Carnival of the Capitalists - 30 August 2004

Come one, come all, the carnival is here at New Dog Old Trick all this week. Here in the New Dog's domain of Southern California, the big entertainment event of the week isn't the carnival but the 25th anniversary edition of the fantastic Long Beach Blues Festival, which starts this coming Saturday, which is still during my stewardship of the COTC. So we have erected the carnival midway right outside the entrance to the Blues Festival on the campus of Cal State Long Beach. Yes, it's the extra special End of the Summer Blues Festival edition of COTC. Don't let the music disturb you, just enjoy it in the background while you read this week's engaging collection of business and economics entries.

Looks like our first blues act is getting ready to take the stage at the Blues Festival, so while we listen to a few selections from Little Charlie and the Nightcats, let's introduce our first COTC posts.

We'll open the show with a very timely topic, given that the closing ceremonies of the Athen's Olympics are on television as I'm writing this, as Martin Lindeskog wonders if the Athens games will be a replay of Montreal's - in economic terms, that is.

Elliott Fladen posts at The Fladen Experience about a major reason why government projects in the U.S. cost so much in The Problems of Prevailing Wage Law.

Kinayda Kix at Kin's Kouch ("more rantings from someone who should know better") on the new overtime rules - Working Overtime to Bash Bush. He suggest that liberal commentators may be distorting the effect of the new overtime regulations to score political points. I suspect that this is not the last we'll hear about the new overtime regs. on COTC.

Brian Gongol posts at Gongol.com ("It's like Fark for Capitalists" - what a great image!) that Germany Learns that Progress and Growth Must Come First.

Lisa Haneberg's a first-time COTC contributor, so we're going to give you all a double helping of Management Craft. First up a post on the value of the Socratic approach as a coaching tool in Questions for Coaching. Also, in what may be a first for COTC (somebody check the record book), a business poem titled Business Poem #1 - Oh Overwhelm.

The Charlotte Capitalist, aka Andy Clarkson, improvises around a classic Seinfeld riff in You Don't Even Know What Capitalism Is .

How about a nice hand for Rick Estrin, Little Charlie Baty, and the rest of the band! For more from Little Charlie and the Nightcats, check out Deluxe Edition on Alligator. And how about those bloggers - let's hear it for them too. While we're waiting for Rod Piazza and the Mighty Flyers to set up, let's go ahead and introduce our next set of webloggers.

Trudy W. Shuett of WOLves is baring her soul and opening up her job search for all to see in Professional Blogger for Hire, which is the third post in her Transparent Job Search series. I suspect Trudy would be happy if this were a short series - so somebody hire this woman!

Arnold Kling's Business and Health Care Costs at EconLog talks about one of the hot issues for business owners, management, and employees. It points to a good essay by Kling that's at Tech Central Station.

Jim Stroup at Managing Leadership continues his interesting discussion of Prof. John Adair's comments on Stroup's book, Managing Leadership. This week its Prof. John Adair on leaders, leadership, and teams.

Jeff Cornwall searches The Entrepreneurial Mind and sees good economic news in the fact that VCs were busy in Q2.

John Beck of the INCITE weblog improvises using Harvard Professor Ted Leavitt's classic theme Marketing Myopia. John's comparing today's modern mass media to yesterday's railroads, read about it at Marketing Myopia. I think John's on the right track (sorry, couldn't help myself).

David Tufte of voluntaryXchange ("It's as intrinsically human as opposable thumbs!") on (Money is) Memory is Sex. I wonder if his weblog's slogan is even more appropriate than usual, given the subject?

Hey Hey, that was Miss Honey Piazza on piano - she learned it directly from that great Chicago master himself, Otis Spann. And that's her husband Rod on vocals and playing that hot west coast-style harmonica. Look for their great new CD, Keepin It Real, on Blind Pig Records. Now it's time to introduce our next performer and our next set of webloggers. The next performer on the stage is James Harman - that's right, that most dangerous gentleman, the king of greaser blues. And James's special guest is guitar wizard Kid Ramos. While they're kicking off their set, please continue reading our next set of bloggers.

Fellow Southern California resident, (Prof.) Steve Bainbridge of the eponymous ProfessorBainbridge.com expounds in his usual meaty fashion on The SEC's Futile and Misguided Efforts to Clamp Down on Inside Information, With Notes on Why Individual Investors Should Not Directly Invest in Stocks. The title says it all, as he's talking about how the SEC is playing whack-a-mole: as soon as they crack down on one channel of inside information, another one pops up. Therefore, (says the Prof.) individual investors would generally be much better off holding a diversified mutual fund.

