Matthew Goldstein is fast becoming one of my favorite financial columnists. He seems quite sensible and in the short time that I have read his column, I have hardly seen him follow the herd.

His ideas are fresh, and writing — clear and insightful.

Here is my favorite post from him this past week:

Is Goldman Sachs Evil?

On to the other links from the blogosphere this week:

Paradox of Thrift for Real @ Paul Krugman

Still skpetical about banks @ Baseline Scenario

Eric Jackson on the best corporate boards @ The Reformed Broker

Earn $150 cash bonus with a WTDirect Bank Account @ The Digerati Life

30 year mortgage vs 15 year mortgage @ Dough Roller

Why a single trading strategy is insanity @ Options for Rookies

When setting up a budget, don’t overdo it @ Vilkri

Incremental Simplification of your finances @ Bargaineering

What to do when money conflicts with ethics @ Money Ning

My Adventure on Bling St. @ The Incidental Economist

If you’re in debt @ Funny about Money

Carnivals

Money Hacks Carnival @Personal Finance Playbook

Carnival of Money Stories @ My Journey to Millions

Money Hacks Carnival @ Blogging Banks

Happy 4th of July everyone. I hope all of you are enjoying a nice holiday and are away from your computers and laptops. But, if you are in the mood to read, here are a few good stories I found this week:

The crazy story of Hernan Arzibu @ Felix Salmon (IMO this one is a must read)

The case for and against Keynes and Spending   @Weakonomics

Neutralizing risk when trading options @ Options for Rookies

Not settling for mediocrity @ Moneyning

Our family budget contained too many unnecessary expenses @ Vilkri

Is the economic downturn over @ Silicon Valley Blogger

Reading Krugman @ TIE

Statistics and Baseball for Beginners @ Baselinescenario

Carnivals

Carnival of Investing Strategies Returns at the Penny Daily

Money Hacks Carnival Canada Day Edition

Carnival of Everything about Personal Finance

I am a big fan of Silicon Valley Blogger (SVB), who runs The Digerati Life and The Smarter Wallet. Last week, she did an interview with Ask Mr. Credit Card, and I liked it very much.

My first thought on seeing the duration of the interview (1 hour) was that it is just too long, and there is no way I will be able to listen to the whole thing.

It took me about four sessions, and it was so good that I felt compelled to listen to the whole thing. The interview bends towards the personal side of SVB, so I think people who are regular visitors to her site will really like it.

I am not sure how others will find it, but, if you like The Digerati Life and missed the interview for some reason, or didn’t start listening to it because 1 hour felt too long, then I think you should listen to this now.

Last week, I accidentally deleted the wittiest comment I ever got. I spoke about chess in my post, and DR posted a comment, which said:

“e4”

I thought he didn’t mean to write that, and it was a typo or something. So, I went ahead and deleted it. Later on, I emailed him saying that I deleted the comment and he responded saying — he was making the first move!

You see, in Chess notation, “e4” would be the King White Pawn moving two squares forward.

I felt quite silly about the whole thing, and I haven’t even deleted any spam since last week.

Now, on to the smarter things written by fellow bloggers this week:

• What Next For the Global Crisis? by Baselinescenario
• Why Most Frugality Websites Are Hurting You by Retire Rich Roadmap
• I Need a New Credit Card Fast by The Digerati Life
• Ally Bank Review by Cash Money Life
• Bank Fees Can Really be Hidden by MoneyNing
• Value Investing and Buying Income on the Cheap by Moolanomy
• How to bring shock and awe to your monthly bill by Dough Roller
• Work hard for Prosperity, or learn from Rags to Riches stories by Financial Methods
• Shop at online auction sites for savings and profits at The Smarter Wallet
• The Importance of Money – Means to an end or End in Itself by Financial Highway

Carnivals

• Carnivals of Financial Planning
• Festival of Frugality

I played Chess in my college team for a year, and one of the most annoying things I encountered was that some people started walking around in the middle of a game.

Some players just start walking around in the middle of the game. It’s annoying because they are telling you that they don’t even need to be on the board all the time to beat you. Only the good players do this because if you lose doing this, you look really silly. It’s really annoying  because most of these guys end up winning too.

I spend a lot of my free time playing chess on instantchess.com. One of the better things about playing online chess is that people can’t walk around when you are playing with them.

But, they do allow chat and so a lot of players try to get under your skin by calling you a “loser”, telling you its a “fluke”, but none till now, had found the virtual equivalent of walking. But, yesterday one guy told me that he was playing, responding to emails and watching YouTube at the same time!

That was quite something and I felt really happy that people were adapting so well to the online world in everything they do.

On to the blogosphere and the interesting reads I found last week.

Links

How’d they get too big to fail in the first place by The Reformed Broker

Cramer doesn’t get the UNG by FT Alphaville

Your FICO Credit Score Information by The Digerati Life

China hectors US again re the dollar by Naked Capitalism

Et tu Schwab by Matthew Goldstein

TARP for regulators by Baseline Scenario

Cash for clunkers by Consumerism Commentary

Weighing health insurance costs by Dough Roller

Lehman v. Barclays v.  Any Sense of Perspective or Shame by Bad Money Advice

Index Mutual Funds vs Exchange Traded Funds by Five Cent Nickel

Home valuation websites vs Actual Appraisal by The Finance Buff

A retirement planning calculator needs to know your life expectancy by Vilkri

Carnivals

Money Hacks Carnival

Carnival of Debt Reduction

Tony left a comment on the Interview with Weakonomics. Here is what he said:

A great interview, thanks.

