.no. “Our fleet is up-to-date, and we have no need to buy new planes.”

When it comes to the human body, Scandinavians are libertines and Americans are prudes. That’s been conventional knowledge at least since “I Am Curious (Yellow)” in 1967. But a new global survey by the travel search engine Skyscanner finds that 92 percent of Americans and 93 percent of Brits think topless sunbathing is fine, while 82 percent of Scandinavians agree. A little sunshine heals all rifts.

The currencies of Sweden and Norway have jumped in value against the euro as investors take note of the two countries’ speedy economic recovery and their relative insulation from the fiscal woes of Greece and several other unstable European Union countries. Local banking crises in the 1980s and 1990s spurred reforms that helped Sweden and Norway sail through the recent financial turmoil relatively unscathed, as reported in today’s Wall Street Journal, in an article headlined “Scandinavia Gains Currency.” Steve Barrow, an analyst at Standard Bank in London, told Dow Jones reporter Neil Shah: "If you're looking for a better currency to hold in Europe, the Scandinavians are probably the best.”

Support for Norway's Conservative Party has almost doubled since it was humbled by Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg's center-left coalition in the 2009 national elections. Now the Conservatives rank No. 1 when Norwegians are asked to name their favorite party, according to a survey conducted by TNS Gallup for TV2. That bodes well for the business-friendly party as it gears up for municipal and county elections in September.