Blog Showcase – Weakonomics
I haven’t featured any individual blogs in quite a while but I’ve been reading Weakonomics for a while and I have to say that I’m really impressed by this blog. The author (Phil) is smart, creative, funny and undoubtedly good looking. In other words – the complete opposite to anything you’ll find around here. 
 He’s been at it for just over a year so there are lots of good articles to peruse.
If you like your financial posts with a dash of wit and intelligence then I strongly urge you to subscribe via email or RSS feed to receive his stuff. He likes talking about economics, investing and many other aspects of personal finance that he finds interesting.
Here are some posts you can check out:
- Local towns have own currency so the Weakonomist does one too. Very original.
- 6 lessons Star Wars teaches us about money. Excellent post and if I may quote Homer…”Nerd!!!”Â
- 10 things I hate about economists. This is one of my favourite posts from this blog.
- How the federal government prints money. This may sound like a boring article but it isn’t.
Links of the week
Amateur Asset Allocator thinks that women should buy their own engagement ring. Well good luck finding someone with that attitude!! Seriously, I think the issue is the cost – why does anyone have to waste pay so much for a ring?
The Simple Dollar had an interesting post on renting a vehicle for a holiday rather than using your own. I thought this was a neat idea – you can rent something bigger or smaller depending on your needs.
M is for Money talks about her uncle giving up his house to foreclosure. I don’t disagree with his decision but her analysis leaves a lot to be desired….let me guess, he had no idea house prices didn’t go up forever?  He’s no innocent victim.
He bought a house he could afford and lived within his means, he isn’t the poster child for irresponsibility you see portrayed every day. Rather he is one of the unintended victims of this current crisis who never realized the danger they were in.
One Mint explains why GM is not trading at zero. (Not that it would ever actually trade for zero – but you know what I mean).
The rest of the links
Thicken My Wallet says that taxes are going up so hire a tax accountant. I disagree (see my comment).
The Oblivious Investor has a list of 35 resources for anyone is is not debt-free and wants to learn to invest.
Million Dollar Journey has 8 ways to keep your kids busy this summer.
Financial Blogger tells you how to negotiate a raise during a recession.
Good Financial Cents came up with four things that are making you poor.
The Intelligent Speculator explains target date ETFs.
Money Ning reviews the Ally bank.
ABCs of Investing says that stock prices don’t represent stock value.
Carnivals
Carnival of 20 Somethings – Sesame Street edition!!
Carnival of Financial Planning
Economy and Your Finances Carnival
{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
Thank you for including my roundup post.
And I second the suggestion that readers check out Weakonomics if they haven’t yet. His writing is fantastic.
Hi Mike,
The link to “10 things I hate about economists” leads to the 6 Star Wars lessons.
Weakonomics is indeed quite good.
Nicolas
Thanks for the kind comments and thank you to my Canadian friend for kindly featuring me this week. This is great.
I can add some testimony that Phil is a stand-up guy in an area where it is a lot harder to excel than in writing.
I have in recent months posted Guest Blog Entries at a good number of blogs as part of an effort to spread knowledge of the exciting investing-related findings of the Retire Early and Indexing discussion-board communities (we have been breaking lots of new ground over the past seven years). There’s a group of internet thugs that follows me around and puts up an endless number of defamatory and threatening posts wherever one of my guest blog entries appears.
A number of the site owners have capitulated to the Goons and either taken down the guest blog entry, banned honest posting on our findings at their sites, or permitted the defamatory and threatening posts to stand without taking any action to protect those seeking to participate in discussions. Phil is one of the few who fearlessly stood up for his blog community.
Here are his words to his community explaining why he had to delete a post put forward by one of Greaney Goons when the Goon posteer tried too defame one of our researchers by posting nonsense under his name:
“If these comments seem confusing it is because one of them was deleted per the request of a user. It’s an identity theft kind of thing, and it won’t be tolerated.”
If all blog owners acted with similar courage, we would be learning a whole big bunch more about how to invest effectively than we have been in recent years. It doesn’t take many to make a difference. I am hopeful that Phil is going to serve as a model for others and that blog owners will be uniting in days to come to protect our readers from the sorts of ugliness and deception that has long been used to attack the Retire Early and Indexing communities.
In short, I too am a big Weakonomist fan. I view him as a Hero of the First Rank in our communities. Thanks, Phil!
Rob
Thanks for including the post about GM in your links of the week. I didn’t think of the non trade before you mentioned
I’ve been reading Weakonomics for very long too and its a great blog!
Thanks for the link!
I got to say Weakonomics has become very quickly one of my top blogs. i have subscribed to his blog, follow him on twitter and visit his blog everyday. A very unique and original blog!
Doesn’t anyone have anything bad to say about the guy?
Ray – you sound like an online stalker!
Thanks for the mention Mike!