Has the real estate crisis ended?  Well, okay, probably not.  But moving from November into December, sales of existing homes rose 6.5 percent, which at least provides a bit of positive news and a sign that some normal Americans still have money. According to the BBC, analysts thought that homes would sell at an annual rate of 4.4 million in December.  Instead, the exact figure reached was 4.74 million.  So expectations were beaten in addition to those November totals. We now have ...