The next chart centers the Shanghai Composite. The peak is the center of a 3000-market day timeline. Markets are open approximately 250 days per year, so this is a snapshot of a little over eight-and-a-half years with plenty of room left to track the future behavior. The dramatic rise took place over about one year with a dramatic collapse of about the same duration. The symmetry of this these two years is astonishing and, as we’ll see, not necessarily characteristic of bubbles.

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Now we’ll add the Nasdaq Tech Bubble. The Nasdaq was a bit less aggressive in the early stages of bubble formation, but the collapses are remarkably similar.

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The next chart adds the Dow of the late Roaring Twenties and Crash of 1929. Here we see a more gradual bull market over the first five years with a major acceleration occurring in the 12-13 months prior to the peak. The 1929 Crash took the Dow to the legendary lows that the Nasdaq nearly equaled 70 years later. But the Dow decline lasted a good six months longer before beginning a sustained bear-market rally.

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The Nikkei 225 bubble is one I periodically feature in an overlay with the S&P 500, where it looks amazingly steep as the central pattern of a 40+ year timeframe. But in the context of this series, the Nikkei peak on the last market day of 1989 was far more gradual in both the making and unwinding. The first year of the decline, however, was as savage as the other three.

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Bubbles happen, and they usually go unrecognized by the majority of market participants until the late stages. The left side of the bubble is usually more gradual than the collapse, although the incredible rise of the Shanghai market is a notable exception.

People often use alphabet metaphors for recoveries: V-shaped, W-shaped and L-shaped. It’s too soon to characterize the Shanghai Index, but the others most closely resemble an “L” over the timeframe of these charts.

Footnote: Is Gold a Bubble?

It doesn’t appear to be. While the rise somewhat resembles the Nikkei leading up to the 1989 peak, Gold doesn’t come anywhere close to the bubble shape of the Nasdaq and Shanghai examples we’ve reviewed.

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Is Gold cheap? No. Can it continue higher from here? Theoretically, yes. In reality, only time will tell.

Those that decided to buy a house in 2005 or 2006 are really hurting right now. Just think about it. Could you imagine paying off a $ 400,000 mortgage on a home that is now only worth $ 250,000? Millions of Americans are now living through that kind of financial hell. Sadly, most analysts expect U.S. home prices to go down even further. Despite the “best efforts” of those running our economy, unemployment is still rampant. The number of middle class jobs continues to decline year after year, but it takes at least a middle class income to buy a decent home. In addition, financial institutions have really tightened up lending standards and have made it much more difficult to get home loans. Back during the wild days of the housing bubble, the family cat could get a zero-down mortgage, but today the pendulum has swung very far in the other direction and now it is really, really tough to get a home loan. Meanwhile, the number of foreclosures and distressed properties continues to soar. So with a ton of homes on the market and not a lot of buyers the power is firmly in the hands of those looking to buy a house.

So will home prices continue to go down? Possibly. But they won’t go down forever. At some point the inflation that is already affecting many other segments of the economy will affect home prices as well. That doesn’t mean that it will be middle class American families that will be buying up all the homes. An increasing percentage of homes are being purchased by investors or by foreigners. There are a lot of really beautiful homes in the United States, and wealthy people from all over the globe love to buy a house in America.

But because of the factors mentioned above, it is quite possible that U.S. home prices could go down another 10 or 20 percent, especially if the economy gets worse.

So what is the right time to buy a house?

Nobody really knows for sure.

Mortgage rates are near record lows right now and there are some great deals to be had in many areas of the country. But that does not mean that you won’t be able to get the same home for even less 6 months or a year from now.

In any event, this truly has been a really trying time for the U.S. housing market. Hordes of builders, construction workers, contractors, real estate agents and mortgage professionals have been put out of work by this downturn. The housing industry is one of the core pillars of the economy, and so a recovery in home sales is desperately needed.

The following are 20 really wacky statistics about the U.S. real estate crisis….

#1 According to Zillow, 28.4 percent of all single-family homes with a mortgage in the United States are now underwater.

#2 Zillow has also announced that the average price of a home in the U.S. is about 8 percent lower than it was a year ago and that it continues to fall about 1 percent a month.

#3 U.S. home prices have now fallen a whopping 33% from where they were at during the peak of the housing bubble.

#4 During the first quarter of 2011, home values declined at the fastest ratesince late 2008.

#5 According to Zillow, more than 55 percent of all single-family homes with a mortgage in Atlanta have negative equity and more than 68 percent of all single-family homes with a mortgage in Phoenix have negative equity.

#6 U.S. home values have fallen an astounding 6.3 trillion dollars since the housing crisis first began.

#7 In February, U.S. housing starts experienced their largest decline in 27 years.

#8 New home sales in the United States are now down 80% from the peak in July 2005.

