Carnival of the Capitalists – July 10, 2006
Welcome to this week’s Carnival of the Capitalists, a weekly roundup of the best business articles posted by bloggers. This edition of the Carnival of the Capitalists is utilizing the CotC hosting template provided by Gongol.com. I hope you like it. I believe it helps keep this large carnival neat and organized. Next week’s Carnival is scheduled for Any Letter.
About the Host Site
Your host today, Fat Pitch Financials, is a value investing and personal finance blog. Fat Pitch Financials also includes a community driven value investing news site called Fat Pitch News. There is also a members only section called Fat Pitch Financials Contributor’s Corner dedicated to finding the best special situation and arbitrage opportunities in the stock market for individual investors. Find out how you too can become a member.
How to Navigate This Edition
Click on the column titles in order to sort this week’s entries by alphabetically by site, post or category.
| Site | Post/Essay | Category | Summary | Editor’s Picks |
| Mine Your Own Business | Say Goodbye to the “Mass Market” |  |
Media is changing; broadcasting is out and “narrowcasting” is in. Mine Your Own Business discusses what this means for your business marketing strategy. | |
| The Business of America is Business | Measuring Globalization |  |
There is a lot of talk about the consequences of globalization but much less on what it is and how it is defined and measured. | |
| Online dating blog | Launching a Dating Site. Essential Steps |  |
Some essentials to consider before starting an online dating site. | |
| InsureBlog | Price Controls | |
Price controls just don’t work, and when it comes to health insurance, that goes double. Here are just a few of the consequences when it’s tried. |  |
| David Maister’s Passion, People and Principles | The Forgiveness Index |  |
David Maister has a theory that super-successful organizations have a forgiveness index that is lower than average, but still well above 0. Sounds reasonable to me. | |
| Free Money Finance | How to Answer Tricky Interview Questions |  |
Some basic suggestions on how to handle interview questions. | |
| MineThatData | Business Review: eBay | |
Recent financial performance and a precipitous drop in its stock price indicate that eBay may be close to becoming a mature, slower-growth company. | |
| Business & Technology Reinvention | Making New Rules | |
This Sales VP presents some new rules about sales and meetings. | |
| Et Tu Bloge | NJ Exodus? |  |
This blogger explores the potential impacts of New Jersey’s sales tax increase to 7 percent. | |
| Frugal Wisdom from Wenchypoo’s Warehouse | Is Africa the Next India? |  |
This commentary looks at the potential in investing in Africa. | |
| Trader’s Narrative | Running With the Bulls | |
Will the recent increase in volume mark the market bottom? I wish it was that easy. | |
| Kicking Over My Traces | Post in Haste | |
Another reminder to think before you publish something on the Internet. | |
| Stock Market Beat | Oil Inventory | |
An interesting look at the trends regarding oil inventories. | |
| Experiments in Finance | Proof you should always read a fund’s prospectus before investing | |
A look at PBW (exotic ETF) and why it’s not what its summary appears to say on Morningstar and Fidelity. | |
| The Buzz Blog | Open Letter to Ben Bernanke | |
An open letter to the Fed Chief questioning the use of rate hikes to fight inflation and asking for a pause in rate hikes. | |
| Paul’s Tips | The number-one most important fact to understand if you want to get things done | |
We all have things we want done. Or more precisely, we have things about the world we wish to change, and realize we’ll to put in some effort to do so. | |
| Trizoko: Biz Journal | How to Pitch Your Super-Crazy-Sweet Ideas | |
Use the seduction of collaboration to sell your ideas. | |
| The Scratching Post | Stop Messing with My Favorite Brands! | |
New is not always better when it comes to your favorite brands. | |
| Queercents | Mind the Gap | |
In London, the Underground has signage that reminds commuters to Mind the Gap. There is another gap that figuratively represents the economic disparities among retiring baby boomers. | |
| Direct Response Works | Copy For Your Landing Page Used In B2B Lead Generation and Sales | |
Your landing page needs to present your prospect overwhelming information necessary to feel comfortable in heeding your call to action. | |
| Bizinformer | Partner with your Customers | |
Creatively include your customers to make your product better. | |
| Below The Beltway | Corporate Espionage And Corporate Integrity | |
The recent thwarted conspiracy to steal Coca Cola trade secrets and sell them to Pepsi Co has an upside with regards to business ethics. | |
| Cash Flow Blog | Two Critical Elements Of The Collection Letter | |
The two important aspects of writing a collection letter include clarity and consequences. (As a value investor, you got to love the name of this blog.) | |
| The Browster Blog | What is an ad? | |
As users simultaneously become publishers and each other’s viewers, the idea of an advertisement can go from something a corporation pushes, to something displayed by the trusted group or individual publisher instead. | |
| China Law Blog | China’s Golden Cities – The Private Sector Is A Good Thing | |
An early look at a World Bank study indicates that China’s growing private sector may be producing positive benefits for its cities. | |
| The Coyote Within | Give Yourself Time | |
