There's a lot of information out there. Some of it is junk, some of it is frame-worthy. For every dozen foam-spewing-from-mouth rants out there, there's a well-thought-out, factual, logical piece of work that deserves your attention.

Here are five you might enjoy.

Interview with Joseph Stiglitz (Big Think)
Columbia University professor and Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz is the rare economist who doesn't get lost in numbers and Greek symbols. He's a big-picture guy who includes as much political thought in his economic analysis as anyone I've ever seen. You may not agree with his talk here, focusing on the economic ramifications of the Iraq war, but it's an interesting discussion.

Hayman Capital Letter to Investors (Zero Hedge)
Hedge fund manager Kyle Bass made a boatload of money betting against the housing market. (If his name sounds familiar, he was profiled in the CNBC documentary "House of Cards.) This letter to investors, while a few months old, is sobering. Bass goes into detail on monetary policy and its possible outcomes. "Do you trust the Federal Reserve, et al. to select the precise timing of when to withdraw the money from the system, such that a recovery is sustained and inflation does not take hold? We believe the market, in its forward-looking nature, does not."

A Deep look at Existing Home Sales (Calculated Risk)
Calculated Risk provides some of the best housing statistics out there. In this post, notice the second graph down, labeled, "New and Existing Home Sales" showing the "distressing gap." As CR puts sit, "The initial gap was caused by the flood of distressed sales. This kept existing home sales elevated, and depressed new home sales since builders couldn't compete with the low prices of all the foreclosed properties." Logically, the only way you'll see a noticeable rebound in housing investment, therefore, is for the distressing gap to close.

Protecting Consumers Will Undermine Capitalism (Bloomberg)
As new consumer protection laws threaten the gravy trains of companies like American Express (NYSE:AXP) and Citigroup (NYSE:C), some say overreaching regulation will bring capitalism to its knees. Bloomberg columnist Susan Antilla sufficiently mocks these doomsayers: "We certainly wouldn't want to put a crimp on deceptive or abusive marketing, because for one thing it could take a real bite out of the available scandals for people like me to write about, and it's no secret that we media types have been falling on hard times."  

Top US Dividend Stocks to Accumulate Now (Dividend Growth Investor)
A worthwhile screen looking for companies with low P/E ratios, dividend payouts under 50%, and dividend yields over 2.8%. Comes up with names like Procter & Gamble (NYSE:PG), Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ), McDonald's (NYSE:MCD), and Automatic Data Processing (NYSE:ADP).

Got any of your own to share? Post away in the comments section below.