TAM Money and Finance

• Charter Communications (CHTR) is making this guy go through customer service hell.
• JetBlue’s (JBLU) CEO is trying to make it up for putting customers through hell.
• After pulling its video off YouTube Viacom (VIA) is about to make a deal to put it on newcomer Joost.

Pouring through this week’s Carnival of the Capitalists hosted by Mighty Bargain Hunter here are the posts you need to read:

• Those interested in retail stocks will like Nellie Lide’s “Shopping Trends for 2007.”
• Photon Courier lets us know that ethanol can’t be moved via pipeline which means plenty of business for railroads.
• Many people think more money will make them happier. Free Money Finance offers an easy solution: spend less by budgeting.

TAM Money and Finance joined some great webloggers at Ashish’s Niti who hosted the Festival of Stocks. Here are some highlights:

• Larry Russell tells us average investors don’t do well actively investing. They should stick to index funds.
• With fossil fuel dependence making constant headlines attention should be paid to uranium. The Australian industry is the focus at Investor Trip.
• For the newbie technical traders (I’m not raising my hand) Trade 4 Cash guides you through an analysis of two stocks.

• Oil options traders are looking at the $50/barrel mark as a key pivot point. Traders see a further fall leading to a steep decline. Warm weather and new drilling have put pressure on prices.
• GE, Duke Energy, Alcoa, and other companies press President Bush to do something about global warming. [via Blogging Stocks]
• The Chicago Sun Times’ Andy Ihnatko got some hands-on quality time with the iPhone and was enthralled.
• AT&T does a little convergence by letting home phone users call Cingular customers and vice versa for no charge.

With the markets closed for Martin Luther King’s birthday I had more time to dig through this week’s great Carnival of the Capitalists hosted by the Endless Gibberish Personal Finance Blog:

1. Free Money Finance reminds us that saving and living within one’s means is the way to wealth.
2. The Boring Made Dull tells us why price controls on prescription drugs are bad.
3. The BioHealth Investor show us the biotech sector has been a business bomb.

• Who knew the home-party business was a $30 billion industry?

[via Trunkt]

• The luster of private equity may not shine so bright in 2007.
• The Xbox 360, Nintento’s Wii, and Sony’s Playstation 3 were one, two, and three in the Christmas video game wars. The surprise was the old Playstation 2 which had a bump in sales.

Diary of a Startup hosts this week’s Carnival of the Capitalists. With all the great posts it was hard to pick out a few, but here are the highlights:

• Free the Drones reminds us we’re not as smart about investing as we think we are.
• Jeff Burkey tells us domain names are hot. Will we see a bubble like in real estate?
• Charles Greens takes the counterintuitive idea that it isn’t good to consistently exceed expectations.