Master Limited Partnerships are publicly traded Limited Partnerships, most often investing in the extraction and transportation of raw materials.  A limited partnership is a limited liability corporate structure which contains Limited Partners, and at least one General Partner.  This gives the funds great tax advantages with liquidity advantages coming from their listing on a public exchange.  The lack of understanding of MLPs also means they are a great place to start looking for market pricing disconnects and investment opportunities.

Carnivals DQYDJ articles are featured in for the week of August 10, and select links from around the internet on interesting and relevant topics.

Unlike the swine flu, the personal finance bug is a relatively hard bug to get. Unfortunately (for them), far too many people avoid putting any thought into their future until that 'future' is right around the corner. Investing is a topic that comes up a lot when I talk with people. How you field open ended questions like "How do I invest in stocks?" is a make or break question in which you need to figure out before your trust is deserved. I've come up with a step by step method which I use to narrow my confidant's thoughts and distill their true intentions. Read on, then leave me comments on your style.

One of the most contentious issues of the past couple of decades has regarded policy debates on how to benefit lower-income individuals (colloquially referred to as ‘Welfare’ programs). This article will not deal with the benefits or disadvantages of Welfare programs in general, but instead will compare the various forms of implementing Welfare. Also, I will show (in the next article) a very important unintended consequence that arises from the current preferred Welfare program, the Earned Income Tax Credit.

I want to share another fascinating Economic study with you... this one from Brown University. The three authors, J. Vernon Henderson, Adam Storeygard and David Weil, were looking for a way to track economic growth in regions which have poor geographic connections, poor statistics, or have other impediments to useful growth tracking. Using light (specifically, light coverage in satellite photos) as a proxy for economic activity ("Consumption of nearly all goods in the evening requires lights", they state), they show the growth in productivity in remote regions using nighttime satellite pictures.

California recently closed a $26.3 billion budget gap after resorting to issuing IOUs in lieu of checks on state contracts. The budget worked out to $15.5 billion in cuts and a transfer payment where California will take money from local treasuries toclose some of the gap. The rest is covered through various accounting gimmicks that would make Enron blush. California's budget compromises lead to many questions including the most important, "Does this fix anything?"

Our article "On Cigarette Laws and Pigovian Taxes, Part I" was hosted in the Money Hacks carnival for this week. Go check out the carnival, and the Moolonomy site!

The article "Use Irrationality Against Yourself!" is hosted at the Carnival of Financial Planning for this week, over on CashMoneyLife. There are some interesting articles there, check it out.

Go check out "Go Home Already! Congress vs. the Stock Market", hosted on ChristianPF for this week's Carnival of Personal Finance.

Our article "Know the Signs! Pyramids and Ponzis…" is featured on the 101st edition of the Carnival of Financial Planning! Visit the carnival, and the host, Watson Inc.

There are 12 branches of the Federal Reserve Bank: Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Richmond, Atlanta, Chicago, St. Louis, Minneapolis, Kansas City, Dallas, and San Francisco. Eight times a year they get together and compile a report, the Summary of Commentary on Current Economic Conditions, better known as the 'Beige Book'. On July 29, the most recent version of the Beige Book was posted. The summary reports, anecdotally, that conditions are moderating since the report issued June 10.

Thank you Bernie Madoff! Bernie Madoff set the news on fire with a $50 billion Ponzi scheme for which he recently went to prison. Since then, a number of other financial schemes have come to light: Allen Sanford, Joseph Forte, even the Yacht scheme. But what are Ponzi schemes? How are they different from Pyramid schemes (and Matrix Schemes)? And, most importantly, what are the signs of each?

In an earlier article, I detailed how you could check on inflation expectations using information publicly available from the Department of the Treasury. Using the data they provide, it is simple to calculate the market's expectations for inflation over the next 5, 7, 10, and 20 Year periods. Let's take another look not at the 2009 inflation rate, but the expected inflation rate of the future viewed through '2009' colored glasses.