The financial markets in a tailspin as  pundits and  government prognosticate recession, or should I say the "R" word because avoiding the word recession will somehow prevent the economy from stalling out. Virtually everyone that speaks about issues regarding the economy has an agenda. Let's first start with the government wonks that have an obligation to say nothing bad about the economy for fear of embarrassing the current administration. It's funny, because rising unemployment, rising inflation, and sky high energy prices do little to change the government line.

Next we have the parade of so called experts on the financial networks that must defend their positions. Imagine one of these so called experts is long financials in the middle of the sub-prime debacle, the expert will no doubt explain the incredible value in such equities and will throw in how its a long term play. They are convincing but think about who pays these experts.

You truly get nothing free. The only person you can trust is yourself. If one keeps an eye out on the major economic factors that are neatly quantified for us on practically a daily basis, you will know the raw data that is not hard to understand. It really boils down to healthy levels of employment and stable inflationary pressures. Search economic reports in your favorite search engine and learn the truth about the economy. Here are my favorite websites to get this information. www.economicreporter.com
online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/b-econoday.htm