Yet another Los Angelino, Dave Sheridan at no illusions, talks about a favorite California subject - immigration - in Immigration's Costly Hypocrisies.

Tim Worstall ("It's All Obvious or Trivial Except...") rocks on about Ehrlich Again. Man, I thought Paul Ehrlich's use-by date expired years ago. Ehrlich's obviously decided that since people don't agree with him, we need to legislate his right to think for the rest of us.

Barry Ritholtz keeps us all focused on The Big Picture with a follow-on to a great post he did about a month ago concerning the broken business model in radio; the new post is Losing the Signal.

Blog Business World's Wayne Hurlbert warns website owners to be cautious about who they believe regarding search engine optimization in Beware of Bad SEO advice.

David Foster at Photon Courier has the word about a very unusual application of artificial intelligence/computer vision technologies. It scares me that this thing might know what I'm going to order at Mickey D's before I do. Check it out at Strange But True.

Put your hands together for James Harman, Kid Ramos, and the last set of webloggers. Look for James's most recent CD, Lonesome Moon Trance, on Pacific Blues records.

Next up, that veteran and distinguished blues harmonica player, Charlie Musselwhite. Charlie's going to share the stage with one of the hottest young blues players out there today - Keb' Mo'. Give it up for Charlie, Keb', and our final batch of webloggers.

Joe Kristan at the Roth & Co Tax Updates weblog have got a tax court case you have to read to believe. The title gives you a hint: Imbibe and Invest? The Dangers of Trading While Tippling.

Ashish Hanwadikar, in his weblog Ashish's Niti (Niti in Sanskrit means policy/strategy/vision), posits that Everybody loses in restricting trade.

Jonathan Wilde of Catallarchy submits a post by Patri Friedman wherein the author muses on why good people vote for harmful policies, and why choosing via the market is better than voting via politics in Hope vs. Belief, Part II: Voting is Bad, Choice is Good.

Anita Campbell of Small Business Trends posts on an interesting tool by Blogpulse that shows what bloggers say is important in the eyes of small business in What Does Small Business Care About?

Mike Pechar, a known Interested Participant, tells us about the impact of the recent elimination of bus connections in hundreds of small towns in the U.S. in Greyhound Lines Downsizing.

Russell Buckley from Mobile Technology Weblog finished cleaing up after last week's Carnival (thanks Russell!) in time to look at the issue of mobile coupons (coupons sent to people's cellphones) and how it might work on a practical level; he chimes in at Mobile Couponing.

I'm giving myself the last word for this week. In my post Gartner Group interviews Clayton Christensen I point to and discuss a little bit about an interview of Christensen that is posted in the public area of the Gartner Group website. Christensen's books, particularly the recent The Innovator's Solution, are already classics. The last third or so of the interview has an interesting discussion of how to operationalize one of the most interesting concepts in The Innovator's Solution.

Give it up people! Let's give all of our webloggers a great big hand for those thoughtful and interesting posts! And let's give our last blues performers, Charlie Musselwhite and Keb' Mo' a hand. For more from Charlie, his latest CD Sanctuary is on Real World records; Keb Mo's latest is Keep It Simple on Sony.

That brings the Blues Festival Special Edition COTC to an end. Those were some great business and economics posts mixed in with some great blues music. Tune in next week for the Carnival of the Capitalists, which will be at Joe Grossberg ("My Bullshit, Your Brain"). Send your entries to capitalists -at- elhide -dot- com.

And if you can't come to the Long Beach Blues Festival on Labor Day weekend, you can listen to great blues music via the internet on Saturday afternoons from 2pm Pacific time until 9pm and Sunday afternoons from 2pm until 5pm Pacific time. Just go to the website for radio station KKJZ of Long Beach, CA. Support America's indigenous musical forms!

Thanks to all of our contributors. And thanks to all of you for dropping on by. Come back any time.

Comments

[Joe Grossberg]

Erm ... the tagline is "My bullshit. Your brain."

I wish it was "no bullshit", but I wouldn't give myself that much credibility. :)

[New Dog]

Joe, sorry about that. I knew there was something that didn't seem right when I was proofing the post. I'll go in an fix it now.