A collection of links and thank yous to carnivals and good stories from the week.

Recently I received an out-of-the-blue request from Keith Morris, the editor of the new LifeTuner Chat Carnival and the Community Manager for LifeTuner, to write an article for the upcoming carnival on "Financial Lessons Learned the Hard Way". First off, I'd like to thank Keith for tossing an invite my way and having the optimism to think that I might have something interesting to contribute. I hope I can offer you some first person narrative which you enjoy enough to finish. That's the thing about introspective pieces... I wonder the utility my experiences have to you readers? Well, let's toss aside the deep commentary and cornucopia of supporting links for a second and do some old fashion writing. Who's with me?

Posts We Liked! Read these.  We did.  We liked them enough to provide the links for you here. "Will Buffet's […]

In my previous article, I compared some of the advantages and disadvantages of different methods of "welfare".  Near the end, […]

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?"