Weekend reading: Not so grande edition

Musings and links to articles about money and investing across the web.

A chap I used to enjoying reading on the boards has opened a new blog, so I’m making two of his first posts my posts of the week.

Roy Dinsdale takes the side of Lynne Rosenthal, a New York professor allegedly thrown out of Starbucks for refusing to use the chain’s Orwellian doublespeak:

She told the New York Post newspaper: “I refused to say ‘without butter or cheese.’ When you go to Burger King, you don’t have to list the six things you don’t want.

“Linguistically, it’s stupid, and I’m a stickler for correct English.”

Prof Rosenthal added: “The barista said, ‘You’re not going to get anything unless you say butter or cheese!'”

Roy adds some sage observations on what Starbucks represents to consumers:

To recap then – a faux environment that is meant to say “neighbourhood coffee house”, a rigidity of product and language that could easily be regarded as “take it or leave it” – but which we are not meant to see because the kid behind the counter calls us “guys” and a plethora of  marketing tricks that insult our collective intelligences. […]

Starbucks is not going to rot the fabric of civilised society, but enough companies or individuals behaving the same way will.

He’s also been expressing his vigorous views on investing in the style that I remember so fondly:

A final word for the Gold Bugs. Actually I would prefer the final word to be just “goodbye” – but fat chance unfortunately.

Gold as an investment yields nothing and is great if we implode into savagery and revert to a Mad Max scenario – but only if you have it secreted about your person.

Ignoring the more extreme survivalist ravings (if they are true, forget gold and buy bottled water, shotgun cartridges and tinned beans – all to be kept in your bunker in the Highlands) it is a “reverse bubble” built on the same psychology as the “system” it purports to eschew.

If the ordure ever did hit the air conditioning that badly, what good would a few bits of paper saying you own gold be worth?

A very promising start, Roy! But please learn to start embedding links into the stories you discuss.

Having to copy-and-paste the URL from posts, let alone turn to Google, is a big thorn in the side of happy Web-based procrastination.

From the money and investing blogs

• Bubblicious bonds – Investing Caffeine
• History of S&P bear markets – Retirement Investing Today
• Back to the future at Games Workshop – iii blog
• Lunch is still not free, even if it’s in potatoes – Canadian Couch Potato
• Dealing with investment confusion – Oblivious Investor
• Should you invest in an Ivy League Education? – The Digerati Life
• Creating a student budget planner – SquawkFox
• The power of asking – Canadian Finance Blog
• Nuggets of wealth from the Thomas Crowne affair – Len Penzo
• Demand media’s IPO – Graham Pietersz

Money articles from the mainstream

• China and India: Contest of the century – The Economist
• Drugs: Thinking the unthinkable in Mexico – The Economist
• Being single will cost you £250,000 in a lifetime – BBC
• The 104 year old heiress with empty mansions and an empty diary – MSNBC
• The man who lives without money – The Telegraph
• Death of the McMansion – CNBC
• The quality of quality – The Motley Fool
• Mortgage margins at 20-year high – FT
• Nick Clegg backs graduate tax – FT
• PwC sees sluggish decade for UK house prices – Telegraph
• £500/month by renting out your life – Telegraph
• No new golden age for equities – Independent
• The case for investing in Japan – Independent
• Make money on the move – The Guardian

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