If you're wondering why the housing market is still stuck in its worst slide in six decades, this chart pretty much says it all.

Though the market peaked in 2006, the toxic mortgages that have created this mess had two- and three-year fuses before they began exploding in 2007. Those interest rate "resets" created the initial wave of foreclosures and helped push the economy into recession.

As the recession took hold and unemployment soared, families with perfectly good mortgages - who had lost their paychecks - began losing their homes in bigger numbers.

The pace eased up somewhat in late 2008, in large part as lenders put foreclosures on hold to see what kind of relief the government would come up with. But neither the government's programs nor the lending industry's voluntary "solutions" have done anything to bend the curve lower.

Unless that changes, expect the housing market to continue to struggle under the weight of millions more "distressed" sales as banks repossess homes and put them back on the already-weak market. Some 3.5 million foreclosed homes have been sold since 2003, and there are at least that many more expected. One estimate puts the number of homes at risk at 11 million - or about one-fifth of U.S. home mortgages.

It's a little better than expected. But it's not good enough.

The U.S. economy grew at a meager 2 percent annual rate in the three months that ended Oct. 1, according to government data released Friday. That's a little faster than most forecasters were looking for. But this is just the first of the government's three GDP readings; these early estimates have a way of getting trimmed back when the final numbers are printed. Stay tuned.

The housing market remains the biggest damper on growth: investment in residential real estate plunged nearly 30 percent after the June expiration of the government's tax credits for first time home buyers. Falling home prices, high unemployment and the ongoing foreclosure mess are going to continue to weigh on the economy in future quarters. Maybe years.

Much of the gain in third quarter GDP came from businesses taking advantage of extremely low borrowing costs to buy new equipment, extending a shopping spree that's been underway all year. Business investment rose 12 percent in the third quarter. But that was less than half the pace of the second quarter, suggesting the boost from business spending may be fading. Even if it holds up, that investment isn't creating jobs. If anything, companies are investing in software and machinery to boost productivity from existing workers so they don't have to hire more people.

Consumers did their part - boosting consumption spending by 2.6 percent. But they had to dip into savings to pay for it, so that's not sustainable. Much of that spending went to buy goods made overseas: imports jumped 17 percent, more than three times the gain in exports. Despite weakness in the dollar, that trade gap widened, further damping down GDP growth.

There's no mystery behind the causes of yet another quarter of weak economic growth. The federal government's stimulus spending may have headed off a deeper slide, but the impact of all that spending is fading. State and local governments are scrambling to fill big budget holes - and laying off workers to try to balance the books. The housing industry is in its worst slide in 60 years, and the latest data don't offer any hope it will recover soon. Some 3.5 million families have lost their home to foreclosure; there may be double or triple that number to come unless government or the lending industry comes up with effective solutions.

And with the midterm election just days away, there's little talk of wider solutions to the economic quagmire. The most common refrains on the campaign trails are vague promises to "fix" the deficit and create jobs. Specific proposals are in short supply.

That leaves the heavy lifting to the Federal Reserve, which has been making loud noises about embarking on another half-trillion-dollar shopping spree for government bonds - with the goal of pushing bond prices higher and interest rates lower. That may help people who own bonds - like banks, insurance companies and other big investors. But bargain basement rates haven't done much to get banks lending or businesses hiring. There's little indication that another round of bond-buying by the Fed will change that.

If you want some clarity about the economic outlook, economist Lakshman Achuthan may be able to help.

Achuthan, who is managing director of the Economic Cycle Research Institute, has a strong track record of predicting economic patterns. He told CNBC Friday that there is categorically no likelihood that the U.S. economy will fall into a "double-dip" recession (when a nation's economic output goes into decline, stages a modest recovery, and then falls back into a recession again).

Achuthan said a number of leading economic indicators he monitors point to the economy avoiding a second downturn. He also thinks the Federal Reserve is behind the curve in not anticipating an economic rebound.

You can watch his CNBC appearance here:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

As if it isn't hard enough to find a job these days, there's new evidence the weak housing market is adding to the woes of the nation's job seekers.

Challenger, Gray and Christmas reported Thursday that just 6.9 percent of the people who went through the company's outplacement program relocated for a new job in the third quarter.

That's the lowest percentage since Challenger started tracking that data in 1986, and is down from a 13.4 percent relocation rate in the same quarter a year earlier.