I have a similar point of view (I was a UK bank insider until the end of 2007) and can tell the same story: there was a “groupthink” that residential (and commercial) property would keep rising in value indefinetely – it didn’t matter if a borrower defaulted on their loan as the bank could easily resell the property and clear the debts. EVERYONE was responsible: bankers wanted their bonuses, shareholders wanted more dividends and ever increasing capital growth, home owners and property investors (speculators may be a better word) wanted more and more growth, the Government were happy to collect more taxes from the illusory growth, and we all kept borrowing (either against property or on credit cards etc). TV programmes, newspaper articles and dinner party conversations all said that you were mad if you didn’t borrow as much as possible (insane amounts) to invest in property! The “bubble burst”, “the wheels fell off”, but the Government and the banks have learnt nothing and just want to get the same mad process going again.

I suspect that the USA is rushing to do the same. More regulation won’t help if the drive from the top is to print money, lend more get a real estate boom going!

That comment prompted me to think and research about “Groupthink” and the result was this post about groupthink on The Digerati Life. Be sure to check it out.

Here are some interesting articles that I came across this week.

Articles:

• Investment Linked Insurance by Nil2Million
• When to get personal property insurance by The Digerati Life
• Et tu Schwab by Mathew Goldstein
• Amherst’s CDS Coup by Felix Salmon
• The good Paul Krugman and the bad Paul Krugman by Richard Posner
• More on Executive Compensation by The  Baseline Scenario
• Chexsystems by The Dough Roller
• How much is your time worth? by Cash Money Life
• Perspective by The Reformed Broker
• How not to worry about money by Moneyning
• Lending club historical repayment rates by Five Cent Nickel
• Buying life insurance: What kind and how much? by Good Financial Cents
• Bad Credit Loans: Tips to spot scams by Financial Highway

Carnivals

• Carnival of Cashflow Consciousness
• Carnival of Everything Money
• Carnival of Financial Planning

The Finance Buff is an economics, investing and finance blog that I enjoy reading quite a bit. The posts are involved and in depth, and are generally quite insightful.

There are two authors on The Finance Buff — The Incidental Economist (TIE) and The Finance Buff (TFB).  I am happy to announce that we will host an interview with TIE tomorrow.

A little bit from his About:

I’m a health economist with an educational background in physics and engineering. After receiving my Ph.D. in statistical and applied mathematics I decided to apply my skills to an area relevant to policy. On my first job I spent four years at a research and consulting firm conducting policy evaluations for federal and state health agencies. I now have a joint appointment at a major research university and a federal government department, and I study economic issues pertaining US health care policy.

Given his expertise and experience, I thought it was best to ask him a few questions on healthcare and get his perspective on some current healthcare issues. The answers were quite insightful and I learned quite a bit from them. The interview will be up tomorrow, so do come back for it.

Here are two of my favorite posts from The Finance Buff. You can subscribe to their feed here.

• TIPS During Deflation
• The US Healthcare Ripoff

Last week, I found a couple of useful resources through the blogosphere.

The first one is info about a job search engine called Indeed.com, which looks and feels like Google and is meant for job searches. I came across this via The Dough Roller, and you can find info about it here.

The second resource is this budget planning spreadsheet, which has been created by Budgets are Sexy and can be found at this post at Five Cent Nickel.  If you are not using anything to budget, then this can be a good start, but I myself found that I would have had to customize it a lot in order to make it useful for me.

Liquid Link by Dezz

I am a little more active on Twitter these days, than I was  before. That’s because I have finally found some use for it. That is sharing links and going through links that others share. I could never understand why someone would want to know what I was doing in less than 140 characters, so I had stayed away from this medium till now. But link sharing is just fine, you can follow me by clicking here. My username is ‘manshu’.

Here are some interesting articles that I read this past week.

• Balance Transfer Credit Card Tips, Facts and Traps by The Digerati Life
• The Importance of Compensation by The Baseline Scenario
• The Myth of Good Debt by The Dough Roller
• No Spend Days by MoneyEnergy
• Does Kroll run a regulator quashing operation by Felix Salmon
• Essential Money Tips for New Parents by Cash Money Life
• Saving Mistakes that Cost More in the Long Run by Consumerism Commentary
• Why the Personal consumption data is important to the stock market by Creditwritedowns
• Think Diversification. Think Simplicity. Think by The Dividend Guy
• TROW – Stock Analysis for Dividend Growth Portfolio by Dividend Tree
• The High Cost of Hurricane Insurance by Five Cent Nickel
• Tips for Saving Money: The Frugal Mindset by The Smarter Wallet
• Using Consumer Reports to Assemble Your Grocery List by The Simple Dollar
• 5 Easy Ways To Save Money Going Green by Bargaineering
• Coupon Tip by Moneyning
• A retirement calculator puts the market decline in perspective by Vilkri