#9 Historically, the percentage of residential mortgages in foreclosure in the United States has tended to hover between 1 and 1.5 percent. Today, it is up around 4.5 percent.

#10 According to RealtyTrac, foreclosure filings in the United States are projected to increase by another 20 percent in 2011.

#11 It is estimated that 25% of all mortgages in Miami-Dade County are “in serious distress and headed for either foreclosure or short sale”.

#12 Two years ago, the average U.S. homeowner that was being foreclosed upon had not made a mortgage payment in 11 months. Today, the average U.S. homeowner that is being foreclosed upon has not made a mortgage payment in 17 months.

#13 Sales of foreclosed homes now represent an all-time record 23.7% of the market.

#14 4.5 million home loans are now either in some stage of foreclosure or are at least 90 days delinquent.

#15 According to the Mortgage Bankers Association, at least 8 million Americans are currently at least one month behind on their mortgage payments.

#16 In September 2008, 33 percent of Americans knew someone who had been foreclosed upon or who was facing the threat of foreclosure. Today that number has risen to 48 percent.

#17 During the first quarter of 2011, less new homes were sold in the U.S. than in any three month period ever recorded.

#18 According to a recent census report, 13% of all homes in the United Statesare currently sitting empty.

#19 In 1996, 89 percent of Americans believed that it was better to own a home than to rent one. Today that number has fallen to 63 percent.

#20 According to Zillow, the United States has been in a “housing recession” for57 straight months without an end in sight.

So should we be confident that the folks in charge are doing everything that they can to turn all of this around?

Sadly, the truth is that our “authorities” really do not know what they are doing. The following is what Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke had to say about the housing market back in 2006….

“Housing markets are cooling a bit. Our expectation is that the decline in activity or the slowing in activity will be moderate, that house prices will probably continue to rise.”

Since that time U.S. housing prices have experienced their biggest decline ever.

At some point widespread inflation is going to reverse the trend we are experiencing right now, but that doesn’t mean that most American families will be able to afford to buy homes when that happens.

As I have written about previously, the middle class in America is shrinking. The number of Americans on food stamps has increased by 18 million over the past four years and today 47 million Americans (a new all-time record) are living in poverty.

Millions of our jobs are being shipped overseas, the cost of living keeps going up and an increasing percentage of American families are losing faith in the economy.

More Americans than ever are talking about “the coming economic collapse” as if it is a foregone conclusion. Our federal government is swamped with debt, our state and local governments are swamped with debt and our economic infrastructure is being ripped to shreds by globalization.

So sadly, no, there are not a whole lot of reasons to be optimistic at this point about a major economic turnaround.

The U.S. economy is going down the toilet and the coming collapse is going to be incredibly painful for all of us.

Hopefully when that collapse comes you will have somewhere warm and safe to call home. If not, hopefully someone will have compassion on you. In any event, we all need to buckle up because it is going to be a wild ride.

Dominant Social Theme: A silver lining to every disaster.

Free-Market Analysis: This is a good article from Marketwatch’s Matthew Lynn in the sense that it gives you something besides gloom about the euro and EU. Matthew Lynn suggests there will be numerous investment opportunities if the euro crumbles because of the Greek (and PIGS) budgetary crisis.

We like it because he doesn’t hedge. He is quite sure that Greece is going to default and even take the euro and maybe the EU with it. A year after the IMF “rescue,” Greece is back where it started or even worse, he points out, heading toward a depression.

The debt is too high and the deficit is too deep. Greece will default and every one knows it! (Even though no one will say it.) The question is simply one of time and amount. With this in mind, he provides us with five trades based on the unraveling of the euro that he believes are positive.

The first trade is German bunds; buy them and sell the DAX stock index. The deutsche mark that will arise from the ruins of the euro will be a dominant currency. This means German bonds will rise in value as the currency appreciates; at the same, Lynn believes Germany’s exports may not have such a good time of it, at least not at first. Eventually German manufacturers will once more figure out how to do business with a strong currency as they did throughout much of the 20th century. But the learning curve will offer pain. Why participate? Sit on the sidelines.

The second trade is the Swiss franc. Sell it. Investors are buying the franc right now, and even the Israel shekel, desperate for a safe haven. What IS safe right now? The dollar? The yuan? The Japanese yen? Most countries are struggling these days one way or another, but if the euro evaporates, several currencies will likely emerge that might definitively claim safe-haven status. The deutsche mark, Lynn writes, will certainly draw money away from the Swiss franc, which will then depreciate.

The third trade is the Belgium index. Another sell. This is an obvious one for Lynn. Brussels, a tiny little pimple of a country, has been in the right place at the right time. The euro and the EU have puffed it up, and today somehow it presides over a super-state the size of America. Maybe not for long. Brussels is chock full of lobbyists, politicians and diplomats, all buying expensive meals and renting luxurious flats. That will change if the euro withers and the EU collapses. The economy shall surely deflate and many Belgium companies along with the stock index.

