Alabama regional lender, Colonial Bank, just became the 6th largest bank failure in U.S. history and the largest since Washington Mutual last year.

How do you say bubble in Mandarin?

If you want to do well in today’s market, ignore this rally. Pay all your attention instead to the only class of companies you need to know about. I call these companies the “best of breed.”  They’re probably the least-talked about companies in the market. Many investors are missing the boat. And that’s a shame.

China bulls beware… Chinese regulator warns of American-style housing bubble… Market rejoices over housing start rebound… should you be celebrating too? Dan Amoss on shorting the stock market’s recent strength… Sign of the times… Mexicans, Czechs no longer welcome in Canada… Plus, Byron King reveals an arresting historic gold chart…

Like bank stocks one year ago, REITs look cheap on paper…but very expensive on pavement.  Out in the real world of plummeting demand for commercial space and constricting access to credit, commercial real estate is facing a very tough time. And that means the seemingly inexpensive shares of many REITs are not cheap at all.

One significant step toward putting the US economy back on its feet would be to for the government to treat borrowers like adults. It’s a novel idea, huh? And one that’s likely to fall on deaf ears up on Capitol Hill. But we firmly believe here at Notes that it is a prerequisite of any real economic recovery in the US.

The housing bubble was one for the ages. We’ve all heard stories of one kind or another… There was the glass cutter who earned $5,000 per month, pretax. WaMu gave him a $615,000 home loan with payments of $3,600 per month.

My five-year old daughter has a thick mane of chestnut colored hair on her head. By the time she goes to school, it always looks perfect – but few people know about the work involved beforehand. My wife or I usually have to spend 15 minutes untangling the knots in what invariably starts out as a post-sleep bird’s nest.

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

Last Tuesday the Wall Street Journal published an op-ed by my friend Gary Shilling and Richard LeFrak. They offer a simple solution for the housing crisis: give foreigners who will come to the US and buy a home resident status, green cards).