An Appeciation of Felix Salmon

There is 1000 times as much good stuff to read as any of us could possibly read. So we read a little: things and people that we have found interesting in the past. And when we run into somebody in the hallway, we ask them what they have recently read that was interesting. Weblogs greatly expand the number of people we run into in the hallway: although in this case it is, of course, a virtual hallway.

Which then creates the problem of which of the thousands of doors on your virtual hallway you knock on.

Ever since Felix Salmon started working for Nouriel Roubini, he has been very high on my list of weblogs to read. Why? Because he writes very well. Because he reads an immense amount. Because he is pragmatic and empirical: "this proves my ideology is right!" is not a message he wants to send anyone. And because he reads different things from me and things differently enough from me that I learn a huge amount.

Felix Salmon suits me. Would he suit you? He really ought to. Too many people are either on Team Politics or Team Ideology or Team I-Talk-My-Book. You cannot learn much from them.

Take a look at, recently:

http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2011/02/28/annals-of-white-collar-crime-james-altucher-edition

http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2011/02/24/why-it-pays-to-ignore-the-market/

http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2011/02/24/will-the-governments-mortgage-settlement-work/

http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2011/02/23/why-do-we-want-stocks-to-go-up/

http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2011/02/23/austeritys-inauspicious-historical-precedents/

http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2011/02/23/the-salmon-cottrell-huffpo-bet/

http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2011/02/21/the-steady-savings-retirement-plan/

http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2011/02/18/learning-from-boeings-outsourcing-disaster/

http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2011/02/11/judging-treasurys-housing-report/

http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2011/02/08/how-aig-died/

All ten of these are worth reading for me. I would have gotten to about three of them without Felix.