Zoot suits and powdered wigs will make comebacks before this look does

Nelson at Financial Uproar reminds us that 4 weeks ago, the male half of the species was supposed to grow mustaches to fight cancer or heart disease or something. How’d that work out for everyone? Is the disease in question eradicated yet? Even close? Exactly how does temporary facial hair result in money? Unclear.

Anyhoo, welcome to another rousing edition of the Carnival of Wealth. A weekly roundup of worthwhile and intriguing posts from personal finance blogs around the anglophone world. If you want to submit to next week’s carnival, click here and read the accompanying directions. Otherwise just keep reading.

Emotions destroy your personal life; that’s what they exist for. But emotions shouldn’t be allowed access to your financial life, under any circumstances. Squirrelers makes the point that if you’re conceiving of a “dream home”, instead of paying under market value for an asset that can appreciate, you’re losing. Justify your purchase, run the numbers, and determine if your emotions are getting the better of you.

One of our favorite quotes about money is from Thomas Sowell, the Stanford economist and prolific author. This isn’t verbatim, but it’s close enough:

If you could wave a magic wand and instantly double everyone’s net worth, some people would be against it because it would increase the gap between rich and poor.

Darwin’s Money argues that income disparity is good. Among other things, it reflects a disparity in ambition. Some people work to become CEOs. Other pour their hearts into becoming teachers. Each knows the risk going in (teaching jobs are yours for the asking, CEO jobs less so), and the resultant rewards. Income equality makes as much sense as wagering equality: why shouldn’t a bet on Green Bay to win the Super Bowl pay as much as a bet on Arizona?

Huh? Kevin McKee (spelled his name correctly this time) at Thousandaire argues that “when you buy a house, it immediately loses value, like a car.” To buttress this assertion, he quotes…well, himself. As people who know firsthand that real estate is one of the most proven ways to build wealth, we’re grateful to Thousandaire for withdrawing himself from the housing market like that. (You know, one fewer bidder.) Thousandaire makes good money, has a decent net worth, blogs about personal finance, and has resigned himself to being a lifelong renter and enjoying a -100% return on his money. We’re sure his landlord approves.

Here’s the complete list of items you should wait in line at inconvenient hours to buy:

-organs for transplant.

Instead, millions of idiots endured freezing temperatures and compromised circadian rhythms this past Friday so they could pay slightly less for luxuries. (That’s in the United States. Our Canadian friends, continuing their 144-year tradition of being a little late to the party, will do so on December 26.) Aloysa at My Broken Coin thinks that’s nuts.

Our favorite Nepali émigré, Paula Pant at Afford-Anything, bills her site as “the anti-frugality blog.” (Nice going, Paula. You just made the guy at The Simple Dollar break down and cry.) But that doesn’t mean she advocates spending recklessly. Instead she explains how simple, painless acts like winterizing your house make a tangible difference to your finances. Increase your income on the other side of the ledger, and you’ll build wealth. To paraphrase Paula, you can’t just play defense and expect to win.

Breathing is good. Sleeping is good. And even those require some qualifiers, “air” and “fewer than 16 hours at a time”, respectively. What about investing? Sometimes it’s horrible. You have to research, you have to rebalance, and you have to allocate your assets. Your Finances Simplified explains how to accomplish that last one.

The best perk ever is working for yourself. But if you are going to work for someone else, Daniel at Sweating the Big Stuff argues that half-Fridays are right up there. He’s out of the office at 11 am every Friday, and while that sounds nice, we’d rather work an extra 45 minutes Monday through Thursday and not have to come in at all Friday. Then again, we work for ourselves and can take the whole month off if we felt like it. We’d go broke in short order, but that’s the tradeoff.

If a goal is a dream with a deadline, then a goal minus a deadline is just a dream. Corey at 20s Finances isn’t just saving and spending without a plan. See what he and his wife plan to invest in and pay for in the near future.

Because working for someone else isn’t depressing enough, Boomer of & Echo renown went Gestalt on us and tried to determine how much a job really earns you once you factor in all the ancillary expenses of both time and money dedicated to your employment. Fun times!

This week’s sign of our nation’s impending doom comes from Marjorie Rochon at CardHub, who avails us of the Lil’ Wayne-branded Discover card. The Young Money prepaid card lets every sales clerk you deal with know you want to achieve figurative communion with a guy whose resume includes 1 year in the slam, multiple drug arrests, and 4 kids via 3 baby mamas.

Alright, that’s not fair. The Young Money card is actually a fantastic deal. It costs $7 to possess, and you pay another $5 every time you load money onto it. And you have to pay $4 a month to use it. And $6 if you lose it. In unrelated news, Control Your Cash is taking applicants for its next Retard of the Month.

It’s a universal truth that financial planners want you to allocate assets depending on your age. Ken Faulkenberry at AAAMP Blog questions that wisdom, largely due to changing market conditions and a growing debate on valuation investing vs. buy-and-hold investing.

Man, Suba from Wealth Informatics put a lot of work into this week’s post. She recommends that you appraise yourself (financially) before the end of the year. She also mentions that her job requires her to do a “self-appraisal”. God, that’s depressing. Human resources directors weren’t loathsome enough: now they’re asking people to write their own evaluations? Which, presumably, include self-criticisms? “I came to work on time, most of the time, but I also have a serious drinking problem that often leads to violence.” Feel free to cut-and-paste that for your own self-appraisals, everyone.

Should you borrow from your life insurance policy? Free Money Finance thinks the answer is “It depends.” See what it depends upon in another excerpt from the excitingly titled The Questions and Answers on Life Insurance Workbook: A Step-by-Step Guide to Simple Answers for Your Complex Questions.

