Winston Churchill's shrewd remark spotlights the tendency of ill-informed pundits to dictate the tone of public discussion whenever knowledgeable opinion leaders remain silent. Today, this is surely a widespread problem. Apocalyptic chatter dominates the news outlets, and even well-meaning journalists, executives and investors struggle to extract clear signals from the background uproar. Sometimes the difficulty stems from an unawareness of clear historical analogies. More often it arises from the lack of a strong, high-level armory of facts concerning current conditions.