The fourth trading tip is European travel companies. Buy them. A problem with the strong euro is that it has virtually eviscerated the travel business to Southern Europe – one of the reasons the PIGS are having so much trouble economically. But once the pesky euro goes away, the normal balance of Europe will reassert itself. Northern Europeans will continue to enrich themselves and then, in the summer, travel south to Spain, Italy or Greece to relax. The local travel industry will re-establish itself. Even the Greeks will prosper.

The fifth trading tip is the US dollar. Buy. (Imagine that!) He believes the PIGS debt, dumped by German and French banks, has ended up in US hands. Thus, the US economy will take a hit; still, the dollar as a currency will appreciate. There is no alternative. The dollar, he writes, will be the recipient of a second wind and spend at least another decade as the world’s reserve currency.

These are logical trading strategies, clearly laid out. Our only disagreement might be with the initial assumption. We’re not convinced the euro is going away, nor the EU, at least not any time soon. We would like to think so, but we’ll settle for a hampered euro and a humbled EU that cannot do so much damage to people’s civil liberties as its handlers would prefer.

The initial idea of the EU as a free trading zone might be seen as a good one. The current monstrosity is a vicious mess that aspires to be an empire, though it’s crumbling now. This is one trend worth encouraging.

Sure, Greece may drop out of the euro, even Spain and Portugal. The eurozone might simply default toward the North – Germany and the Scandinavian countries. If there is to be a euro, the northern industrial engine will run on it. They can form a formidable currency block if they wish to.

Lynn’s remarks about selling the Swiss Franc seem feasible to us, if we accept the euro lingers on in the North. If so, Brussels won’t entirely shrivel away. Too bad.

We are not sure we agree about buying the dollar. The US is in terrible trouble financially; we might be tempted to make it an honorary PIG. The US has been under attack by the power elite for over a century and we have trouble believing that attack will diminish any time soon. They regard the libertarian and republican sentiments of the US with enimnity; they are trying to crush the culture and the economy and these attacks will no doubt continue.

Even a shrunken EU and euro would be an enormous victory and a defeat for the powers-that-be who are trying to use the EU as a stepping stone to a kind of one world order. The most poisonous ambitions of the Anglosphere elite would be lanced. Defeat is a terrific prophylactic.

There would be knock off effects as well. The currency unions that the Western elites have been so assiduously encouraged in South America, Asia, Africa and even the Middle East would likely become less attractive given the euro’s implosion. All to the good.

Concusion: There will surely be numerous trades to contemplate as the euro situation evolves. Who knows, they may even hold it all together. We hope not. We would much rather bet against this evolving authoritarian empire than for it.

The reason why you aren’t a millionaire (or on your way to becoming one) is really quite simple. You probably assume it’s because you aren’t earning enough money, but the truth is that for most people, whether or not you become a millionaire has very little to do with the amount of money you make. It’s the way that you treat money in your daily life.

Here are 10 possible reasons you aren’t a millionaire:

10. You Care What Your Neighbors Think
If you’re competing against them and their material possessions, you’re wasting your hard-earned money on toys to impress them instead of building your wealth.

9. You Aren’t Patient
Until the era of credit cards, it was difficult to spend more than you had. That is not the case today. If you have credit card debt because you couldn’t wait until you had enough money to purchase something in cash, you are making others wealthy while keeping yourself in debt.

8. You Have Bad Habits
Whether it’s smoking, drinking, gambling or some other bad habit, the habit is using up a lot of money that could go toward building wealth. Most people don’t realize that the cost of their bad habits extends far beyond the immediate cost. Take smoking, for example: It costs a lot more than the pack of cigarettes purchased. It also negatively affects your wealth in the form of higher insurance rates and decreased value of your home.

7. You Have No Goals
It’s difficult to build wealth if you haven’t taken the time to know what you want. If you haven’t set wealth goals, you aren’t likely to attain them. You need to do more than state, “I want to be a millionaire.” You need to take the time to set saving and investing goals on a yearly basis and come up with a plan for how to achieve those goals.

6. You Haven’t Prepared
Bad things happen to the best of people from time to time, and if you haven’t prepared for such a thing to happen to you through insurance, any wealth that you might have built can be gone in an instant.

5. You Try to Make a Quick Buck
For the vast majority of us, wealth doesn’t come instantly. You may believe that people winning the lottery are a dime a dozen, but the truth is you’re far more likely to get struck by lightning than win the lottery. This desire to get rich quickly likely extends into the way you invest, with similar results.

4. You Rely on Others to Take Care of Your Money
You believe that others have more knowledge about money matters, and you rely exclusively on their judgment when deciding where you should invest your money. Unfortunately, most people want to make money themselves, and this is their primary objective when they tell you how to invest your money. Listen to other people’s advice to get new ideas, but in the end you should know enough to make your own investing decisions.

