As I follow economic developments across the globe, I am always on the lookout for novel insights that buck conventional wisdom. And I continue to be astonished at how some of the leading minds across a wide range of fields not only buy into but feed the media's current agenda and spin on the issues of the day. The facts are only a mouse click away. But with everyone reading the same headlines, you need to actively look and dig deep to find something original. Here I've collected six myths and realities that challenge the current conventional spin on the state of the global economic landscape.

1. Myth: The collapse of subprime loans has destroyed more economic wealth more quickly than any other financial event in history. Nothing even comes close.

Dig into JP Morgan's ADR website, and you can find some unexpected trends dominating the most popular ADRs. For all the focus on emerging markets, the most widely held companies by dollar value and number of investors are some of the largest and best known foreign companies in the world. And almost all are located in developed markets. Another surprise: the lists are also dominated by three sectors: telecommunications, natural resources, and pharmaceuticals.

I. Most widely held Depository Receipts By Dollar Value

Although little known by U.S.consumers,Tesco (TSCDY.PK) is one of the most powerful retail brand names on the planet.

Tesco is not only the largest British retailer but also the fourth-largest retailer in the world, behind Wal-Mart (WMT), Carrefour (CA) of France, and The Home Depot (HD). Tesco is a behemoth that generated almost $80 billion in sales and just under $5 billion in net profit last year.That still makes it significantly smaller than the $312 billion in revenue generated by Wal-Mart in twice as many stores. But Tesco's market share of 31.7% in the United Kingdom would make Wal-Mart turn green with envy. Across all categories,over £1 in every £8 of U.K.retail sales is spent at Tesco.

With its stock up over 74x fold since its IPO in 1990, Israeli generic pharmaceutical manufacturer Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. (TEVA) is the "Babe Ruth" of the ADR world. The world's biggest maker of generic drugs recently increased its 2007 profit forecast after announcing it will start selling a copycat version of Wyeth's heartburn medicine Protonix.

With Vladimir Putin's face gracing newsstands across the country as Time magazine's 2007 "Person of the Year", we are reminded that it's been nasty Russia, rather than relentless China that has been the single best global investment market in the global stock (and ADR) universe. Despite the pervasive corruption, oppressive anti-democratic politics, and the collapse of its economy that unleashed the financial crisis of 1998, Russia has been a stunning investment opportunity over the past decade. Since bottoming in August of 1998, the RTS index has soared almost 24x. With economic growth exceeding 6% in each of the last six years, and an economy heavily leveraged to the commodity boom, Russia as a play on undervalued natural resources is an investment opportunity of the past. In less than a decade, natural gas giant Gazprom (OGZPY.PK) went from obscurity to one of the 10 largest companies in the world, as measured by market capitalization. Yet with the Russian market lagging its BRIC rivals in 2007, a market did offer pockets of opportunity in the telecom and steel sector this year.

Although Russian companies have been tapping the London stock market to raise capital, there are plenty of opportunities for U.S. retail investors to get in on the Russian boom with the following ADRs and sectors (ranked here by market capitalization):

Mr. Market is at it yet again. Last week, he was euphoric, as global stocks were breaking through new record highs. Five days later, he's wringing his hands about the credit crunch as global markets once again have caught the jitters. Yet, it's precisely at times like this that cool heads prevail -- and a longer-term perspective is key. And that's exactly what Deborah Owen -- managing director of Investment Research of Cambridge [IRC] -- provided when she spoke recently at the London Junto.

Founded in 1945, IRC was one of the first companies in the United Kingdom to specialize in technically-based research and it has the ear of some of the most sophisticated global investors in the world. Deborah Owen also is co-author (with Robin Griffiths) of Mapping the Markets, published by the Economist in 2006.