Marie at Family Money Values probably thought she’d submit this week and we’d either accept it or reject it, whichever. We’re guessing she didn’t think we’d cite her as an example of the difference in mindset between the wealthy and the average. This week Marie visited a rich friend’s house and gave rationalizations for why she wouldn’t want to live there.

It’s awesome when people do this, because it shows how Homo sapiens isn’t as rational a species as we’d like to believe.

(Actually, you know what? Hold on. Instead of burning a couple thousand words explaining why she’s crazy within an already long carnival, we’ll save our objections for a blog post Friday. Thank you for the inspiration, Marie.)

Finally, Odysseas Papadimitriou at Wallet Blog thinks the time has come to transform unions. He argues that collective bargaining has progressed to the point where unions do their members more harm than good: in other words, the golden goose can always fly overseas.

Thanks again. See you Monday.

Why yes, this is a bacon-wrapped turducken.

Another installment in the only blog carnival worth a damn*, the Carnival of Wealth. Here’s how it works. Every week, the top echelon of personal finance bloggers (and some from the subgroup that makes the top echelon possible) submit their gems for review. If we like their posts, or find them sufficiently entertaining or noteworthy, we post them here every Monday. If you want to get in on the fun, submit here. Or just sit and watch, that’s cool too. In fact, we prefer it. Now, on with the show:

The incorrigible Free Money Finance borrows an excerpt from Tony Steuer’s The Questions and Answers on Life Insurance Workbook: A Step-by-Step Guide to Simple Answers for Your Complex Questions. Which, honestly, is a way more engaging read than you’d think. We’re not going to tell you not to buy life insurance (at least not in this post), but we will tell you not to buy life insurance until you understand the major differences among policies. Tony via FMF explains them clearly.

Ever wonder why a company, perhaps yours, announces layoffs well in advance? Darwin’s Money did, and his discoveries got our attention. Our favorite justification? “Give crappy raises, and you’ll be happy.” Hopefully you wage slaves are getting this all down.

Remember in 2009, when the Tea Party protestors used public areas and police cars as toilets, sold drugs, died of overdoses, endangered children, stretched civic resources, played unlistenable music, bitched about the inevitable aftermaths of the poor decisions they’d made, committed wanton vandalism, and just generally sat around being unproductive for months at a time?

Of course you don’t, because it never happened. There was barely a discarded gum wrapper at any Tea Party protest, as distinguished from the current gaggle of Occupy (City) protests throughout the United States and Canada. Aloysa at My Broken Coin wishes the current doylt of Occupy protesters would just go home, and you can probably figure out whether we agree with her or not.

Actionable and full of worthwhile advice; that’s what we’re talking about. Your Finances Simplified explains how to buy a foreclosed-upon house. You can’t just show up with a wad of cash and try to make things happen. Instead, read this killer post and learn how to profit off other people’s failure. Someone will. Why not you?

If you ever start or join an investment club, and someone mentions that the treasurer position is still open, just cut them a check and run like hell. Madison at My Dollar Plan didn’t get stuck with that job, but the person who did had to submit the club’s cost-basis reporting to its broker. Cost-basis reporting is another red tape hurdle that ordinary citizens have to clear in the modern U.S. economy, but no, that has nothing to do with stagnation. Nothing at all.

Wallet Blog advocates what we’ve been preaching for some time, and which a close look at the retards of the Occupy Wall Street movement will reinforce: an unspecified college degree is vastly overvalued. Too many degrees chasing too few openings makes a non-applicable college education less than worthwhile.

Boomer and Echo think you should hold onto your stocks. Unless you have a good reason to sell, in which case you should sell.

Kevin McGee at Thousandaire is supposed to be the most entertaining and/or funniest personal finance blog out there, so we’re curious as to what he had to say. This week he advocates buying precious metals for more than face value. Not just to hedge and to diversify, but in the event of nuclear war. In which case you can eat your silver. We’re glad that Thousandaire knew to use brackets inside parentheses, but puzzled as to his shorthand use of “$2.5k” for “$2500”. You save one whole character his way, but if you type out the digits instead you do have a double o in there, which means you’re barely expending any effort at all to type the numeral out in full. And yes, it took us well over 100 characters to point that out.

Another McGee? JT at Money Mamba joins the carnival this week, and we like what he has to say. First off, in his bio he espouses the use of hard and resolute numbers over the moral ambivalence of words. Also, he’s frank enough to admit that a restricted-calorie frozen meal tastes a lot better when topped off with a turkey sandwich. JT appears to live at home, given his liberal references to his mother and the fact that he looks about 15 years old. Anyhow, this week he explains why time is often a greater consideration than money. If you need to buy an asset now, good for you. If you can’t wait to get your hands on a liability, you’re going to end up going poor. Follow the kid, he’s going places. And returning home before curfew.

Daniel at Sweating the Big Stuff clearly put tons of work into this week’s post, in which he asks his friends for one-line responses concerning what they like and dislike about money. One woman’s objection was that “it limits you”, whatever that means. Adam, on the other hand, “hates the taste”, which at least makes sense.

Hank at Money Q&A lists the 10 best personal finance books “that everyone should read”, which presumably means it’s a historical list, not just a current one. We’re assuming they’re not in order, otherwise Dave Ramsey wouldn’t be ahead of Benjamin Graham. Also, Hank forgot this one, but it’s all good.

Finally, Phil at PT Money rails against gifts that add to “the endless junk that we Americans have.” Which seems to imply that Swedes and Portuguese don’t amass stuff that they don’t need, but whatever.

Same time next Monday. Thanks for coming. Oh, and to our Canadian readers, happy upcoming Thursday.

*Excluding all the carnivals we submit to. Those are uniformly wonderful.