Hope everyone had great, and relaxing, Easter weekend because I certainly didn’t.  I really need to stop volunteering myself for manual labor projects.  Feels good to have a few of those projects done though.

Best Reads from the Blogosphere

Aguanomics has a great real world example on the societal dangers of socialism when it comes to the productivity of a mini-society (an entire economics class).

The scores never increased as bickering, blame, name calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else. All failed, to their great surprise, and the professor told them that socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great; but when government takes all the reward away; no one will try or want to succeed.

Weakonomics creates an interesting spin on the old “never judge a book by it’s cover” adage.  Good stuff here because it’s the savers who finish the game strong.  Not those with the big paychecks.

Budgets are Sexy has a humorous spin on buying a few individual stocks.  I’m all about being a stock picker, so I can understand the fun of buying a few stocks while they’re still a bargain.

This time around it’s all about buying it low and holding onto it baby! I doubt I’ll pick the right stocks at the right times, but you know what? That’s okay. It’s just time daddy gets a new toy to play with ;) I love my mutual & money market funds, but every now and then ya gotta spice things up a bit.

Get Rich Slowly finally bought a Mini Cooper!  I’ve been reading JD for about a year now, and every few months, he mentions his love of these small little cars.  Congrats on your purchase and even more props for paying cash.

Darwin’s Finance has a decent ethical debate when it comes to re-locking your mortgage rate when rates drop.  Personally, I vote for my finances over the bank’s balance sheet because that’s just how I roll.  If they expect me to feel like I’m giving them the shaft, then I’ll counter with them screwing me for lame paperwork fees.

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