Welcome to the Carnival of the Capitalists for the week beginning July 25, 2005! Below you'll find the contributions of dozens of bloggers on subjects encompassing business, economics, personal finance, accounting, finance, marketing, taxes, legal issues and technology, to name just a few.

But that's not all! This week's Carnival of the Capitalists marks Political Calculations' first time for hosting the CotC, so it's the perfect opportunity to showcase some of the features that make this blog unique among all others, beginning with the format of the Carnival of the Capitalists itself.

This week's edition of the Carnival of the Capitalists is presented using dynamic tables. You may click upon any of the column headings below to sort this week's contributions according to blog name, post title, category and description. If you're using a modern web browser, the table will automatically rearrange itself according to the heading you selected! Clicking the column heading again will rearrange the table in reverse order.

If you're looking for the editor's choice of the best posts of the week, click the Description column heading. Posts chosen as this week's best of the Carnival of the Capitalists have been marked with an A+!

Information about next week's Carnival of the Capitalists may be found below this week's contributions. Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls of all ages, I give you:

Carnival of the Capitalists for July 25, 2005 (Click the column headings to sort table data.)

Contributor	Post	Category	Description/Comment
Multiple Mentality	The Currency of Video Games	economics	MM contributor Yoshi has been playing video games and comments upon the unreality of the universal currency that seems to prevail across the gamer's electronic domain.
Bad Example	WHEN DOES THE WAR STOP?	general	Harvey wonders just what it will take to end the war on terror, ultimately noting that market capitalism may provide the solution.
Porkopolis	Wanting Our Cake and Eating It Too	economics	Starting with a New York Times article, Porkopolis explores why prescription drug prices are so high, and finds that profit motive, as opposed to price controls, offers a better solution to making them affordable.
Wordlab	I Am Chairman Of Chrysler Corporation Always	marketing	Wordlab's Abnu wonders if having former Chrysler CEO Lee Iacocca out pitching DaimlerChrysler's new EMPLOYEE PRICING PLUS offers in television commercials makes sense.
Free Money Finance	Don't Believe Financial "Experts"	pers-finance	FMF finds that so-called financial "experts" are often wrong in their advice, and links to a "gotcha" article at the Motley Fool.
Steve Pavlina's Personal Development Blog	Saving Time With Your Microwave	managing	Can you take efficiency too far in seeking to save those precious seconds while microwaving your meals? Steve Pavlina offers his thoughts.
Lump on a Blog	The Poetry of Capitalism	economics	Lumpy has been reading Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged, and has found insight into the nature of money through quotational therapy.
JSLogan	Coaching Is a Higher Value Service than Mentoring	managing	Is there a difference between coaching and mentoring? Jim Logan offers a distinction and finds coaches to be superior to mentors.
Random Thoughts from a CTO	The Sweet Spot	managing	Taking a principle from Good to Great, Skip Angel offers some ideas that can help managers learn how to find the high productivity "sweet spot" of each person they manage.
Searchlight Crusade	The Negative Amortization Loan	pers-finance	Dan Melson looks at negative amortization loans and advises that "if anyone offers you one of these loans, drag them into the sunlight, drive a wooden stake through their heart, and RUN AWAY!"
View from a Height	How Not to Diversify	investing	Investors have long assumed that U.S. stocks can be broken down into separate size and value-growth asset classes, but evidence from their performance shows that they can't. Joshua Sharf says its still a good idea to diversify, but not along these lines.
Gautam Ghosh on Management	Crossing the Chasm	managing	A+: Gautam Ghosh provides good advice in how to adapt from managing just one's own performance to managing the performance of others after being promoted into management.
Entrepreneurial Mind	Technology and Small Business	business	A+: Jeff Cornwall argues that the systematic approach to opportunity recognition is the most important "technology" available to entrepreneurs, and that knowing what opportunities to pursue and which to let go is the most powerful tool we can offer to any entrepreneur.
Political Calculations	Effective Marketing	marketing	My mailbox provided a good example of the right way to market a local Realtor's services - if only all my junk mail was as good!
Blog Business World	Money Saving Office Furniture and Equipment	business	Wayne Hurlburt finds that acquiring used office furniture can pay dividends by keeping overhead expenses low.
voluntaryXchange	Libtertarian Daydream Coming True?	taxes	What if you could pay taxes to the state of your choice, instead of the state in which you reside? David Tufte comments on a proposed law now being debated in the Senate that would permit neighbors in Hawaii to be citizens of different states.
Lip-sticking	Jane Talks Strategy	business	Strategy is such a vital part of any business plan, yet Yvonne Divita notes that far too many of us overlook the need to bring in outside help to develop a successful business strategy.
Internet Stock Blog	Don't Short Junk - Implications of News Corp's Purchase of Intermix	investing	David Jackson examines the implications of News Corp's purchase of Intermix Media, despite the fact that Intermix just settled a suit with Elliot Spitzer and still has businesses of questionable value.
Mover Mike	What is Blogs: Small Business	business	Having been rejected from being listed in the Blogs: Small Business directory, Mover Mike makes the case for including his business, then challenges the Blogs: Small Business administrators to demonstrate how his business would be better if it were included.
Landfair Furniture	The Other Side of Obesity-- A Follow-Up	business	It’s been said that there are markets in everything – including providing items we take for granted to the obese. Bev Landfair also showcases Big Fat Blog, a site devoted to fat acceptance.
