  Is the present economic and financial crisis similar to some previous one? It
would be so nice to prove that universality laws exist for predicting such rare
events under a minimum set of realistic hypotheses. First, I briefly recall
whether patterns, like business cycles, are indeed found, and can be modeled
within a statistical physics, or econophysics, framework. I point to a
simulation model for describing such so called business cycles, under exo- and
endo-genous conditions I discuss self-organized and provoked crashes and their
predictions. I emphasize the role of an of- ten forgotten ingredient: the time
delay in the information flow. I wonder about the information content of
financial data, its mis-interpretation and market manipulation.
