Political Calculations Insurance: On the Moneyed Midways

Welcome to the December 22, 2006 year-end edition of On the Moneyed Midways, the blogosphere's only weekly review of the best business, management and money-related posts from each of the week's major blog carnivals! Each week, we select not only the best posts from each of the blog carnivals we read, but we also select one post as being The Best Post of the Week, Anywhere!^(TM) But that's not all! We also recognize the close contenders for the best post of the week that was, which you'll find identified below as Absolutely essential reading!^(TM)

If you remember last week, we shared some thoughts about machine-made blog carnivals, singling out the work (or lack thereof) of Bryan C. Fleming.

Well, he's been busted again! And this time, by none other than the Silicon Valley Blogger of The Digerati Life, the unwitting victim of Bryan C. Fleming's previous automated blog carnival producing machine-garbled communication.

Last week, we thought that the revealing of Bryan C. Fleming's non-editing carnival editorship was priceless. This week, thanks to the Silicon Valley Blogger, it's even better! And now, on to the rest of the week that was....

On the Moneyed Midways for December 22, 2006
Carnival	Post	Blog	Comments
Carnival of Entrepreneurs	Ten Things That Are Different Now That I'm Self-Employed	J. Timothy King	Absolutely essential reading! J. Timothy King takes a humorous and insightful look at what being your own boss really means!
Carnival of Fraud	Want to Be an Investor?	Sacramento Real Estate Voice	Gena's story of a fraudster's serial real estate investing frauds makes for good reading and provides invaluable lessons for potential investors.
Carnival of Personal Finance	Subtle (and not so subtle) Rate Increases	InsureBlog	There's a lot afoot in the hidden world of fees and rate hikes in the insurance racket. Bob Vineyard reveals what's up.
Carnival of Real Estate	Podcasting and Other Hearing Impaired Issues in the Real Estate Industry	Derek Burress	Derek Buress is hearing impaired and a realtor. Here, he weighs in on the limitations of modern technology coming into use by many realtors in marketing properties.
Carnival of Taxes	A Little Christmas Present from Uncle Same and the 109th Congress	Debt Free	Are you looking forward to doing your taxes next year? If not, the nuggets in just passed tax legislation might make your tax-paying experience a better one.
Carnival of the Capitalists	Hedge Funds, Politicians and Insider Trading	SOX First	Leon Gettler delivers The Best Post of the Week, Anywhere in his analysis of the machinations behind modern regulation.
Cavalcade of Risk	Credit and Identity in Shreds	Widsom from Wenchypoo's Mental Wastebasket	Wenchypoo shreds misperceptions in the world of credit cards and identity theft.
Economics and Social Policy	Women's Workforce Participation in 7-year Drop: The Economic Impact	BizzyBlog	Percentagewise, the number of women working has been dropping. Tom Blumer finds that may not be a bad thing!
Festival of Frugality	Research - Future Phone Gives Free International Calls!	FIREFinance	If you're going to be making international calls this holiday season, FIREFinance's tip may save you a lot of money!
Festival of Investing*	Satan's Portfolio - Paying Dividends Since Q1'06	Long or Short Capital	So, how are ol' Beelz' investments doing at the end of this year? Absolutely essential reading!
Festival of Stocks	Pfizer Price Check	Fat Pitch Financials	George takes a very close look at troubled pharmaceutical giant Pfizer and finds reasons to buy its shares.
Personal Development Carnival	Success is Personal	Worldwide Success	The global business traveler launches into a reflective post on the nature of what success means.
Personal Growth Carnival*	Increasing Your Hourly rate in Order to Get Rich	Paul's Tips	In the most widely posted carnival contribution of the week (at least half a dozen!), Paul argues that you need to work smarter and not harder or longer.
Real Estate Investing	Commercial Real Estate: How You Win Even If You Lose	Investment Property Insider	Craig Higdon shows how an investor might come out ahead even when selling their property for a substantial loss.
Wealth Building World*	Effective eBay Listing	Wide Bread	Lynn Cognito has a seven point checklist of what you need to make your eBay listings more effective.

* A "Bryan C. Fleming" production. For more about the Bryan C. Fleming universe of blog carnivals, see this excellent post by the Silicon Valley Blogger at The Digerati Life (or our commentary from the December 15, 2006 edition of On the Moneyed Midways.