NetworthIQ	Introducing NetworthIQ	pers-finance	Making it's world debut, Ryan Williams introduces NetworthIQ is the web’s first social personal finance tool, where you can track, share (optionally) and compare your net worth.
interim thoughts…	India Stock Markets on a Roll	investing	Neelakantan provides the lowdown on Indian stock markets, which closed at their highest levels ever after a three month long bull run.
All Things Financial	How to Determine If You're Wealthy	pers-finance	How do you know if you're wealthy? JLP provides a rule-of-thumb formula to help you find out (soon to be now available as a tool here at Political Calculations!)
Crossroads Dispatches	Signature Voices, and Perhaps What I Learned About Branding While Strolling Galleries	marketing	China is entering the art market voraciously, as Evelyn Rodriguez' peek at branding confirms on the heels of a recent trip to one of the largest art markets and artist colonies in the U.S.
Worker Bees Blog	Is Feminine Leadership a Myth?	managing	As one of the organizers of BlogHer, Elisa Camahort has been thinking a lot about whether men and women lead, manage, communicate, etc. differently, and finds she differs from the opinions of one of her co-organizers.
Photon Courier	The Smart-Talk Trap	managing	David Foster looks at how organizations tend to encourage a verbal style that is negative, overly complex and ultimately destructive.
Skeptical Optimist	Deficits for Dummies	economics	A+: In the debate over deficits and debt, Steve Conover finds that economic growth is getting short shrift and provides a primer for those interested in why growth is so important to the debate.
WILLisms.com	Trivia Tidbit of the Day: Part 116 -- Tax Revenues	taxes	A+: A lower tax rate just produced the largest increase in tax revenue in U.S. history? Will Franklin charts the data.
Catallarchy	The Competition Fallacy	economics	David Masten of Catallarchy makes the argument that competition is a property not just of free market societies, but rather of all societies, with political structure determining how it manifests itself.
Canadian Capitalist	Privatize the LCBO	taxes	Canadian Capitalist Arbee believes that the government of Ontario should not be operating a wholesale and retail alcohol business when it has better things to do that are in the public interest.
ROFASix	The "Gray Men" in Europe	general	NOTR recent travels reveal that Europe isn't the vibrant place it used to be, which he finds to be the result of the continent's encroaching socialism.
Ripples: post-corporate adventures	Post-corporate Income - How high do you set the bar?	general	A+: David St. Lawrence offers his thoughts on life after leaving the corporate mothership, when you're offered the chance to re-examine your priorties.
FunnyBusiness	Tattoo Lady	general	Many corporations have policies that forbid tattoos and other "body modification," but Elana Centor wonders how realistic this policy is when 35% of 16-35 year olds have tattoos.
The Big Picture	Why Are Movie Theatre Revenues Declining?	business	Barry Ritholtz finds five factors that are hurting the movie-industry's revenue from the big screen, and touches off a very robust discussion in the post's comments.
Small Business Trends	Illegal Immigrants Are a Lucrative Customer Opportunity	business	Recent news reports say that businesses are now targeting illegal immigrants as a lucrative market opportunity. When Anita Campbell posed the question, "Should businesses sell to illegal immigrants?" it got a lot of varied and interesting opinions.
EGO	Blogging and Advertising	marketing	Martin Lindeskog comments on the benefits and potential hazards of having ads on your blog, including a look at future ad platforms, blog portals and payment transactions.
BusinessPundit	When Customer Rewards Programs Don't Pay	marketing	Rob looks at research that shows customer reward programs don't always pay, and presents a discussion in the comments section on how good employees can eliminate the need for the reward programs.
MobHappy	PR Solutions	marketing	Russell Buckley follows up his previous week's entry with some specific guidance for bloggers on getting what they want from the PR industry.
Gongol.com	Industrial Production	economics	Brian Gongol reveals the decline in industrial production in the United States isn't a new phenomenon. A brief look at the data proves the shift to a service economy has been consistently underway since the 1930s.
Econbrowser	How many people should be working in America?	economics	A+:Quite a few commentators have suggested that the labor force participation rate is a much better indicator of the health of the U.S. labor market than is the unemployment rate. Economist James Hamilton feels that quite a few commentators have this wrong.
Ashish's Niti	Bleeding hearts and unintended consequences	general	Is there anything else that can be done to screw the people in the third-world countries? Ashish Hanwadikar wonders if it's possible?

Next Week's Carnival

Next week's Carnival of the Capitalists will be hosted by Michael Cage of the Local Small Business Marketing & Advertising Blog. Bloggers who would like to contribute to next week's CotC may use the CotC Submission Form to submit their entries (preferred), or may alternatively submit them to cotcmail -at- gmail -dot- com.

About Political Calculations

Now, as the host of this week's CotC, I get one main reward - the opportunity to shamelessly plug Political Calculations^(TM)! Here, it's not enough to simply comment upon current events. Oh no. We build simple, easy-to-use calculators to do math related those current events too! (Yes, it's almost as if we're proud of it!) The tools built and found here range the gamut from topics such as election results, investing, personal finance, Social Security, economics and taxes, along with more ordinary posts covering life, stuff and just about everything else.... Just click on the links for typical examples or scroll through the menu for a tour of some of Political Calculations' most popular posts!

Acknowledgements

My special thanks to Jay Solo of Accidental Verbosity for the opportunity to host the Carnival of the Capitalists for this week, and to all the bloggers who made contributions! Bloggers looking for information on how to implement the sorting table function in their own blogs may find very useful informtion on this function and many others at The Daily Kryogenix.

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