Perspectives on naked capitalism

I will be reflecting on a guest post from Richard Alford titled “Trading This Crisis for the Next.” I wasn’t sure about writing a reflection on a guest post, but since naked capitalism often has guest posters, most visitors would see them and the reputation of the blog would be staked on their posts.

As such, Richard Alford’s merits are summarized in two sentences. He is a former economist for the New York Fed and is currently working in the financial industry as a trading floor economist and strategist on both the buy and sell side.

From the get-go, Alford begins by introducing the G20 Statement, which is a set of principles issued that would help the current economic growth. In Alford’s analysis, the G20 Statement’s primary focus is to sustain the current economic growth rather than attaining economic balance. This strategy would help continue the growth in the current crisis, but in the long term, it will only add to future economic crises. Alford uses a graph and a few quotes to help his argument.

1. From the perspective of a regular visitor, I would find this post fascinating. It meets the style and topics that are covered by the blog. It’s written intelligently without a need to dumb down language, but it summarizes the G20 Statement so that readers won’t be lost. It is an analysis of current financial affairs in the global economic environment. It gives links to its sources. All in all, this post, though it is a guest post, is what regular readers come to expect.

2. From the perspective of a first time visitor who is interested in the topic, I would say that it is a good introduction to the site. The blog doesn’t go terribly in depth with the topic as some beats in legacy newspapers are, but there are good analyses to be found on relevant topics that I’m sure legacy newspapers might miss. This post is a representation of the average length of analyses and posts that the blog features. There are 14 reader responses when I check the blog. Some of these reader posts are insightful and adds to the conversation. Contrasting to legacy media websites, their reader posts were not very insightful from the times I’ve checked. It’s certainly a nice introduction and a welcoming example of the blog that should interest people on the fence about the blog to return.

3. From the perspective of a happenstance visitor, I would ignore the site and move on. The language is written for those who are interested in the financial industry. Many people are interested in the industry these days because of the economic environment, but most people would not know the more in depth topics like the G20 Statement. After reading the first line and confirming that the post is primarily about the G20, happenstance visitors would simply move on to a site that they would more likely understand its topics. In support of the post, however, the title “Trading This Crisis for the Next” is very captivating and would certainly interest those who’ve been hearing about how the economy is improving, but has their concern of whether is it is valid or not.

naked capitalism Web Usability

The use of the screen real estate is good. When the page loads (on my small screen) I don’t see any article without scrolling down. There is an advertisement running below the title. Even though I couldn’t see the top article immediately off the bat, I get the list of the most recent items as well as a search tab. I thought it was a great use of space since I usually don’t get any content at all unless I scroll down. The rest of the blog does not use 80% for content, but it looks like it might be 50%.

The font is easy to read. It is good as is, but any user can raise the font size if they need to.

I used a laptop running through the wireless network in Sac State, so it is not unusual to see that the page loaded incredibly fast. I’m sure that even with slower internet speeds, the page would load quickly because the blog does not have complicated graphics.

There are no ALT text attributions as the photos used on the blog are often completely unrelated to the news or topics.

Yves Smith’s blog specializes in links. The links stands out from the rest of the text because of its dark orange color. Smith would link her sources before citing it whenever she can. The sources that she cites are often on the web and they would be linked at the end of the article. There are plenty of useful links at the end of the post under the label “More on this topic.” On the left panel, there are plenty of links to other news sources and blogs that Yves Smith recommends.

The blog is separated in two frames. On the left, there are the content, and on the right, there are the linked tabs. The tabs include links to other blogs and news sources, topics, contributors and others. The blog is very straightforward.

The top story was “Sorkin v. Stumpf on Wachovia Loan Losses.” The post that I analyzed last time had considerable explanation after citing their source. This time Smith simply throws out words from someone else who says that Wachovia is in big trouble and then a table with numbers on Wachovia’s loans. There are no explanations of what this all means. There is even a commenter who expressed that he/she does not know what it meant because he/she knows very little about banking. Even if the blog is aimed at people who know a few things about banking, the topic itself is complex; there should have been at least a little bit of explanation.