Amazing interview with Eugene Fama who doesn't believe the present crisis is due to the bursting of a bubble in housing:  "That’s where economics has always broken down. We don’t know what causes recessions. Now, I’m not a macroeconomist so I don’t feel bad about that. (Laughs again.) We’ve never known. Debates go on to this day about what caused the Great Depression. Economics is not very good at explaining swings in economic activity."  (Link found on Paul Krugman's blog. )

And an interesting bit about consumption and healthcare from something called Left Business Observer (link found on Brad Delong's blog).  The basic point is that of the six percentage point rise in what the national-income accounts categorize as consumption, as a share of GDP (from around 64 in the 80's to around 70% in 2007 and 2008), about four percentage points are in health care.