The survey tracked 3,000 people in the June to September period, mainly laid-off managers or executives.

The outplacement firm says the dwindling percentage of people who are moving elsewhere for their next position shows that many are either finding it difficult to sell their houses to move, or aren't having any luck getting their new employers to pay the hefty relocation costs associated with the depressed housing market.

”Job seekers who own a home – even if they are open to relocating for a new job – are basically stuck where they are if they are unable or unwilling to sell their homes without incurring a significant loss,” John A. Challenger, chief executive officer of Challenger, Gray & Christmas, said in a release.

The percentage of Challenger clients who have relocated for new jobs has actually been trending down in the 20-plus years since Challenger began gathering the data.

In the third quarter of 1986, 40 percent of people who went through Challenger’s outplacement program relocated for job. And in the comparable three months in 2000, that figure was still at 23.5 percent.

Wealthy Americans are feeling a little more upbeat lately.

In a recent survey of 1,000 affluent Americans done for Merrill Lynch, 41 percent said they are feeling much better, thank you, financially than they were a year ago. Seventy-eight percent of them also believe their financial situation will improve in the coming year.

Suprisingly, 61 percent of those surveyed said they expect to be working longer than they had planned before they retire. That's up from 29 percent in January of this year.

"The last couple of years have been a rollercoaster for many investors as they navigated through the recession and markets. While they believe the future may be getting brighter, many still struggle with the financial tug of war between near-term demands and future goals," said Sallie Krawcheck, president of Bank of America Global Wealth and Investment Management. Bank of America owns Merrill Lynch.

The quarterly survey of Americans with investable assets in excess of $250,000 also showed that one in five affluent people have dipped into their savings and investments to make ends meet.

Maybe the rich aren't that different from the rest of us, after all; they just have fatter cushions.

Generally speaking, mobs get a pretty bad rap. Just look at the negative phrases associated with them: Mob rule. Mob violence. Mob mentality.

OK, OK, but: How about when hordes of people come together and use their numbers to nab bargains, review products and compare the prices they've found? Well, that's not so unpleasant at all.

Much ado has been made over Groupon, the 2-year-old market leader in the world of online group buying. Groupon tracks down businesses that are willing to offer deep discounts if enough people sign up for a deal. Even if the deal falls through because too few people sign up, the business got some decent advertising out of the experience -- so, no harm, no foul.

But Groupon certainly isn't the only site putting the power of the people to work. All sorts of sites are popping up just for bargain hounds and careful spenders, and many of them rely on the muscle of social media. Some serve up discounts and coupons; others provide people-powered price comparisons and product reviews. To name only a few of them:

--A new site called Cheep -- www.getcheep.com -- launched this week in the United States and invited people to join a community where it really is OK to be, well, cheap. It's free to join, and you don't have to provide your name, e-mail address or any other information about yourself. Members can share their recent shopping deals and duds -- including the prices they found. They also can download a small browser add-on to help them see price comparisons and find deals for specific products. "Simply put," founder Suranga Chandratillake said, "Cheep is a fun way to find out from your friends and others what to buy, and where, for the right price."

--LivingSocial is up and running in dozens of cities. Unlike its competitor Groupon, discounts are valid even if large groups of people fail to sign up for them. And the site offers this incentivizing twist: Once you commit to buying an offered product or service, you're given a unique link to share with people you know. If three more people sign up for the same deal via your link, then, ta-da! Your deal is free.

--TwitterMoms is a site that harnesses the power of opinionated moms to provide the kinds of product reviews parents tend to care about. Last month the site launched a "social" seal of approval program that tests products in a standardized way in the homes of at least 25 moms from diverse backgrounds. To receive a seal of approval, a product must meet or exceed expectations in all evaluation areas at least 85 percent of the time. So far only two products -- a mop and a dishwashing liquid -- have been anointed with a seal, but it's a start.

To be sure, there are plenty of other sites out there that use social media to help shoppers save money. (In fact, stay tuned for a future blog post about more of them!) For now, though, here's hoping that cheap continues to be the new normal.

Look, Ma, no tubes!

Consumer products company Kimberly-Clark is about to roll out what it says is the world’s first toilet paper roll without a tube, a central toilet paper fixture for 100 years. The company will be introducing the tubeless toilet paper rolls in Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club stores beginning Nov. 1.

