One of the benefits of roughing it at the beach, is the complete isolation from electronic media, includng the internets. Cybercafes in this nearly thirld world country are long and far between, and my goal of being native assumes fans, al fresco showers and mom-and-pop stores. Four Seanons’ are nice as long as I do not live there or there are not on the island. Thus, wireless internets and other assumed luxuries of modern life do not exist. This explains the infrequent postings. This Saturday morning, I was able to hitch a ride on a truck into town to read email and get the essential groceries and other necessities – getting back to the cottage will be rather simple – and I stumbled across a small dimly lit deserted cybercafe which seemingly is related to cybercafes by having access to one slow – pre 2000 desktop with a cranck generator and an internet connection performing in bytes and not kBs. And there is enough -cheap – liquor to fuel a fraternity house for an entire year … You get the picture.
While reading trough briefly my sage booklets and all the news that I saw fit to miss, I started reading the Economist, which in this week’s issue discussess the invisible hand on the keyboad. And Brad deLong goes after it. Clearly, there is a demand for economists blogging by sharing – quality – information. My posts are not at par with DeLongs, Mankiws, Becker-Posners, and the other academic economic luminati, nor do I aspire to achieve the same status. Nevertheless, I believe that somewhere in the dissemnination of information, the easier access to ideas, analyses, and various, often contradictory opinions, leveling the playing field in the general economic and financial debate – insert your favorite overused metaphore here – there is a benefit to examine ideas.
Do I create value? Yes, I do. Using data from Technorati which is inspired by research from Tristan Louis, a week ago, my blog was valued at roughly $1,100 and not I am at roughly $1,700. Thus in less than one week, I have created $600 in value – roughly $100 per day, which would be a nice compensation for the time I spend. And I was off on this tropical paradise with my wife for half of it.
How do other economic blogs stick up to this value?
- Abnormal returns – $14,678.04
- Brad DeLong - $379,370.88
- Econbrowser - $169,926.54
- EconLog – $224,122.38
- FinanceProfessor.com - $24,839.76
- FinancialRounds – $31,049.70
- Greg Mankiw blog – $316,142.40
- MarketPsychologyBlog – $0.00
- Philip Baecker – $ 0.00
- SmartEconomist – $19,758.90
- Becker-Posener – $471,955.44
- PrudentInvestor.com – $471,955.44
- VoluntaryXchange – $26,533.38
OK, I am a bit short. But being in business for such a short time, I should be – still – optimistic. See you next week.
