Are we done with this recession? I missed this discussion of a few days ago, featuring an economist, Nouriel Roubini of New York University, an historian, Niall Fergusson of Harvard, and a billionaire, real estate investor Mort Zuckerman, debating what is to come. Rather late than never, as the clip makes for good viewing material.

Embedded video from CNN Video

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The U.S. housing market continued its tepid trek toward recovery as housing starts in May exceeded expectations, the U.S. Commerce Department said yesterday (Tuesday).

Housing starts soared 17.2% from April to May, nearly double the 7% increase economists were projecting, Actual housing starts reached a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 532,000, also well ahead of the 490,000 economists surveyed by the Dow Jones Newswires had projected, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Despite the unexpected month-to-month uptick, U.S. housing starts are still more than 45% below the pace of a year ago when the housing-start rate was 971,000.

And just because there’s been an increase in home construction doesn’t mean there’s been an accompanying increase in housing demand, Andrew Waite, a former institutional investor who is now the publisher ofPersonal Real Estate Investor magazine, told Money Morning in a telephone interview.

In fact, says Steve Hagenbuckle, managing principal of real estate private

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Wall Street created the U.S. housing bubble and now it’s missing the real estate rebound.  And Andrew Waite understands why.

Waite is the publisher of the Personal Real Estate Investor, a glossy magazine that focuses on investors who buy houses or condos to manage for income or to fix up and sell for a profit. But he’s not some industry cheerleader whose statements are nothing but spin.

He’s a true expert on the U.S. housing sector who goes out of his way to “educate” journalists about the true state of the American housing market, and who criticizes most of the “indicators” in use as useless and irrelevant. Plus, as a onetime Wall Street venture-capitalist who subsequently joined Silicon Valley’s Sand Hill Road private equity crowd, Waite really understands how the Wall Street investment game is played - and, in the case of the

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On close inspection, there are only two possibilities for the Geithner “Rescue Plan”: It’s an honest effort doomed to fail… or a blatant scam that just might work.

Treasury Secretary Geithner, we hereby dub thee “Turbo Timmy.”

As a number of you have informed me, the “turbo” moniker – as in, “doesn’t know how to use Turbo Tax” – has been around for a while now. With my many sources and ears on the street, I’m surprised I hadn’t heard it prior. (Or maybe it just went in one ear and out the other.)

Other honorable mentions in the SecTreas nickname contest include:

“Tycoon Tim” (for serving his rich masters) “Torpedo Tim” (for threatening to sink the economy) “Little Timmy Geithner” (after a hapless cartoon character with wish-granting fairy godparents) “Lollypop Guild” Geithner (after the obscure Wizard of ...

We are living in the middle of a breakdown of the markets due to corrupt lending practices with greedy executives and uninformed people getting involved in business they never should have. This is never good for stocks and I don’t care what anyone says. Shooting down that bill was the right idea. Let wall street battle it out. They screwed up and the tax payers should not be bailed out. At the same time capping CEO pay at $500,000 for running a bank is psychotic and shows NOTHING of a FREE market system.

However, I must admit the system is/was broken. When I left NYC in 2000 I knew there was more than what the .com bubble had. But I had no clue that it would ever get like this in real estate. I used to date a real estate broker in Maui and I used to tell her that this

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by Self Directed IRA Advisor
A self directed checkbook IRA allows you to have checkbook writing privileges of your IRA retirement account.

If you’re a seasoned real estate investor, you know just how fast expenses can add up on a piece of property. A few trips to your local Lowes home improvement store, a number of calls to your contractor or a simple mistake made by an inexperienced handyman means you have to shell out money, money, money – right out of your pocket.

Now imagine if in addition, you had to pay an additional fee to the custodian every time you needed to cover an expense related to your investment. On top of your financial losses, it can be an enormous expense of time and frustrating to say the least. Would you agree or disagree that this is no way to steward what is more than likely the most important …