My favorite part about spring, besides the good weather, is the arrival of carnivals. Carnivals are little bastions of legalized gambling wrapped up in a nice funnel cake shell and deep fried in clown makeup, less than safe rides, and bright flashing lights. I love carnivals because you can walk around for free, listen to the cheer of the crowd as someone wins an oversized stuffed animal, and enjoy the outdoors while sampling a bit of capitalism here or there.

The cornerstone of every carnival is the game area. I say it’s legalized gambling because otherwise rational people hand over real money to play fake games and win stuffed prizes. When you go to a casino, you know all the games have a house edge. When you go to a carnival, you know all the games are rigged. If you insist on playing, as I do, it’s important to maximize your fun. If maximizing your fun involves winning a prize, then we have a rule you must follow if you want to get the most for your money. If you are just playing to have fun and could care less about winning a prize, play whatever makes you happy.

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Spring is almost upon us and you know what that means, carnivals! In the spirit of this morning’s post, which was about long cons, let’s talk about some short cons… carnival games. That’s right, most, if not all, carnival games are diversions designed to separate a fool from their money… one dollar at a time.

For this article, I have to give a shout-out to one of my friends, John, who used to work the carnival that come into town (for anyone from the Stony Brook area of Long Island, it was the carnival that used to come into town and set up shop near SUNY Stony Brook). Back then, we used to visit him all the time as he ran all the stupid games and he told us the inside scoop on a bunch of the games. If it weren’t for John, I’d probably still think those carnival games were fair and that I really did have a chance to win that five foot tall bear.

In this article, I’ll point out some carnivals games, what the con is, and how you might be able to beat it. But remember, just like the lottery, the only way to win is if you have fun while you do it because chances are you won’t win much.

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I’m happy to present, for your reading enjoyment, a ridiculously long 84th Carnival of Personal Finance. You may have expected Five Cent Nickel to host this particular edition but earlier this week he asked that we swap hosting positions so you can see his rendition next week.

The Carnival has grown tremendously from its first edition on June 20th, 2005 when thirteen bloggers participated (I was the first, so ha!) and today we have more submissions than I care to count and it’s grown to the point where I don’t think I’ll be able to do anything clever or interesting with it and still be able to enjoy my weekend. I’ve enjoyed my time hosting the Carnival, my first time being the 2nd Edition that featured a svelte eight entries – I read every single one. I really enjoyed the 47th Edition where I put together a map of the entries (in my opinion, my crowning achievement in hosting any carnival)… but this week there were just too many entries this will mark my final appearance as host of the CoPF. I feel that with the sheer number of submissions, I’d be doing the carnival and its submitters a disservice by continuing to host and doing a list of links as you’re about the see.

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Welcome everyone to this week’s edition of the Carnival of the Capitalists, one of the oldest and more celebrated carnivals out there, and this week, even though many of us in the US are all fattened up on some turkey, we still have a nice helping of leftovers to get you through the start of yet another regularly scheduled work week.

Enjoy!

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I want to thank the 22 participants of this week’s Festival of Frugality, that’s an all time record I believe, and I want to definitely thank Sarah of Frugal Underground for doing an exceptional job hosting it.

I’ll be hosting next week’s edition so please send along your submissions via the forms at Conservative Cat or Blog Carnival. If you’re interested in hosting, please contact me after reading what this Festival is about. Thanks!

The Carnival of the Vanities makes a brief one-week stay here at my humble blog and I’m glad to be able to present so many interesting articles. I won’t spend any more time fluffing it up, here is a nice collection of 43 posts representing the best of the blogs they’re published at. Enjoy!

