Links of the Week

First up, a Gallup Poll says that more than half of Americans feel they are 'struggling'. I don't know - we're definitely having a harder time than two years ago as a group. But struggling? I've done some traveling, and we still have ten times the stuff most people do. Needing to cut back, sure. Thinking about slowing down a bit and paying off debt, hopefully. But the story goes Adolf Merkle killed himself because he lost half of his $9 billion recently. Still worth $5 billion, so off he goes... Let's try to have a little perspective here, okay?

Next, I'd like to show my appreciation for Heroes of Capitalism. This site has regular (every weekday it looks like) posts on the great entrepreneurs and capitalists, and what they've done for our world. Today, they give props to David Booth, the originator of the index fund. With little of the individual risk of stocks, and less of the costs of a regular mutual fund, the index fund is a base and staple of many investors' portfolios. Great site for inspiration when you need it.

Want books for cheap? Half.com is a subsidiary of eBay, with discount books, movies, and CDs available from other people like you, AND eBay's support and Paypal's convenience. Best of all, you can sell books there too, and build your eBay reputation before jumping into being a full seller there. If you manage it right, you could get your books exchanged for the price of postage.

Last week, I posted on Pandora. The one problem is that they won't broadcast to IPs outside the US. For those of you not fortunate enough to get Pandora, I've found another almost as good - Last.fm. This site also lets you enter a band, and they put together a playlist around that, so you can hear everything like Evanescence, for example. Check them out.

Finally, since I reviewed the book Loving What Is last week, I thought I'd put up a sample of Byron Katie doing 'The Work'.