A survey conducted for the company found that only 37 percent of consumers say they often recycle the cardboard tubes. Eighty-three percent of those surveyed said they would be happy to go tubeless if it helps the environment.

U.S. households throw out an estimated 17 billion (that’s billion with a “b”) toilet paper tubes a year -- enough to circle the earth’s equator over 45 times, Kimberly-Clark said.

Which, when you think about it, is a whole lot of … cardboard.

We've all heard about "the dog ate my homework” alibi, but less commonly heard is the old “my finger is stuck in a bowling ball so I can't come to work” excuse.

In a new survey out Wednesday, Careerbuilder asked employers to list the most unusual excuses they've heard from employees for why they couldn't come to work.

Here's a few of them: a chicken attacked my mom; I had a hair transplant go bad; and my foot is stuck in a garbage disposal.

The new survey of employees and employers also finds that nearly 30 percent of workers called in sick when they weren’t really sick last year.

The No. 1 reason? They just didn't feel like going to work. Others reported that they needed to catch up on sleep, or just relax.

The survey, conducted by Harris Interactive for job search website Careerbuilder, also found that about one-fourth of employers think more people are taking a sick day because employees are stressed and burned out due to the weak economy.

If you do play hooky without a plausible reason, better watch out. About 30 percent of employers said they checked up on employees when they call in sick, and 16 percent said they had fired an employee for missing a day of work without a good excuse.

On the bright side, more than half of all employers surveyed said they do allow their employees to take "mental health days."

The nationwide poll included more than 3,100 workers and more than 2,400 employers.

No, you aren't paranoid ­- your boss does think you're going to steal from the company.

A new survey from insurance company Chubb finds that 54 percent of companies polled believe that their employees will steal company funds, equipment, inventory or merchandise in the coming year.

But it turns out, those bosses are much less trusting than they should be. In reality, 30 percent of companies have had that kind of theft in the past five years, according to Chubb.

Still, there was some good news for employees - and job seekers - in the survey. A little more than 40 percent of executives who responded said they expect their companies to add jobs by the end of the year.

The Chubb Private Company Risk Survey is based on interviews with executives at 451 U.S. companies, most of whom had revenue of less than $25 million.

Here's a chilling thought for Halloween: This weekend's festivities will likely unleash countless clones of Jersey Shore stars Nicole "Snooki" Polizzi and Paul "DJ Pauly D" DelVecchio on to America's streets.

That's because Jersey Shore costumes are topping many retailers' lists as the most popular outfit for the Halloween party season, according to The Wall Street Journal (registration required).

This Halloween is the first since the MTV reality show about the antics of a bunch of rowdy Italian-Americans hit the airwaves last December. Costumes based on Snooki's poofy hair and "The Situation's" rippled abs have been flying off store shelves. They have surpassed Lady Gaga to become the top Halloween costume chosen by young adults aged between 18 and 24, according to a poll of 6,000 people conducted by Brand Keys, a New York brand consultant, the Journal reports (other popular holiday costumes this year include characters from James Cameron's blockbuster movie "Avatar," President Barack Obama, Iron Man and Buzz Lightyear).

After a restrained 2009, Americans look set to open their wallets for Halloween this year, with total holiday spending expected to reach nearly $6 billion, according to the National Retail Federation. Indeed, Halloween has become an increasingly lucrative holiday for retailers, with the adult costume market projected to reach almost $1 billion this season, surpassing expectations of $800 million for the children's market, the Journal said.

Seeing the potential of the adult Halloween costume market, MTV Networks launched its first reality-show costume line this year for Jersey Shore, the Journal reports, adding that executives have tried to reproduce characters like Snooki as accurately as possible (there's even a MTV Web page with instructions for how to achieve a total "Snookification" and "out-pouf the pickle queen").

Retailers who are selling out of official Snooki and Pauly D wigs are even offering makeshift Jersey Shore Halloween packages using skin bronzer, furry pink slippers and last year's unsold Amy Winehouse wigs, the Journal said.

Google is the top brand among Democrats, while the top brand for Republicans is – wait for it – Fox News.

Those are among the latest results of a survey known as BrandIndex, according to the trade publication Advertising Age.

The Ad Age story notes that some brands do well among both Democrats and Republicans, while others tend to skew strongly to one party or another.

