ODDS N' SODS * Small Dead Animals: Small Live Animals Week 1 Puppies are growing nicely, demonstrating that all can indeed survive and thrive in a competitive free mammary economy. Pictures included. * Master of None: Illegal Analysis How about a French court ruling that a stock analyst who predicted an increase in the price of a particular company's stock owes the company money, because her predicted increase wasn't as large as the company wanted it to be? No wonder the French economy is ailing. * Leads and Gold: "Winner's Curse" Synergy Fest has a series of interesting posts on Winner's Curse (a form of buyer's remorse). I especially liked this one that relates the author's first hand experience with the phenomenon and its causes... * Interested Participant: Professors Paid Better for Good Looks It's clearly recognized that success in a high profile career is affected to a great degree by an individual's physical appearance. Good looks equates to faster advancement and higher salaries. What's not clearly recognized is that good looks also appears to have a significant impact on the salaries in academia, typically a less than high profile career. * Catallarchy.net: The Economics of Cannibalism "But putting aside all of the questions of consent, there is another argument in favor of permitting consensual cannibalism to take place..." * Big Picture: Iowa and Prediction Markets So, how did mock "prediction markets" do in the Iowa Primaries? INNOVATION & ENTREPRENEURSHIP * StartupSkills.com, Why You're Not Selling Software - Understanding the Early Market Part 2 in an article about software entrepreneurship. * The Entrepreneurial Mind: International Agenda for Entrepreneurial Economic Development. A report published by the Kauffman Foundation provides some fascinating data on entrepreneurial activity worldwide and a compelling agenda to help in the entrepreneurial revolution taking place around the world. THE TECH SECTOR * Wordlab: Media Wonk Wordlab takes a peek and a poke at Nick Denton's online nanopublishing media empire, Gawker Media Inc. * d-42: On new ads that will take over your browser, and the implications thereof. * Dispatches from the Frozen North: More Evidence of a Maturing Software Industry The software industry is maturing, with the old rapid-growth days behind. Microsoft has to adapt, and it will be more-or-less painful depending on how they approach it. * Blog Business World: Google Goes to the Dance Google is the dominant internet search engine. There is unrest, in the ranks of the search engine optimization (SEO) community, however. MARKETING * A Penny For Your Thoughts: Super Bowl Party - Marketer's Dream Superbowl ads are now a viewer draw all by themselves. Why not extend the idea beyond the Super Bowl? * CRM Mastery, Inc: A Potpourri of Knowledge for CRM Aficionados Over the past several weeks, I've come across a number of excellent weblog posts and articles about Customer Relationship Management that I just haven't had the opportunity to write about. So, I thought that this would be as good a time as any to pass them along to you. * The Calico Cat: From Information Economy To Marketing Economy The economy has moved from agricultural to manufacturing, then to information, and now I reveal the next great shift as we move from an information economy to a marketing economy. CORPORATIONS & SOCIETY * Dr. Smolira: Average Returns Should investors be concerned when they see company's post "average return" figures? * Outside the Beltway: Wal-Mart * BusinessPundit: Corporate Social Responsibility The Economist has a great article called "Two Faced Capitalism." It addresses the rise in demands for corporate social responsibility... ECONOMICS AND POLICY * Soapbox Senate: Free Money Fallacy Every dollar the government gives out must come from somewhere, and the government has only four basic sources of funds... * Roth & Co. P.C: State of the Union - Tax Section A look at the tax proposals in President Bush's 2004 State of the Union Address. Note that the items are informational only and are not meant as tax advice. * Hobbs Online: The Jobless Recovery Isn't Jobless Analysis from economists at Bear Stearns finds evidence of a growing economic recovery in the household employment survey. * Goobage: Competing for Mediocrity Nashville schools aren't posting honor rolls because it may embarrass underachievers. Should businesses be concerned? (N.B. Blogger permalinks don't work, you have to scroll to Jan. 24th) * EconLog: Social Security Privatization, January 21, 2004. In this piece, I argue that the "transition cost" argument against privatizing Social Security is bogus. I also make my usual case against what I call the Stock Market Scenario. Finally, I conclude by saying that privatization is the ultimate lockbox. * The Business Word: Uwe Rheinhardt: Little hope for the uninsured Princeton economist, Uwe Rheinhardt, a widely followed left-leaning health care economist, uses this guest column to try to shame Americans into supporting failed socialistic strategies for solving the problems of the uninsured. * Armed Liberal: I'm a Liberal, Not An Idiot A.L. criticizes Steve Lopez, an L.A. Times columnist with a "progressive" tax plan that would drive down tax revenues and make The State of California's revenue base more unstable all at the same time. ECONOMICS & POLICY: IMMIGRATION * Patterico's Pontifications: Sweatshops And Illegal Immigration Yesterday I linked to a post by Radley Balko regarding a Nick Kristof column on foreign "sweatshops." I think that post has lessons for Americans regarding illegal immigration. * The American Mind: My entry deals with the questions surrounding President Bush's immigration plan. (note: A.L. reference edited for clarity)