CULTURE BUZZ: As the economy continues its death march, it’s time we all started tightening our belts. From eating out less to (gulp) “cheap” Apple laptops ($800!), Americans are making or getting ready to make major lifestyle changes as the stock and credit markets change wildly.

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The Best Links:

1. Apple Customers Cutting Back, Too: Only $800 For A Laptop
2. Neiman Marcus Customers: Totally Unaffected
3. Even CITIZEN JOURNALISTS Are Learning to Live With Less
4. Bye-Bye, Standard Of Living!

BUSINESS BUZZ: Sure, the Dow and the S&P 500 are down, but one index is at an all-time high: the VIX, which measures investor fear. As a volatility index, the VIX tries to measure the market’s expectation of change in the S&P 500 over the next month. With the market in weird, wild territory , the VIX has been going through the roof.

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The Best Links:

1. VIX Surges To A Record High As Everyone Freaks Out
2. Summary for CBOE VOLATILITY INDEX
3. Background on VIX

What some stocks that were worth $1,000 a year ago would be worth now, plus what you could have done with that money had you spent it on beer instead. The thing about beer can cars is that they don’t handle all that well.

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BUSINESS BUZZ: Dilbert, the Onion and even Paul Bernanke all called the current economic crisis long before it happened, though in very different ways. If the 20-something writers at the Onion saw this coming, why not the Fed?

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The Best Links:

1. Bush: ‘Our Long National Nightmare Of Peace And Prosperity Is Finally Over’
2. “Taxpayers will give us money so we can build overpriced products to sell to taxpayers!”
3. Bernanke’s 1980s Computer Model Predicts Crisis

BUSINESS BUZZ: Some of the best online explanations of why the financial world is currently going to hell. These are the clearest, cleanest descriptions I’ve found so far of what’s going on with the financial crisis: how it started, how it got this bad, and what it might mean. Please add links you’ve found helpful.

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The Best Links:

1. The 2008 Credit Crisis Blame Game: The Contenders
2. A Quick, Clear Definition of the Subprime Lending & Resulting Credit Crisis
3. The $700 Billion Bailout: You’re Paying $5,200
4. This American Life: The Giant Pool of Money
5. NPR: Planet Money