A special program about the housing crisis produced in a special collaboration with NPR News. We explain it all to you. What does the housing crisis have to do with the turmoil on Wall Street? Why did banks make half-million dollar loans to people without jobs or income? And why is everyone talking so much about the 1930s? It all comes back to the Giant Pool of Money.

The Institute for Crisis Management (ICM), an American consulting firm that specialises in developing communications strategies for crisis-struck businesses, defines a crisis as “a significant business disruption which stimulates extensive news media coverage. The resulting public scrutiny will affect the organisation’s normal operations and also could have a political, legal, financial and governmental impact on its business”. The idea that businesses face moments of crisis that require special skills not called upon in the normal course of commercial events is widely accepted. Allied to this is the idea that there are people who are especially good at handling crises, and that there are crisis-management skills that can be learned. Special training courses on the subject can be found in many countries. Crises are commonplace. The ICM puts their causes into four categories, with over 60% of them falling into the last category (management decisions):

People love to give each other advice. The web is full to bursting with all types of pseudo-psychological advice about life. The problem is, how much of this is based on real scientific evidence? Well, here on PsyBlog we've got the scientific evidence. So here's my top 10 list of what you can learn practically from the psychological research discussed here recently. 1. How to detect lies Lies are extremely difficult to detect. Research shows the average person barely does any better than chance. Part of the reason may be there's so much misinformation about how to detect lies floating around. Check out exactly how to detect lies.

Maps are from the USDA's National Agricultural Statistics Service. The average farm real estate value has increased by 85% in the last five years, from $1,270 per acre in 2003 to $2,350 in 2008 (see top chart above, click to enlarge). Many Midwest corn and grain states like the Dakotas, Minnesota, Illinois, Indiana and Nebrask have experience double-digit increases in farm values in just the last year (see bottom chart above, click to enlarge).

Simple is hard. Easy is harder. Invisible is hardest. So goes one of the many proverbs of our computer lore. As Apple found out last month with the MobileMe launch misfires, the lofty promise of “Exchange for the rest of us” translated into a user experience that was neither simple nor easy — in a highly visible way. Four weeks later, the service appears stable but doubts linger: Is Apple able to run a worldwide wireless data synchronization service for tens of millions of users. What happened and what does it mean for MobileMe’s future?

Citing expectations the housing downturn will extend into next year, Moody’s Investors Service downgraded real estate giant Realogy’s corporate credit and probability of default ratings on Friday. The downgrade prompted a sell-off Realogy’s senior notes Friday. Realogy owns real estate brokers Century 21 and Coldwell Banker, as well as a number of housing relocation and title service providers. Moody’s lowered the Parsippany, N.J., company’s corporate credit rating and probability of default ratings further into subprime status, from B3 to Caa1. “The downgrade reflects the severe nature of the current residential real estate downturn, a highly leveraged capital structure and modest covenant cushions,” Moody’s said in its report. “The ratings anticipate further revenue declines over the next few quarters as the real estate downturn continues into 2009.” The rating agency said Realogy may have to seek a waiver on its financial covenants in coming quarters, which could be expensive and difficult given the tough credit environment. Following the downgrade, Realogy’s 12.375% subordinated notes due 2015 traded down one point Friday, to about 45 cents on the dollar, according to Standard & Poor’s Leveraged Commentary & Data News. The company’s 10.5% notes due 2014 also fell a point, to about 62 cents on the dollar, LCD News said

America holds auditions for hot new models, undiscovered singers, and dancers who want to make it big. Now, Southwest Airlines is hosting its very own competition to find the next Blog-o-spondent for the Company’s blog Nuts About Southwest. Over the past six months, Southwest Airlines Employee Christi Day has served as the Company’s primary Blog-o-spondent, traveling to Southwest cities across the country and filming short segments for the Company’s blog, including features on various Southwest Operations and Employees. Now Christi is ready to share the spotlight and allow one lucky Customer to become the next Nuts About Southwest Blog-o-spondent.

