A year ago, it was hardly unthinkable that a math wizard like David X. Li might someday earn a Nobel Prize. After all, financial economists—even Wall Street quants—have received the Nobel in economics before, and Li's work on measuring risk has had more impact, more quickly, than previous Nobel Prize-winning contributions to the field. Today, though, as dazed bankers, politicians, regulators, and investors survey the wreckage of the biggest financial meltdown since the Great Depression, Li is probably thankful he still has a job in finance at all.

There’s a lot of finger-pointing about the cause of the recession, but who’s really to blame? Money Central recently counted down a list of the top ten usual suspects. I don’t think they got it quite right, so I’m going to summarize their list, then share my thoughts on who is really to blame.

So you think it's bad news that a recession has been "officially declared"? (Turns out, it started back in December of last year.) Puh-lease. First of all, it shouldn't be news to anyone that the economy has been in the tank for a while. Unemployment has been climbing (from 4.4 percent in March 2007 to 6.5 percent now), and the stock market has been plummeting (down roughly 40 percent so far this year). Ouch!

Food prices are climbing, and some might be looking to fast foods and packaged foods for their cheap bites. But low cost doesn’t have to mean low quality. In fact, some of the most inexpensive things you can buy are the best things for you. At the grocery store, getting the most nutrition for the least amount of money means hanging out on the peripheries—near the fruits and veggies, the meat and dairy, and the bulk grains—while avoiding the expensive packaged interior. By doing so, not only will your kitchen be stocked with excellent foods, your wallet won’t be empty.

The recent economic recession has a lot of people worried, about their jobs, their businesses, their homes and their bills. When your income is dropping or in jeopardy and you still have a mountain of bills to pay, things can get pretty scary. However, tough economic times do not have to be a time of struggles! If you look for the opportunity in the middle of difficulty, as Mr. Einstein suggested, then tough economic times become an opportunity to transform your life.

Success has many fathers; failure is an orphan. Then there is Bank of America’s acquisition of Merrill Lynch, a deal skating dangerously close to the definition of failure after last week’s announcement that BofA would take $24 billion more in government support from the U.S. Treasury and Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., in addition to a $118 billion backstop for bad debts.

Two years ago managers of Nortel Networks (NT) unveiled a risky wager to transform the troubled telecom equipment maker through innovation and design. Their agenda included modernizing research and development, creating so-called future-proof gear, and experimenting with emerging technologies ranging form virtual worlds to Web 2.0. "We're not tweaking; we're turning Nortel on its head," John Roese, Nortel's chief technology officer, said last August, describing the changes underway.

You can afford your mortgage, you have a high credit score and you pay your bills on time every month. So why did American Express just slash your credit limit? Could be because of where you shop? A combination of the credit crisis and the increasing use of predictive analytic models for determining credit limits mean that it is no longer enough just to maintain a good credit rating.

Times are tough, money's tight, and nobody should be spending more than they need. If you think you've exhausted all avenues for saving a buck, check out our ten suggestions for saving money in a recession.

How do you inspire investor confidence when the entire economy is in the tank? There’s no magic bullet for nationwide panic, but successfully managing investor expectations can be the difference between survival and disaster in uncertain times. For public companies, that means being as transparent as possible while complying with SEC regulations. For privately held firms, your response should be tailored to the disclosure expectations of your investors, whether they are institutions or individuals.