Carnival of the Capitalists

It's time to kick off this week's Carnival of the Capitalists. We have a bunch of great posts on a wide variety of subjects -- everything from satellite phones, to bond-market vigilantes, to music and drugs (well sort of). The Carnival is open, and the fun begins now.



Wayne Hurlbert, at his excellent Blog Business World blog, has an extremely interesting post about why you need a website marketing plan. His advice: start with the end goal in mind.



Zach Maxfield has a post at Bankstocks.com that takes a look at how soon-to-rise short-term interest rates may force some banks to put themselves on the auction block. If you have ever been curious about acquisition accounting in the banking business, this post is for you.



Torsten Jacobi takes a look at what has happened to the satellite phone business and lessons that can be learned from its failures and applied to other high-flying concepts.



Steve Verdon has two posts this week. Left over from last week is his take on the cost of repairing Iraq's water and sewage systems. He points out that much of the expense is a result of long-term neglect during the Saddam years. On a totally different note he comments on Nathan Newman's blog post about Arnold Schwarzenegger's proposal that 75% of punitive damages in civil suits go to the government. A spirited discussion followed with at least nine responses.



David Tufte continues his chronicle of the economic lessons of the HBO series Deadwood with a look at the relative value of a Chinese life stacked up against an American life in the old west.



For a really interesting look at what is driving up the price of gasoline and the possible consequences of high oil prices, you can't do much better than Jeremy Wright's post on Ensight.org. For those of us who are married the fact that this thinking grew out of a discussion with his spouse gives the post added spice.



Milton Friedman's four purchasing situations dictum is applied to the US Congress and how it works by Paul Smith in a short but pithy post at Freedom's Fidelity.



Russell Buckley explores MMS and the problems in front of it. If you're like me, clueless may best describe what Buckley is talking about without the explanation that MMS stands for multimedia messaging service, which is the next step up from text messaging (SMS or short messaging service) on mobile phones. Lots of good info in this post, especially for the technically-inclined.



Goal setting and planning to achieve those goals is the subject of a post on Sam Decker's blog that was submitted to the Carnival by Rob Long. To find out what Greyhound racing has to teach us about goal setting check out what Decker has to say. Follow that rabbit!



Jeff Cornwall tells the story of Australian John Wamsley's efforts to create a publicly held for-profit company to further conservation efforts. It's interesting reading both for the novelty of the concept of using an IPO to fund conservation and for the perseverance on an entrepreneur with a dream.



Attention all you starving bloggers. Les Jones takes a hard look at advertising on blogs from the perspective of someone who has both bought and sold Internet advertising. Should you quit your day job and wait for the money to roll in? You'll have to read his take on blogs, advertising, and money to find out.



The Federal Reserve is behind the curve on monetary tightening, and the bond-market vigilantes are leading the way says Arnold Kling.



Michael Kantor follows up his Jessica Cutler scandal success by ruminating about what causes people to read blogs.



Why is Mitsubishi Motors Corp. laying off 22% of its workforce and closing plants? Mike Pechar gives some intriguing answers to that question on his Interested-Participant blog.



Evelyn Rodriguez explores creativity as a renewable resource/skill and puts forth the suggestion that time off is a needed commodity if we are to recharge our creative batteries. She wants to hear from others about whether they find vacations and holidays as recharging times.



Overconfidence is the topic for Melissa Hershberger in a post on the Synergy Partners blog. Starting from a paper she read about Overconfidence, Investment Policy, and Executive Stock Options, she moves on to question the effect of overconfidence and optimism in team building.



Micha Ghertner at Catallarchy defends Libertarianism when it is accused of being the "new" communism. This is an old argument that Libertarians have heard before and Ghertner does a good job of meeting it head on.



The next four weeks could be especially volatile for stocks, says Barry Ritholtz. He explores the past week's market signals and the question of market turn, bounce-back rally, or something else in this post at The Big Picture.



Kevin Brancato sent a post of his own to the Carnival and suggested one by Bob Arne. Brancato takes on the question of whether the recently announced seven new Wal-Marts in Vermont is the disaster that the National Trust for Historic Preservation proclaims it to be.



Comparing what is happening in the music industry and the pharmaceutical industry makes for some interesting thoughts by Bob Arne. Even he admits to getting a bit confused and making his own special music late at night under the mood-altering substance of his choice.



David Foster tells a story about the man at the top of a corporation seeing a man at the bottom of the pecking order in need of help to get his job done. The guy at the top pitches in when others don't. There's a lesson none of us should ever forget. Oh yeah, the guy at the top was nineteenth-century inventor and capitalist George Westinghouse.



Overcoming the wall that holds us back from leading change is the topic of this post at Fouroboros that explores each of the elements that make up the wall and how to take that wall apart a brick at a time.



Consumer satisfaction, financial ratios, and stock price: how they might fit together intrigues Martin Lindeskog. He cites an article in a Swedish newspaper that points to a pattern linking changes in the American Consumer Price Index and Gross Domestic Product.



And finally, our own Anita Campbell writes about the sizzling hot RFID technology. Should we assume that RFID is a slam dunk just because Wal-Mart has gotten behind it? Or, could this be a case where Wal-Mart is not infallible?



UPDATE MAY 31: We have two post-holiday entries. First, Bill Callahan at Callahan's Cleveland Diary, a new face on Carnival, has submitted a thought-provoking piece outlining four ideas to improve the City of Cleveland, Ohio and its economic outlook. This is a piece that deserves some attention and debate.



And -- Steve Rucinski of the Small Business CEO blog has entered a post posing an excellent question: why don't economic development efforts simply focus on helping local companies get more customers? Sounds like a good question.



OK! The tents are up, the lights are on! Have fun at this week's Carnival. And thanks to all our participants for their excellent posts.



Oh, and if you sent a post and don't see it, please re-send it (it probably just got spam filtered). Since this is a holiday weekend in the US and many people are away for the weekend, we will happily post any late-arriving entries on Monday, May 31. You might want to send late entries directly to us at anita@anitacampbell.com.



Next week's Carnival will be at The Window Manager. Send your entries to capitalists -at- elhide -dot- com.



Don't know what Carnival of the Capitalists is? Go to the Carnival of the Capitalists home page for information and for details about becoming a future Carnival host.