Fox News and Fox, for example, both appear among the top 10 brands for Republicans, while neither brand appears among the top 10 for Democrats. Discovery Channel, UPS and Cheerios are among brands that play well on both sides of the aisle.

JetBlue was the third-ranked airline brand among Democrats but didn’t crack the top five among Republicans, the report said. History Channel ranked No. 2 for Republicans, but was way down at No. 8 for Democrats.

It is not always obvious why political partisans might view a brand like Google so differently.

But in other cases, the answer seems more clear. Fox News is widely known as a friendly outlet for Republican causes. Ben & Jerry’’s ice cream (which did not appear among the top 10 for either party), was offered as an example of a brand that has overtly appealed to supporters of progressive causes.

BrandIndex is produced by British-based market research agency YouGov.

To bring the deficit down, your own tax bill might need to go up.

The Wall Street Journal reports that a federal commission charged with finding ways to reduce the deficit is considering whether to tinker with popular tax breaks such as the mortgage interest deduction and child tax credits.

All told, experts say tax credits such as those add up to about $1 trillion a year. That makes them an extremely attractive target as the commission considers ways to reduce the hulking deficit. The aim of the deficit commission, a bipartisan committee created by President Obama, is to balance the budget by 2015.

But voters love those tax credits, and they can lead to the type of real savings that make it affordable for a mother to work, a family to have health insurance or a couple to decide whether or not to buy a house.

"These [tax credits] are very popular. They have a big effect on people's lives. You can afford the house instead of not being able to afford it," said Roberton Williams, a senior fellow at the Tax Policy Center, a think tank.

That's why Williams thinks there's virtually no chance House and Senate leaders would consider doing away with mortgage interest deductions completely. Still, he does think there's a chance that lawmakers would be open to modifying those tax breaks to save the government some money.

The current housing and foreclosure crisis, not to mention the fragile economy, means any change to mortgage interest deductions could be risky. It could cause home prices to drop more, and it could make it harder for first-time home buyers to afford a home.

"On the one hand we don't want to do things in the short run that will squelch the economic recovery," Williams said. "At the same time we don't want to tie our hands in ways that will make it harder to get our fiscal house back in order in two or three years."

“Been down so long, it looks like up to me,” sang Memphis bluesman Walter “Furry” Lewis.

The song was recorded in 1928, but Lewis may as well have been singing about the U.S. housing market circa 2010.

The headline on the latest monthly sales report for existing homes looks pretty good: traffic in September picked up a full 10 percent from the month before. On a percentage basis, the gain was spectacular – the biggest monthly increase in 28 years.

But that’s about as far as the good news goes.

The upturn – which still leaves home sales at levels 19 percent lower than a year ago – represents a snapback after a steep plunge this summer. After the government’s temporary tax credit for first time home buyers expired in June, existing home sales fell to the lowest level in 16 years.

With those tax credits gone, the housing market is again struggling against the headwinds of high unemployment, falling prices, a glut of unsold homes and a wave of foreclosures that shows little sign of letting up. Recent disclosures by lenders of a paperwork quagmire, along with an investigation by all 50 states into foreclosure practices, have further clouded the outlook.

Despite the September rebound, the annual rate of existing home sales was 36 percent below the peak pace in 2005.

“We doubt that (the September increase) is the start of a real recovery, which may now be further delayed by the foreclosure crisis,” said Paul Dales, U.S. economist at Capital Economics, in a note to clients Monday.

While sales bounced off summer lows, home prices have been sliding since June. Last month, the median sale price was $171,700, down 2.4 percent from the same month year ago. That’s six percent lower than June, 2010. With foreclosed houses weighing on prices, and millions more in the foreclosure pipeline, the price slump will likely continue, according to Dales.

“Prices will remain under downward pressure until demand moves back in line with supply," he wrote. "That's going to take years, rather than months."

The rich get richer and the poor get poorer, goes an old proverb. Now comes an anaysis of IRS data that seems to confirm it.

While the financial meltdown of 2008 dealt a big setback for both rich and poor, those on the bottom rungs of the income ladder were set back further, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

The economic expansion from 2002 through 2007 helped boost most everyone's paychecks. But the top one percent, whose incomes rose nearly two-thirds, did a lot better than the bottom 90 percent, whose incomes were up just 4 percent. The Panic of 2008 sharply reversed that trend - clipping 20 percent off the earnings of the 1 percent richest while shaving 7 percent off the income for the bottom 90 percent. But even after the market meltdown, the top one percent was earning 30 percent more than in 2002 - while the bottom 90 percent lost ground by 4 percent.