In the tech boom, it was the "Four Horsemen" -- Microsoft (MSFT), Intel (INTC), Dell (DELL) and Cisco (CSCO) -- that were set to dominate the world's economic future. A decade later, the influence of these tech titans has been dwarfed by what McKinsey Global Institute's new study has dubbed the four New Power Brokers -- the rise of large pools of new capital that are rapidly re-shaping the global financial landscape. By the end of 2006, these four New Power Brokers -- petrodollar investors, Asian central banks, hedge funds, and private equity -- collectively had amassed $8.4 trillion in assets. That's roughly $1 of every $20 in the global financial system -- and triple what they held in 2000. At current growth rates, the New Power Brokers could collectively control assets worth $20.7 trillion by 2012. Not since the Japanese bought Rockefeller Center in New York City during 1989 have large pools of newly emerging capital aroused such unease among the Western world's financial establishment.

The New Global Power Brokers: Who Are They?

As George Bernard Shaw observed: "All professions are conspiracies against the laity." That observation applies particularly to the mysterious and arcane world of quantitative trading.

The Halftime Report: "Old" and "New" Europe

The Global Shuffle: The Changing Face of the Global Economy

The Coming Market Crash: Today's Bubbles

Silver does have its unique characteristics. Of the 92 naturally occurring elements, it's the best conductor of both heat and electricity, as well as the most reflective and the second-most ductile and malleable. Unlike gold -- where virtually all of the metal ever mined still exists -- most of the silver used in industry is consumed. Despite its widespread uses, the silver market is surprisingly small. There are only a few hundred million ounces of silver actively traded around the world. By contrast, gold trades at 2.5 billion ounces. Trading mere 1 million ounces of silver can move the entire market.

But this unwanted stepchild has its Cinderella moments. Most notable was the ill-fated attempt the Hunt brothers made to corner the silver market during the late 1970s, causing the price to spike in 1980 to $49.45 per ounce. Then in 1997, Warren Buffett purchased 130 million ounces of silver at $4.40 per ounce. His rationale was simple as it was compelling: silver demand had been covered by drawdowns from the existing stockpiles and supply was simply not catching up. The price of silver soared 50% on the back of the endorsement by the Oracle of Omaha. But Buffett exited the position within a few years and today Berkshire Hathaway has no positions in silver.

The Next China: "Can Any Other Country 'Do a China?'"

Although Krugman cited Business Week, the Economist has had its own share of flops -- including a cover story in the late 1990s that seriously analyzed the possibility of oil for $5 a barrel. But it's Business Week's famous 1979 cover, "The Death of Equities," that is a textbook case of the media getting it wrong. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was at 800 back then. Yesterday, it closed at over 13,553. But it's hard to beat Time magazine for getting it right (or wrong). Time anointed Amazon (AMZN) CEO Jeff Bezos as its "Man of the Year" at the end of 1999. The Internet bubble was at its peak and Amazon's stock was near its high of $113. Within 12 months, Amazon closed 2000 under $16 -- an 86% drop.

Investing in Russia: The Court of Tsar Putin

The Indian stock market also has been red hot. Investors who have stuck with it through Mumbai's occasional hiccups have more than doubled their money over the last two years.

And that return doesn't even reflect the extra gains that U.S. dollar investors have enjoyed in currency appreciation. Thanks to a 9% rise in the rupee against the dollar over the past two months, India just joined the list of countries with trillion-dollar stock markets.

The World's Biggest Casino: The Rules of The Game

Positive sentiment abounds. Vernon Smith, a Nobel Laureate economist, is putting his money into biotech start-ups. Jeremy Siegel, of the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, asserts risk premium for stocks has fallen and that stocks should be valued 25% higher than today's levels. Louise Yamada, the former head of technical research at Citigroup's brokerage arm, forecasted the Dow climbing to 16,000 and ominously summed the bulls' sentiment in a recent issue of the Wall Street Journal: "[i]t really is different this time."

Here are my five favorite megatrends as I presented them to my audiences at the Money Show in Las Vegas this week.

Not that my neighbors in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea will be taking to the streets with pitchforks anytime soon. But the knock-on effects of such substantial increases on the less snazzy parts of the world are more serious. When the price of bread increased in Poland in the 1980s, it led to rioting in the streets. The price of onions has toppled governments in India. Just last month, riots broke out in Mexico when tortilla prices jumped 60%.