Is it time to buy? Part 1

You know the saddest part about the credit crisis? The fact that it was predictable. Warren Buffet called derivatives "financial weapons of mass destruction." Many times in the past decade, more clear-eyed regulators called for greater financial regulation, only to be turned down by high officials entranced with free-markets ideology. But by 2007, some of the smartest investing minds in the world, like Warren Buffet, Bill Gross, and Jeremy Grantham, had put their money where their mouths were, holding tens of billions of cash, waiting for the crisis to unfold. I wouldn't give as much as credit to Nouriel Roubini, who really does seem like a perma-bear, clearly anyone who had listened to him over the past few years would be in much better financial shape for it.

So that said, since the data was there for all to see, how do we cut through the clutter in the future to make sure we really know what's going on? There's really only one - look at the data yourself. And that's what we're going to do.