On the Moneyed Midways - March 20, 2009

Welcome to the Friday, March 20, 2009 edition of On the Moneyed Midways, where we're ready to not be so nice this week while presenting the best money and business-related posts we found among the week's best money and business-related blog carnivals!

Why not be nice? As it happens, that turns out to be the common theme shared by the two posts that made some pretty compelling arguments against excessive niceness in business matters that we declared to be Absolutely essential reading! this week.

But then, they weren't good enough to be the Best Post of the Week, Anywhere! That post, and the rest of the best of the week that was, follow now....

On the Moneyed Midways for March 13, 2009
Carnival	Post	Blog	Comments
Carnival of Debt	Avoid Paying $81 Billion On Your Credit Card	Restoring Your Finances and Your Faith	How closely do you check the line items on your billing statements? Kathryn tells the story of Juan Zamora, who filled his gas tank and month later, received an $81 billion dollar bill.
Carnival of HR	Best Is Not Always Nice	HR Bartender	Sharlyn Lauby makes a pretty compelling case that the best bosses aren't necessarily the nicest ones in Absolutely essential reading!
Carnival of HR	A No Bull-#$&! Performance Review Process	Great Leadership	Dan McCarthy advocates boiling the annual performance review dreaded by both employees and employers down to the most basic level possible.
Carnival of Personal Finance	Are Student Loans Bad?	Living Almost Large	LAL takes on the conventional wisdom that "student loan debt is good" in considering the pros and cons of taking on debt to pay for school.
Carnival of Real Estate	Precisions Without Accuracy | Why Housing Statistics Can Be Just Plain Wrong	Exit Real Estate 540	Can you go by the sale prices in your area to determine the value of your home? Ben Roberts says housing statistics may not be telling you the real story because they lump two different kinds of housing markets together.
Carnival of Taxes	What Law Requires Us to Pay Taxes?	Bargaineering	With tax time approaching, Jim provides an invaluable service to the anti-taxpaying hucksters who claim that there's no law requiring Americans to pay their taxes.
Carnival of the Capitalists	Death by Contract - Or Lack Thereof	Small Business Trends	Absolutely essential reading! Diane Helbig argues that when business is involved, it's time to put being nice aside in favor of protecting your interests through contracts.
Festival of Frugality	A Frugal Diet or a Frugal Lifestyle	Frugal Dad	The Best Post of the Week, Anywhere! Jason wonders whether efforts to live a more frugal lifestyle is more like a fad diet than a real change.
Money Hacks Carnival	Switching Majors or Careers	Studenomics	The studenomist weighs in on when and why a student might consider ditching their major in favor of another.

Previous Editions

• OMM's Running Index for 2008
  
• OMM's Running Index for 2007
  
• The Best Blogs Found in 2006 (and our full 2006 index)!