Credible. Or Not.

Lately on our blog, we have been discussing numerous financial aspects in a global sense, including inflation, currency valuations, emerging market investments and economic indicators. We have used numerous sources of information. That’s what I’d like to address in this post.

Many of us are using websites as sources of information, and indicating they are “reputable”. Many are names that are familiar, and many are names that are obscure. It may be that some of these resources may lack foundation. The other day, I posted a comment and referred to a particular post on a blog, and it turns out that the post was just opinion, not backed by any verifiable source of data.

ROCK YOU’RE GUILTY!!!!

Yep. I screwed up. I had an opinion, found a website that reinforced that opinion, put a comment here and used that web blog post as validation. I did not do the research to find the actual data. So I am embarrassed.

You can’t be sure of the source of any information these days, especially what you read on the internet. There is almost always some agenda by the presenters, some variables accentuated during data collection that spins the results in a direction the collector wants. Even photo-journalists are guilty of this, perhaps inadvertently, but the photos they choose to send to the editors are the ones they wish to sell, the ones they know their editors wish to pay money for. But there are some sources upon which we may rely, I think.

The data that Wikileaks has published fall into the unreliable category. This information could possibly be classified as watercooler talk. Ask yourselves: did the Wikileaks data embarrass the US? Was it dangerous to American society? Did it endanger human lives? Or was it more a confirmation that the US diplomats were knowledgeable of worldwide politics, and pretty much on-target WRT their assessments?

Do you believe the Wikileaks data was leaked with malice, or was it leaked on purpose?

A couple of months ago, I discussed a security issue with a senior administrator of a local private school. A large school, with almost 3000 students. He told me that companies like Symantec and Trend can't be trusted because they have something to sell, and he puts his faith in not-for-profit organizations with .edu affiliation. I laughed at him, probably something I shouldn't have done, but in fact, nothing is further from the truth. I have worked for not-for-profit firms with .edu affiliation (specifically the Kettering Laboratory and the Sloan Kettering Institute) and their management spends far far more time wooing customers and gaining financing than the management at For-Profit companies.

To our blog’s credibility, I have seen comments on this blog, which question the motives of other blogs’ posts and data, and therefore the veracity of the data presented there. But also I have seen (and been guilty of) posts here which do not verify data presented.

In that light, I’d like to introduce a website which I personally have found to have foundation, and which presents verifiable data. It is:

http://www.imf.org/external/index.htm

I have found there a collection of information with which I am quite pleased. Here’s a really cool link from the imf.org’s site:

http://www.google.com/publicdata/overview?ds=k3s92bru78li6_

I’d like to suggest as comments to this post that we present websites that have credible data, verifiable conclusions, and valid foundations, to which we may all refer, with confidence.

Of course, we might start with Edgar. Edgar has nothing to sell, and if the data placed there is false, then it is actionable.

http://www.sec.gov/edgar.shtml
Another is the NY Fed. It may be argued that they have something to sell as well, but they do basic research and collect the data, and they make the rules by which the data is presented. Under that set of constraints, I feel their data may be believed. You may not like their rules