• Flexo of Consumerism Commentary has some tips on how to become as rich as Bill Gates.
• JLP of AllThingsFinancial presents a very extensive list of Online Tax Resources in preparation for April 17th.
• nickel at fivecentnickel.com explains How to Build a CD Ladder.
• FMF at Free Money Finance presents Keys to Growing Net Worth, which discusses asset types and accumulation of each type impacts your net worth.
• dad at raising4boys.com talks about his experiences with getting Braces for an Eight Year Old
• Grill Maestro presents a brief howto guide on starting a simple charcoal grill.
• Goosing the Antithesis seeks to “kill the Christian worldview, by driving a rhetorical sword through its heart” in this article, Killing the Antithesis.
• Stephen Littau at Fearless Philosophy for Free Minds presents Fisking Fitch’s “Just Say No” Post
• Shandean Postscripts to Politics, Philosophy, & Culture has a post titled Toward the 18th Brumaire of George Bush: Leaks, Spies, Dirty Tricks, Security for this week’s carnival.
• Ironman from Political Calculations writes about Bad Information Design.
• Wayne of Blog Business World submits this article titled “Blogging your moods: What a feeling” for your reading pleasure.
• Kal’s World explains his 217th’s Theory of Life, explaining why us cro-mags sleep so lightly.
• The Radical Libertarian blogs about the relationship between anarchy and capitalism.
• The Cigar Intelligence Agency writes about an illegal excise tax you’re probably paying right now that you don’t have to in “A Tax Worth Dodging.”
• Doug Mataconis at Below The Beltway presents January 20, 1981 and the Iran Hostage Crisis.
• Dan Melson at Searchlight Crusade presents a more egregious eminent domain abuse (than Kelo vs. New London, in Connecticut) in More Eminent Domain Thievery. It’s bad.
• FIAR at Radioactive Liberty presents Weasel!
• The Ruminating Dude fires up his pen and his rage in his post titled “Well, Gee, Let’s Invade Iran, Too!.”
• Adam’s Blog argues that we should be paying Congress more in “Reform Government: Pay Congress More.”
• Steven Silvers ruminates on how the “Transparent Generation realizes downside to growing up online.“
• Buckley F. Williams at The Nose On Your Face presents Little Known Facts About Jack Bauer, a spoof on Chuck Norris facts.
• Greg at Generic Confusion presents A bad influence?
• David Daniels at Business & Technology Reinvention presents Cars are to Movies As…
• Madeleine Begun Kane at Mad Kane’s Notables presents If Not Now, Then When? — Sam Alito In Verse.
• muse at me-ander presents New York, Third Glance.
• Mr. Right at The Right Place presents Sunspot Activity Causes Brief Interruption of Karl Rove’s “Mind-Ray” – Democrats Claim Rare Moment of Sanity.
• Mitch Geller at DubiousProfundity presents History Ironics.
• mensa barbie at Mensa Barbie Welcomes You presents Formation of Radical Islam.
• Obi-Wan at Forward Biased presents A matter of Olympic proportions, a look at the career of Torino-bound figureskater Michelle Kwan.
• Josh Cohen at Multiple Mentality presents Switching Parties, an introspective look at his personal political leanings.
• Elisa Camahort at The Santa Clara County Democratic Party Blog presents Blog For Choice Day.
• Brad Warbiany at The Unrepentant Individual presents Social Security Part D
• The Information Junkie writes about how Nagin Works Both Sides of Aisle for Aid
• Scatterbox at stevensilvers.com submit a post titled “The revolution begins on Ken Lays web site.”
• Elisson at Blog d’Elisson presents Gym Nauseam.
• Warren Meyer at Coyote Blog presents Free the Hookers.

I have the pleasure of presenting to you the Sixth Carnival of Investing. Without further ado or unnecessary fanfare, here is this week’s investing highlights:

• FMF at Free Money Finance presents 4 Rules for Asset Allocation
• nickel atfivecentnickel.com presents An Interview With Ben Stein, Part 1
• JLP of AllThingsFinancial goes through some investing scenarios to help you decide whether you should be in Index Funds or ETFs.
• Flexo ofConsumerism Commentary discusses the changes he’s making for his Roth IRA.
• Mastiff of Critical Mastiff busts out the gates with an article titled “Contractions.” It discusses the impact of a contracting population and Mastiff’s concerns, especially when it comes to our deficit.
• Fred Fry at Fred Fry International warns us about how you should not be trading on margin and you would be wise to heed his advice!
• Michael Weinstein at ETF Investor presents Model ETF Portfolios For Conservative To Aggressive Growth
• Jeremy at A Financial Revolution presents JNJ: The Right Prescription for Your Portfolio?
• Early Riser offers his review of the investment newsletter, Prudent Speculator
• Dan Melson at Searchlight Crusade presents a very in-depth discussion of Annuities, Fixed and Variable. Very informative if you know little about them.
• Big Mike’s Contrarian Investing Blog has a very informative description of his understanding of value investing versus contrarian investing.
• Ed of Daily Dost of Optimism presents “Management Consultants as Investors.”
• Alexander Barbara at Biodiesel Investing presents a list of publicly traded american Biodiesel stocks that he plans on constantly updating.
• Jonathan at MyMoneyBlog has written a good review about Ben Stein and Phil DeMuth’s Yes, You Can Time The Market!, giving it 3 out of 4 stars.
• Jeffrey Strain at Personal Finance Advice presents Guaranteed Double Digit Returns and based on what I read, I can guarantee that’s not an empty promise (if you qualify).
• George at Fat Pitch Financials presents Activist Shareholder Targets Tri-Continental, which discusses a group of activist shareholders of Tri-Continental, a closed-end fund, trying to improve its performance.
• Alexander Barbara at Wealth Junkie presents Counting Beyond Three, a discussion on trends and our hard wired assumptions.
• Retire at 30 presents an introduction to Dollar Cost Averaging

If you’re interested in learning more about this Carnival, visit Retire at 30 for more information.

JLP at AllThingsFinancial has published the 11th edition and it weighs in at almost twenty submissions. Predictably, top billing goes towards the recent skyrocketing gasoline/oil prices but there are some good articles on popular personal finance topics such as budgeting, debt management, and financial planning. Here are the ones that piqued my interest:

Clutter2Cash has a very interesting article on creating a personal 401(k), for those of you with self-employment income. This is something I might take advantage of in the future since the fees of a personal 401(k) are much higher (with justification).

Dawn at Frugal For Life has joined the “homebuying tips” fray with her own suggestions on tips before making the big purchase. I would argue that the minimum number of years you intend to stay somewhere before you buy should be seven years, not two.

Ironman has created a very helpful hybrid vs. standard car comparison calculator and submitted it this week. It would’ve been awesome if he had listed some common EPA mileage ratings but the calculator is still useful regardless.