Over the longer term, the average pre-tax income for the bottom 90 percent is $900 lower than it was in 1979, according to the CBPP. That compares with gains of more than $700,000 during the same period for the upper one percent crust.

The richest of the rich - the top .01 percent - also took a big hit during the 2008 meltdown - which clipped their income by 25 percent. But that still left them 68 percent ahead of where they were in 2002.

Big losses in 2008 at the top of the money pile helped narrow the so-called "wealth gap" - but only slightly. That means the share of income flowing to the top one percent is still higher than it's been since 1929.

As another proverb goes: "The more things change, the more they stay the same."

For more graphs on the wealth gap, check out the full report.

The 1.8 billion credit and debit cards sitting in American wallets and purses are about to take a leap into the digital age, according to a report in the New York Times.

U.S. credit cards have relied on magnetic-stripe technology to store information since the 1970s, but soon these small, thin slabs of plastic will be engineered with batteries, embedded chips and buttons, the report said.

Citibank, for example, will next month begin testing a card that allow users to decide at a register whether they want to pay with rewards points or credit by pressing buttons that change the data imprinted on the card's magnetic stripe. Other issuers are testing cards that can double as credit and debit cards, cards with fraud protections baked right into the plastic that reduce the fraud associated with "skimming" (when thieves steal your account details using a small scanner), and cards that allow consumers to hold multiple accounts (corporate and personal, for example) on a single credit card.

These new technologies took nearly a year and hundreds of thousands of dollars to develop and could be widely used by mid to late 2011, the paper said. Much of the world has already moved to using more advanced credit cards. In Europe, for example, consumers use cards that use a chip and PIN instead of a magnetic stripe. The United States appears unwilling to move away from magnetic stripes, the report notes, and so card companies are extending its life by adding new features that work with it.

But even with these new technologies, the plastic credit card's days could be numbered. It may eventually be rendered obsolete by technologies that turn cellphones into virtual wallets, the report says, noting that Visa, MasterCard and Apple are developing this technology, although it will probably take a while before any one technology becomes standard across all phones and merchants.

Here's more on the credit card changes from CNBC:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

If you're lucky enough to land a job next year, let's hope it's as a business analyst and not as a receptionist.

A new set of reports from Robert Half International finds that starting salaries for receptionists will actually decrease by less than 1 percent in 2011, to the range of $21,000 to $28,500 per year.

Senior business analysts are expected to see a 5 percent rise in starting salaries, to the range of $66,500 to $85,500, however.

In general, the annual guide finds, average starting salaries for accounting and finance professionals should go up by 3.1 percent in the coming year. Starting salaries for people in technology professions are expected to go up by an average of 3.4 percent.

By contrast, salaries for administrative positions are expected to rise by only 1.1 percent in the coming year, according to the guide.

The salary estimates are based on the staffing firm's experience placing employees and analyzing work trends.

Want to know how much you may be able to earn in a new job? Check out the salary calculators for finance jobs here, for administrative jobs here, and for technology jobs here.

Related stories:

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Good Graph Friday: Too long without work

By Laura Coffey

Why give money away when you can keep it stashed safely in your own wallet? In our ongoing effort to highlight freebies for readers -- check out our regularly updated feature "The free lunch lives! Our guide to fab freebies" -- here are a few new examples of free stuff that's out there for the taking:

-- As part of the promotion of the movie "Due Date," Waffle House is giving away free waffles between now and Nov. 1. Why waffles? Apparently because Ethan, a "Due Date" character played by Zach Galifianakis, hates waffles, so his are available for your breakfast-eating pleasure. Just print out this coupon and present it to your server when you order your dine-in meal. Chomp!

-- Starting this week, Starbucks is offering all sorts of free access to normally un-free music, movies, e-books and newspaper content to go with the free wi-fi it serves up in its stores. You have to be hanging out at a Starbucks to score the free access. The offerings include Apple's iTunes, the Wall Street Journal, Nickelodeon, New York Times Reader 2.0 and all sorts of books. To learn more about the offerings, check out this Technolog blog post all about it.