Adrian notes that in all the discussions of personal development time is rarely mentioned, yet giving yourself enough time is essential to allow learning and development to take root. | |
| Searchlight Crusade | Some Free Loan Advice About Real Estate Transactions | |
Some interesting things to keep in mind about real estate loan transactions. | |
| Slow Leadership | Controlling Competition | |
What happens when the workplace becomes more like a gladiatorial arena than a community of people with common goals? | |
| The Entrepreneurial Mind | When Selling a Business be Realistic, be Informed, and be Prepared | |
A good basic roadmap to selling a business and things to keep in mind during the process. | |
| The Big Picture | NFP: Another in a long series of disappointments | |
Employment statistics continue to be weak but that was no surprise to the author of this article. | |
| Execupundit.com | Crabs in a Bucket | |
Execupundit.com examines how others can bring you down. | |
| InvestorGeeks | Homebuilder Industry Analysis | |
Peter at InvestorGeeks explains that the Homebuilding Industry is likely to be in for tough times ahead. | |
| Jack Yoest | The Devil Wears Prada and Alan Greenspan: Nuance and Silence | |
“If you want to command and communicate. Be quiet. Be still.” | |
| Roth & Company Tax Update | Taxing You To Lure And Subsidize Your Competitors | |
Probably the most galling thing about “tax incentives” is the when you see the state subsidizing a competitor. One business is fed up. | |
| Financial Methods | Prices, Not Piracy |  |
Movie studios are investigating a technique that embeds ‘subliminal’ images in movies to foil camcorders while remaining invisible to movie-goers. The larger problem is not piracy, it is pricing. | |
| Centrerion Canadian Politics | Creative Taxing Can Save the Environment | |
An economics professor weighs in on tax solutions to environmental problems. This is a topic I’m particularly interested in. | |
| MyMoneyBlog | Forming An S-Corporation To Reduce Self-Employment Taxes | |
A discussion of the tax benefits of S-Corporations. | |
| Sox First | The unfinished business of Ken Lay’s legacy | |
With Lay dying an innocent man, at least legally speaking, and his death putting the civil claims in doubt, it’s clear there will be no closure on one of America’s biggest corporate frauds which cost 4000 jobs and billions of dollars in shareholder wealth, savings and retirement incomes. | |
| Fire Someone Today | Microsoft’s Mouth Feel | |
It is hard enough to get people talking about your product. Don’t let your competitor’s name be easier on the tongue. (Great graphic.) | |
| Blog Business World | Marketing: When does it pay? | |
Discussion of the importance of marketing. | |
| Nubricks.com | Still time to invest in Bulgarian off plan property | |
A discussion of recent events that are keeping Bulgaria high on the overseas property radar. | |
| Soccer Dad | Government’s entitlement | |
Are sin taxes good things? Or are they cynical attempts to exploit people’s bad habits? | |
| My Financial Awareness | Retirement Planning – A Marathon or a Sprint? | |
Should retirement planning be a sprint to retire at 55 while focusing on saving as much as you can or a marathon to retire at 65 where you are able to enjoy life along the way? | |
| Econbrowser | Questions remain about Saudi oil | |
Econbrowser asks whether Saudi Arabia might be part of the reason for new highs in the price of oil. | |
| SportsBiz | Hedge Fund Fantasy Football | |
A Portuguese hedge fund invests in soccer players hoping to profit on transfer fees earned when the player is sold to a bigger club. | |
| The Career Intensity Blog | Remove Emotion from Your Decisions | |
Three quick tips to use when your emotions can cost you money. | |
| Aloys Hosman | How to manage risk management? | |
Starting a risk management initiative does not mean you actually manage your risks. Manage enterprise risks with an integrated risk management approach. | |
| Interested-Participant | TOPS Hits Bottom in NE Ohio | |
Blaming the failure on competition, Dutch retailer Ahold announced this week that it is selling 46 TOPS supermarkets in NE Ohio. | |
| BPWrap | Google Supplemental Results – A Word To The Wise | |
Matt Cutts of Google states an obvious truth. To avoid being archived among all those Google supplemental results, get high-quality links (don’t bother to get low-quality links just for links’ sake). | |
| Big Picture, Small Office | The Tipping Point | |
Cheap is as cheap does. It seems that the Small Office shows its true measure whenever it comes time to leave the tip. Then everyone seems to find a reason to be the first one to leave. | |
| The Boring Made Dull | Some Thoughts on the Cost of College | |
A rant on the cost of “liberal arts” education. | |
| The Liberty Papers | Government Regulation And The Housing Market | |
How government regulations are encouraging the construction of large expensive homes. |
Well done in bringing order to such a wealth of posts. Clearly the blogosphere doesn’t take a summer vacation.
Wow! That was a fantastic way to do a Carnival. When I do Carnival of the Cats in a few weeks, I think I’ll borrow this format.
Nice job! I think I like the template more each time I see it.
I really like the “table” format. It’s surprisingly helpful!
Great job…thanx for hosting this week!
Wow. Very, very nice format. It took me forever to come up with and layout the Carnival of Investing this week. Nice to have such standardization! Thanks for picking my entry, too.
Thanks for posting my article, I appreciate it!
Thank you for including my post.