The Best Longreads in Business and Finance for the Week of February 24

The U.S.'s $4.4 Billion Trade Surplus With China
Mina Kimes, Fortune

Once a ubiquitous sight in every world tourist destination, Chinese tour groups have been allowed in the U.S. only since 2007. More than 1 million Chinese tourists come every year. How many polo shirts can they buy?

Bitter Pill: Why Medical Bills Are Killing Us
Steven Brill, Time

It runs 36 pages in print, but the insanely high prices doctors and hospitals charge for medical care deserves every outraged word.

A Phoenix Housing Boom Forms, in Hint of U.S. Recovery
Susan Berfield, Bloomberg Businessweek

The housing sector is back, and has been for more than a year. Could it be strongest in, of all places, ground zero of the housing bust?

Content Economics, Part 1: Advertising
Felix Salmon, Reuters

Why are print and TV still the gold standard for the advertising industry? The answer can tell us why no one (besides Google and Facebook) has figured out how to make money selling ads on the internet.

The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food
Michael Moss, The New York Times Magazine

“What I found, over four years of research and reporting, was a conscious effort—taking place in labs and marketing meetings and grocery-store aisles—to get people hooked on foods that are convenient and inexpensive.”

U.S. Banks Bigger Than GDP as Accounting Rift Masks Risk
Yalman Onaran, Bloomberg News

How big are American banks? How risky are they? The answers to these seemingly simple questions depend on a years-long accounting dispute between the U.S. and Europe that isn’t much closer to being resolved.