Lots of good links at the Carnival of the Capitalists as usual. I am honoured to have my post about beggars mentioned among so many quality posts. Besides the quality links in the carnival, the host of this week’s carnival contributes with an interesting post about urging advertisers to be a creative by listing the 5 forbidden words of advertising.
I will take a vacation now. Will be back posting in mid-September.
Link carnivals are a nice source for finding a few quality posts from the blogosphere.
Carnival of Vanity points to “Waiting for things to get better”, a post about how a struggling small business owner can pull his head out of his ass and change the situation.
Atheist Frank hosted Carnival of Personal Finance this week and bloggers submitted their gold to him. The best post for me was surprising six figure jobs, truck driver is one of them.. go and read.
More good links:
SEObook has 101 no bullshit tips on how to build link popularity.
Problogger has a submit your list and let me display it contest. Some very interesting submissions:
5 reasons why every entrepreneur should work out
8 different blogging business models
20 ways to generate real traffic
Top 10 ways to win an argument (not really, it is only soft hearted irony)
When a book is more than 100 years old the copyright expires. That is why P.T Barnum’s masterpiece from 1880 is freely available for reading online. The book is known under two names: “Art of Money Getting” and “Golden Rules for Making Money.”
I’ve browsed through some of the chapters and this is really good stuff. 126 years old and it is basically the same advice as Donald Trump gave me in his “How to get rich.”
A few good chapters are:
WHATEVER YOU DO, DO IT WITH ALL YOUR MIGHT
LEARN SOMETHING USEFUL
READ THE NEWSPAPERS
BE POLITE AND KIND TO YOUR CUSTOMERS
DON’T BLAB
PRESERVE YOUR INTEGRITY
Have a look at it and enjoy the basic, common sense advice that clearly stood the test of time and inspired countless of later “how to get rich” books.
Greed is good.
Slip into the suit of Gordon Gekko and play this addictive business simulation game. Operating in the US economy you are an investor with $100-1000 millions in starting capital. Capital growth is your goal. The tools used to reach it can range from the honest to the dirty.
Spreadsheet warning
The game is complicated. I first played it several years ago before my business degree and did not understand much to be honest.
The appeal
If you have more than just casual interest for either the stock market or entrepreneurship the game is very addictive and interesting. You can do everything from research and investing in individual stocks, create holding companies to reduce tax and risk, and start-up your own companies in industries you find promising. Let me show you some screenshots from my start-up of a company in the beverage industry.
The name of the company is Get Drunk and Be Somebody, inspired by Toby Keith’s hit song. It aims for a rapid growth. This is very capital intensive so expect to make losses the first years until you grow bigger and can start to reap the rewards of reduced fixed costs.
Research reports are available for all companies.
My thirst for growth made me acquire an underperforming competitor priced at 70% of net assets.
After you have acquired a competitor your options are increased. Merger, LBO, Liquidate?
I merged the two companies, but performace was poor. Be aware, quick fixes comes at a hefty price.
Conclusion
The game is shareware, and the shareware version is very playable. The game is not the easiest to get into, if you find the game promising, the full version includes a strategy guide that links general financial theory with the options available in the game. The wisdom provided by this actually helped me on some of the finance and entrepreneurship courses I completed during my degree.
Download the very playable shareware version of the game (direct link)
More information about the game at Ronin Software’s pages
More business/economy games
Previous entries in this series include
Rise from mailroom clerk to CEO in Executive Suite
Sort out what Bush refers to as ”shit” in the Middle East by being the Israeli Prime Minister
The penny pincher of the year award discussed at getrichslowly
Ahh.. gas prices.. “Can I help you?” “33 cents a gallon? No, you can’t!”
Is your job boring? Never return from your vacation on a Monday.
Budget conscious bloggers answer the question: “If you had to give up one thing because you could not afford it, what would it be?”
How to be respected and make money on the internet
Regarding YouTube, we are all content producers now, or? And can they make money by facilitating it?
I need to learn to write better headlines, expect me to produce some future posts influenced by these 10 magnetic headline tips by CopyBlogger
If you are a consultant that tries to drum up business from your blog and then add advertising.. I think you may need to consider lowering your hourly rate as a natural result. It adds kind of a “cheap” feel, not to the blog, but to the main service offered.
The 28 rules of macho men. Metrosexuals not allowed entry.