yale economist robert shiller notes that "from 1890 through 1990, the return on residential real estate was just about zero after inflation." most of us find that hard to believe, but when we factor in phantom costs like mortgage interest, taxes and maintenance, real estate often turns out to be a cost, not an investment. 2. even worse, homeownership restricts our flexibility. whereas we used to live in one place for years and years, my readers, mostly in their 20s and 30s, are increasingly unlikely to buy because they value flexibility above owning property. buying a house can be a great choice for many reasons. but in the largest purchase of our lives, we can't be swayed by simple slogans like "buy to get the tax cut." fortunately, an increasing number of americans are beginning to question the accepted wisdom of homeownership. >> susie: that's "nightly business report" for wednesday, november 10. i'm susie gharib. good nigig i analyzed 1,200 money questions that my readers sent me and found that a full 25% of those in financial trouble traced their problems back to one reason: their

discuss the global debt crisis i'm joined by general robert shiller in tucson he is a commentator and author of how to survive the crisis and prosper in the process in bucharest we have bly he is a professor at brown university and in washington we crossed a role in a more he is an executive director of oppenheimer and another member of our crosstalk team on the hunger mark i have to go to you first i mean first of all there's a lot of conflicting numbers out there what the u.s. debt level is it's thirteen point seven billion or is one economist at boston university says it's almost two hundred i'm sorry thirteen point seven trillion up to two hundred trillion a year in europe right now and the eurozone is in very bad shape we have everyone's talking about ireland this time before it was greece spain is on the radar of portugal's on the radar there's an enormous amount of debt out there and everyone's trying to drive it down is that possible and will we ever be able to pay off these debts these enormous debts. one of the things you have to consider here is that while it makes sense fo