-- Maybe you've always wanted to learn more about quantum mechanics but you just don't have time to pursue that physics degree right now. Not to worry! Through Apple's iTunes U, you can access more than 350,000 free lectures, videos and other resources from more than 600 participating universities, including Harvard, Yale, Oxford and Stanford. Growing numbers of universities also are posting vast quantities of course materials and lectures online free of charge via OpenCourseWare. You won't get college credit for dipping into these offerings, but you can learn oh so much without paying a dime.

To learn more about these and other fabulous freebies -- including free credit reports and credit scores, free ice cream, free restaurant meals, free car washes and free prescription drugs -- click here.

It was 0 to gone in 180 seconds. GM says its special edition 2011 Chevrolet Camaro Convertibles, retail-priced at $75,000 each, sold out in three minutes Monday after an appearance on TODAY. That's 100 convertibles.

Slideshow: Neiman Marcus fantasy gifts

New owners nabbed their Deep Bordeaux, "ghosted" rally-striped autos through a special telephone reservation process. They'll pick up their new cars in the spring, just in time to drive around with the top down. The cars are equipped with 6.2 liter, V-8 engines.

The swift sale of the autos is another sign that the luxury end of the market is picking up again. Bain & Co.'s annual review of the luxury sector, commissioned by Italy's Fondazione Altagamma association of high-end producers, recently predicted that sales of luxury items will rise 10 percent in 2010.

Vroom, vroom.

Watch the video below to see the Camaro unveiled on TODAY:

Amid all the gloom and doom on the housing market comes a pinprick of light. A new survey from the American Institute of Architects shows that demand for design services is growing for the first time in almost three years.

The AIA's Architecture Billings Index hit 50.4 in September, up from 48.2 the prior month. A reading above 50 indicates growth. It was the first time since January 2008 the index has edged above 50.

Why is this obscure index something to watch? According to the AIA, it reflects an approximate lag time of nine to 12 months between architecture billings and construction spending.

The index has been rising for four straight months, but the AIA's chief economist Kermit Baker said to keep the Champagne on ice until we see more consistent and sustained growth.

“This is certainly encouraging news, but we will need to see consistent improvement over the next few months in order to feel comfortable about the state of the design and construction industry,” said Baker.

We know all about the Oprah effect on bestselling authors, but now it turns out there's also an Obama effect - on fashion and retailer stock prices.

We're talking about Michelle Obama, of course.

New York University finance professor David Yermack calculated that the First Lady created a whoppping $2.7 billion in value for the fashion and retail companies whose products she wore over 189 public appearances between November 2008 and December 2009, according to The Harvard Business Review.

While that's good news for companies like J. Crew - and their investors - the research notes that some of that came at the expense of other companies that lost market value in relation to her preferred designers.

The Harvard Business Review has the full details in nifty slide show form here.

For more images of the First Lady’s seemingly effortless style, click here.

We know the recession has been hard on our pocketbooks, but it seems it also has been a blow to American optimism.

Nearly 70 percent of Americans either strongly or somewhat agree the United States’ power is fading, according to a new survey.

About half also worry we will not be able to catch up with rising powers like China and India - although the majority still believe America can accomplish big things.

That’s according to a telephone survey of about 1,000 people conducted earlier this month by StrategyOne, a division of the public relations firm Edelman, and released Tuesday.

Nevertheless, about half of all Americans believe they are living the American dream - and three-fourths think it’s possible to "make it" in America.

Despite confidence in the American dream, the survey showcased some of the worries about future generations after several years of tough economic conditions, a long war in Iraq and other challenges. Now, some seem to be wondering whether the old adage will hold true that each generation will be more successful than the last.

Nearly one-third of those surveyed said they think people now in high school will have a worse life than they have had, while only about one quarter think high school students will have a better life.

In addition, 44 percent think people now in high school will live in a world filled with more wars and violence than they have seen. Only 9 percent are expecting a more peaceful world for today’s young people.

Warren Buffett is one of the world's richest people and widely considered to be among the most astute investors ever, but even the Oracle of Omaha makes investment mistakes.

Buffett tells CNBC his biggest investment blunder was the company that would become the basis for his fortune, Berkshire Hathaway.

You read that right.

Buffett says he ended up buying the textile company that is now his holding company because he was miffed at the company's management.

Buffett said the vengeful move was costly, because for years he was saddled with Berkshire's textile holdings.

Watch the full interview below or read it here.