Housing Prices in Major Cities

NYT has an interactive graphic that charts housing prices (both nominal and real) vs national averages.

LA Homicide Map

The LATimes has a site that maps out the homicides in the county. Data rich and interactive, it is fascinating. For example not only was I able to find out that there were three homicides in pasadena (well, northern pas to be exact) - I could find out there names and the details surrounding the crime. Macabre yet engrossing.

Debtor Nation

Meaty article in the Harvard mag that analyzes the US debt/deficit situation. It is, like most interesting problems, multivariate in nature and nobody really knows with any certainty what is going to happen in the future. But regardless, some very interesting points in the market - Why is China holding on to so many US T-notes? How are the current trade deficit and the housing price bubble related? What happens when foreign investors decide to withdraw their investment in the dollar? The article doesnt quite do justice to all these weighty questions - can someone quickly write a book with all (or some) of the answers?

Restting ARMs

Looks like there is going to be a world of hurt for mortgage borrowers in 2007 ...

Cerberus

A not too deep glance into the opaque world of private equity and Cerberus Capital.

The Two Chinas

ESPN, the unlikeliest of magazines, has a profile of China drawn around the theme of Olympics. It is a fairly engrossing travel narrative describing how a cross section of the country is changing in the new millenium.