3. You Invest in Things You Don’t Understand
You hear that Bob has made a lot of money doing it, and you want to get in on the gravy train. If Bob really did make money, he did so because he understood how the investment worked. Throwing in your money because someone else has made money without fully understanding how the investment works will keep you from being wealthy.

2. You’re Financially Afraid
You are so scared of risk that you keep all your money in a savings account that is actually losing money when inflation is put into the equation, yet you refuse to move it to a place where higher rates of return are possible because you’re afraid that you will lose money.

1. You Ignore Your Finances
You take the attitude that if you make enough, the finances will take care of themselves. If you currently have debt, it will somehow resolve itself in the future. Unfortunately, it takes planning to become wealthy. It doesn’t magically happen to the vast majority of people.

In reality, it is probably not just one of the above bad habits that has kept you from becoming a millionaire, but a combination of a few of them. Take a hard look at the list, and do some reflecting. If you want to be a millionaire, it’s well within your power, but you’ll have to face the issues that are currently keeping you from creating that wealth before you will have a chance to call yourself one.

Saving money isn’t all about whether or not you know how to score screaming bargains.

It has more to do with your attitude toward money.

Just think of those who don’t fit the filthy-rich stereotype. People like Warren Buffett.

As explained in the book The Millionaire Next Door by Thomas J. Stanley and William D. Danko, personal finance has as much to do with people’s traits as it does with money. Many millionaires, in fact, have frugal ways.

Understanding how personal traits can influence your finances is an essential ingredient for building wealth.

Here are 10 key traits:
10. Patience

Patience is one of the most important traits when it comes to saving money.

This means waiting until the first wave of product hype has passed, keeping a car for an extra few years before getting another one and waiting until something you want fits into your budget instead of putting it on credit.

Patience is often the difference between creating savings and being in debt. Having the patience to wait until you find a good deal is a cornerstone of good finances.
9. Satisfaction

When you’re satisfied, there is no reason to spend money on nonessentials. The sole purpose of commercials is to make you believe that buying a product or service will make you happier, wealthier, better looking or improve whatever isn’t bringing you satisfaction.

People spend because they want to capture the excitement shown in advertisements. When you are satisfied with what you have and your life (not trying to live like those on TV), your finances will be in a lot better shape.
8. Organization

Being organized can make you more productive and ensure that all the many issues pertaining to personal finances are addressed.

It means not paying late fees, not buying two of everything, knowing deadlines that can affect your finances and getting more done in less time. All these can greatly benefit your finances.
7. Discipline

You need the discipline to continue to save money for specific, long-term goals every month. Personal finance isn’t a way to get rich quick, but is a disciplined execution of your lifetime plans.
6. Reflectiveness

It’s important to be able to look at your financial decisions and reflect on their results. You’re going to make financial mistakes. Everyone does. The key is to learn from those mistakes so you don’t make them again, or recognize if you keep repeating them.
5. Creativity

The economy and our earnings don’t always match our expectations.

Unexpected developments wreak havoc to elaborate financial plans. When this happens, changes are needed to deal with the new circumstances. Creativity is essential to accomplish this.

Creativity allows you to make something last longer rather than purchasing it when you don’t have the money. It means juggling money to stay out of debt rather than simply paying with a credit card. It means finding a cheaper alternative when money is tight.

In these ways, creativity plays a large role in keeping finances in order.
4. Curiosity

Having curiosity helps you learn, study and improve yourself.

The curiosity of wanting to know more, to take the time to study and then take what is learned and put into practice is an important process that is driven by curiosity.
3. Risk-Taking

To build wealth, one needs to be willing to take risks. This doesn’t mean uncalculated risks. It means weighing all the options and taking calculated risks when appropriate.

The stock market has risks involved, but over the long term, history shows that it provides good returns on money that is invested wisely. Those who fear risk altogether end up saving money in accounts that likely lose money to inflation in the long run.
2. Goal-Oriented

The importance of setting and working toward goals is obvious. If you don’t know where you are going, it’s difficult to get there. It helps your personal finances immensely if you have money goals and are motivated to reach the goals that you have set for yourself.

Those who lack goals don’t have a road map to take them to the financial destination they want.
1. Hard- and Smart-Working

Creating wealth and staying out of debt rarely comes about without a lot of hard work.

Many people might hope that the lottery will solve all their financial problems. The true path to financial freedom, however, is to work hard to earn money while educating yourself to continue to have more value and increase your salary.

You may not possess all of the above traits. But knowing them can help you make changes so that you nourish the ones that you have and obtain the ones you’re missing.

Ultimately they will help you with your personal finances and create a plan to accumulate the wealth you desire.