Welcome to this week's Carnival of the Capitalists, which I have the privilege of hosting this week.
We have a few less entries than normal, but I haven't taken it too personally. Doubtless the holiday season has played its part. But what we lack in quantity, we have made up in quality - some great posts to read.
Firstly, Wayne Hurlbert explores the art of the blogger's follow up post.
Followup posts are ideal for political, legal, and sports blogs. Each of those blog categories is ideally suited to continuing column ideas. Most readers will be very intrigued as to how the initial case, policy, or game under discussion was resolved.
For personal bloggers, ongoing postings are part of the reason for the blog in the first place. The ongoing daily life of the blogger is a continuing saga in and of itself. Following up on some previous event in the blogger's life flows naturally in personal blogs.
Spot on Wayne. All you bloggers reading this, have a scroll through your archives and discover a wealth of follow up material. There's nothing quite so cathartic as writing "Shucks, I was wrong about ....." or so satisfying as "Hell, I told you so..."
Mike Pechar found out that the Danes have
banned 18 Kellogg products, including Corn Flakes, Rice Krispies and Special K. Holy moly! People have been eating these products for generations and, if there were any problem with them, one would expect to have already heard of specific health concerns. But, no! Out of the clear blue comes the prohibition by authorities in Denmark.
Apparently, the problem is that they put too many vitamins in. I thought vitamins were meant to be good for you. In fact, "They're grrrrr-eate", or was that something else?
The week wouldn't be complete without some commentary of the Google IPO - if you've been off-planet, Google (a search engine) went public this week, at an eye-watering, distinctly 1999-ish valuation.
Firstly, Martin Lindeskog gives a comprehensive round up of the whole shebang, with possibly more links than any blog I've ever seen before. He manages to cover everything from the Playboy angle to the fact that 1,000 of the company's 2,300 employees are now (paper) millionaires. I bet the 1,300 didn't enjoy the recent company picnic so much.
Meanwhile, Adam Shostack writes about an aspect of the deal that backfired, despite being designed
to democratize the process and let people buy in at just a few shares, but it was a miserable failure because the organizers didn't realize the securities regulations that require people who bid to have a certain net worth.
Article comments
1 - Eric Olsen
hi Russell, looks like I missed that first post back in March, sorry.
This is a cool feature - money is good. Thanks and a belated welcome!
2 - Robert T DeMarco
This is the first time I read one your posts--excellent.
On the issue of books and their availability. Even when a book sells fast there is no guarantee book stores will reorder or that publishers will publish more copies. It could be as simple as the contract that was signed prior to the book being published or any of a long list of factors. In this case, the book received an inordinate amount of free publicity on the talk shows. It is unlikely that this could have been anticipated. Another factor could be it is seen more or less as a "fad" book. Or, the audience is limited to "mean spirited" right wing fanatics. Who knows?
You might change the word "loose" to "lose" Or Phil Winn might come in here and give you a spelling lesson.
I'll come back in later and delve into this post further when I have more time.
Bob