Several Odds and a Couple Ends

The LA Times' Joel Stein had a really interesting take on the latest actions by the Federal Reserve: infusing the market with $200 billion and JP Morgan Chase rescuing Bear Stearns with another $30 billion. It was really toned down in this article and his points came across more concisely. I read Stein's stuff occasioanlly but more often than not I find his humor heavy handed. As far as Times' columnists, he and Jonah Goldberg are usually orthogonal to each other, but I am usually orthogonal to the both of them. Basically, it's like a 3 dimensional space and we're the X,Y, and Z axes. Linear algebra references aside, Stein's piece was actually written really well - he seems to know what he's talking about without confusing people with too much technical detail.

The LA Land blogger, Peter Viles, did an interesting analysis on the real estate market declines in Los Angeles. He did a simple zip code breakdown to see which classes of houses were declining the most. His results show that the low end (Palmdale/Lancaster) is declining more than the high end (Palos Verdes, Mar Vista). As the houses increase in value, the percentage decline decreases, until there's actually an increase for houses over $800k. What this means is that the market is really starting to sort itself out and to echo Stein, the faster we get to the bottom, the better.

In sports news, UCLA won it's first round game against Mississippi Valley State in the NCAA tournament while USC got smoked by Kansas State. KSU was robbed by selection committe, only getting an 11 seed (3rd Place in the 2nd toughest conference only gets an 11 seed? Come on....). Ken Pomeroy could have told you that the Trojans drew a really tough first round game. Great news for the Mighty Bruins as they should be getting Luc back for Saturday's game against Texas A&M, which starts at 6:15 at the Honda Center in Anaheim.