BusinessWeek had a good idea this week: look at big metropolitan areas and see how the best-performing zip codes have compared to the worst-performing ones. Unfortunately, the final implementation is atrocious: it involves clicking laboriously through an interminable slide show, and it's impossible to see all the data at once. So here's an at-a-glance table:

Internet conglomerate IAC/InterActiveCorp, preparing to spin off four of its operating units, said late Tuesday it plans to take about $170 million in charges because the housing crisis has diminished the value of its mortgage and real estate businesses. The New York-based company revealed in a regulatory filing that it will have to write down the value of its lending unit, which includes the LendingTree.com Web site, by $100 million. Its real estate segment, which includes the RealEstate.com Web site and related brokerage businesses, will take a $70 million hit because of damage to their goodwill, which refers to intangibles such as reputation or perceived value to the market. IAC said the company had to adjust its valuations of the business units because their future profitability has been hurt by the mortgage mess and its fallout.

We've heard a lot about the "wisdom of crowds" in recent years, mostly in relation to Internet sites that let their readers make key decisions. Digg.com, for instance, is a news site that lets its readers choose which stories are most important. Then there's Yelp.com, which lets users review products and services in hopes of gaining a consensus. Now it seems that some of that Web 2.0 philosophy is rubbing off on more traditional businesses. Companies like Threadless, a T-shirt company in Chicago, and Ryz, an athletic shoe company in Portland, Ore., are making it possible for consumers to design shirts and shoes. Consumers then vote for their favorites, and those are the products these companies sell over the Internet.

Small businesses frequently suffer from growing pains caused by “the people problem” - too many tasks, not enough people. Making the decision to add blog marketing to your online strategy may be a great idea, but what to do next is not always so clear. To successfully execute your blog marketing strategy, you will need to have someone available to manage the blog. How do you decide if you have the resources in house to manage the blog on an ongoing basis? Here are some questions that will need to be answered before you can launch and manage your own business blog:

When Coke bottle glasses just won't cut it for safe driving, a futuristic windshield might do the trick. General Motors Corp. researchers are working on a windshield that combines lasers, infrared sensors and a camera to take what's happening on the road and enhance it, so aging drivers with vision problems are able to see a little more clearly. Although it's only in the research stage now, the technology soon will be more useful than ever. The 65-and-older population in the United States will nearly double in about 20 years, meaning more people will be struggling to see the road like they used to. GM's new windshield won't improve their vision, but it will make objects stand out that could otherwise go unnoticed by an aged eye.

How the couple resolves the issue could depend partly on the emerging practice of home swapping. Through the website Pad4Pad.com, they are hoping to find someone in Texas or California willing to trade for their 1,600-square-foot, four-bedroom home in a gated community in Highland. For years people have been swapping homes for vacations. Today, the idea of permanent exchanges is gaining support among disillusioned property owners struggling to sell in a glacial real estate market. Although the number of completed trades isn't being tracked, interest is such that several home-swap websites have sprung up in the last year and now claim close to 40,000 combined swap listings nationwide. Others appear regularly on Craigslist.org.

I spoke last Friday to the Pacific Coast Builders Conference—those left standing remain at the heart of a Perfect Storm. One solution to passing my 90 minutes would have been a prayer meeting. Passing on that due to lack of leadership qualifications, I decided, at the urging of the conference chairman, to talk about "excellence in tough times." I began with a list of assertions, which I reproduce here. The ones which were totally limited in scope (remarks about Barry Bonds, Sandy Koufax, Port Hueneme CA, et al.) have been excised. Though some of what follows is still narrow in focus, most of the "assertions" have reasonably widespread applicability. I have only lightly annotated my simple statements: **That which goes up also comes down. **That which goes waaaaaay up also comes waaaaaay down. ("It was in the Beginning and now and ever shall be. Amen."—maybe I could have led a prayer meeting after all.) **IQs rise as markets go up. (Isn't it amazing how smart we all were 18 months ago?) **Why have we done this s%^# over & over & over? **Why will we do this s%^# again & again & again? **The "madness of crowds" is the most profound statement of truth ever.

Along Australia's Gold Coast and across the French Riviera, they sit above the beach offering extraordinary views of the sea. In the U.K. they are palaces that humble the Queen's Belgravia mansions. Others range from landed estates throughout continental Europe to nature preserves in Zambia. These are some of the world's most expensive properties, and the prices are as unique as the homes. Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan's Aspen ski lodge lists for $135 million, while 6,000 miles away, a 64-room Istanbul waterfront mansion asks $100 million.