First Blog Review: Calculated Risk

Regarding blog reviews: I will review blogs that I read, until I run out of those that I read and need more material. They are not all economics, business, or stock related, although a lot are. You may have guessed by now that I am a goal-oriented person. So let me explain the goal of these reviews:

1) They will highlight material that I read often. If I read it often, then I must find some value in it. If I find some value in it, then it deserves to be promoted by me, even if it is just in a small fashion…

2) Perhaps you will be interested in these blogs, but want a summary of what the blog is about before visiting the site.

3) After many reviews we will, hopefully, have a more thorough understanding of blogs, and be able to apply a holocognical analysis to this medium of information exchange.

I will not provide a 1-10 or thumbs up rating. Instead, I will provide a summary of the blog, and what I like/don’t like, as applicable.

Each blog I review will then be added to the blogroll.

First review: calculated risk – calculatedriskblog.com.

The first blog up for review is calculated risk. It’s the first blog I’m reviewing because it was one of the first blogs that I read regularly. I began reading calculated risk sometime in 2006, and I check it almost every day.

The subject matter is broad-based economics. Mostly, CR posts a news article related to a recent economic statistic and then provides some commentary on it. Not surprisingly, a lot of the posts are housing related; not many are stock market related.

CR is a great source for economics news and explanation, although there is not much analysis (ie. how will the news affect the economy going forward and why). That’s not to say it is completely devoid of analysis, just that the focus is on the news and an explanation of what the news means today, not what it means going forward.

There are a couple of items which make CR particularly worth noting:
1) the charts, which are frequent and fantastic, and
2) the Compleat Ubernerd.

The Compleat Ubernerd is an archive of particularly long posts detailing mortgage-related topics. They are very detailed and very interesting (if you’re into that sort of thing). If you want to know how the mortgage industry works, google it. If you REALLY want to know how the mortgage industry works, read the Compleat Ubernerd.

It is very important to mention that the Compleat Ubernerd was made by Tanta (Doris Dungey), who was CR’s co-blogger. Ms. Dungey passed away in late 2008. I did not know her personally, but anyone who read her posts could tell that she was a sweet, funny, and brilliant individual. More information about Ms. Dungey can be found on the CR blog.

With regards to the other aspects of the blog:
The layout is clean and the colors are fine.
The comments tend to be pithy and short, but I don’t usually read them.
The updates are frequent.

Overall, if you are interested in economics news with a healthy dose of housing, then you will enjoy calculated risk.

I hope you enjoyed my review (both of you who actually read my blog). Later this week we will return to our holocognical take on business. To summarize where we are thus far:

holocognics -- a complete understanding of a subject.
business -- an undertaking for value.

We are still laying the foundation before delving into the REALLY interesting stuff, so I hope you hang in there (both of you).

Next up, we will define "value" and talk about money.

Many riches,
Aaron