I usually don't watch television, and I'm selective about what I read online. I do pay attention to what's going on in my world, a small sphere that extends several hundred miles between my daughter and my parents. But, once in a while, I reach out to learn what some pundits are saying about personal finance. Imagine my non-surprise when I learned that some of their ideas were more problematic than helpful.

One issue that blew me out of the water recently concerned Suze Orman's idea that current mortgages should be re-assessed. In this interview, she talks about underwater mortgages, or mortgages that are not worth the value of the current mortgage price. But, she states clearly:

I really think we should have reset all mortgages, across the board, to current fair market values. It's absolutely nuts that some people bought homes and put a lot of money down, but now their mortgages are underwater.

Whoa, Ms. Orman. My mortgage value went up over the past two years, and I'm paying the taxes to prove it. To be clear, this radical idea about resetting mortgage values has a footnote that states “both parties should benefit from avoiding the foreclosure process.” In other words, home buyers would essentially start at zero down with a $150,000 reset mortgage, rather than start at the already invested $120,000 on a $600,000 home that would be reduced to $150,000.

Even if this idea pertained only to underwater mortgages, if you own a home next door to an individual who has a home value reset, you're going to watch your home value plummet. That's just how it works. So, you might want to get in on that game, too. There goes the neighborhood – at least for this year.

If you've paid $300,000 on a $600,000 mortgage in this neighborhood, I wouldn't be happy if I were you – although you might be happy about owing only $150,000 on a home where you previously owed another $300,000. The only problem with this situation is that your previous $300,000 investment would be lost – gone with the wind, to put it bluntly. Additionally, I know of few towns or cities that would appreciate a depreciated tax base.

While this article's author praises Suze as an advocate “for the people,” I'm not one of those people. Don't mess with my mortgage, as – for once in my life – I made a wise decision at the right time. Granted, my idea of 'flipping' the house has flown out the window...but this is good, as I've fallen in love with my town and my neighborhood. There's something to be said about a “sense of place,” instead of treating a house like a commodity. At that point, a house becomes a home, and you get to know your investment really well. Warren Buffet might approve of this concept, as he resides in a 6,000-square-foot gray stucco house he bought in 1958 for $31,500.

I know plenty of people got scammed in the housing market, other home buyers were over-confident, and the entire market took a huge hit. But, we make our choices – in fact, Suze says in that same article:

You have got to be involved with your money, youhave to have an understanding of person finance, youhave go to make sure that everything you're doing for you makes sense regardless of what someone else is telling you.

I'll agree with that comment. There are more points that I would nitpick in this article, but I want to move on to illustrate a point: Pundits are in business to make money. You can find hundreds of them on television, on the Internet and in print. The competition is tough for personal finance gurus.

What does a business do when facing competition? It usually tries to gain the upper hand through press coverage or through advertising. At the same time, that business needs to have a story that will sell – both to the media and to potential customers. Why advertise if you cannot promote something, like a sale? Why get press coverage if you cannot push a radical idea, such as the re-evaluation of all mortgages?

Sometimes, these radical ideas can sell that pundit. For instance, Jim Cramer seems reputable on the surface. He is a television personality, a former hedge fund manager and a best-selling author. He also is host of CNBC's Mad Money and a co-founder and chairman of The Street.com, Inc.

But, if you head over to look at Cramer's history at Wikipedia, you may learn that this guy thrives on living on the fence with controversial decisions and remarks. He creates stories that can intrigue audiences, but they are sensational and nebulous at the same time. If nothing else, his name has become more popular than it was a few years ago.

One story linked from that Wikipedia article, published at MarketWatch in 2007, remains online. Cramer is quoted as saying,

"What's important when you are in that hedge-fund mode is to not do anything remotely truthful because the truth is so against your view, that it's important to create a new truth, to develop a fiction.”

I can almost believe what Cramer said in that quote, especially when the pundit who quotes him states that Cramer has a “big mouth.” Cramer, basically, bragged about the ability to create a “story” to get ahead of the competition.

So, who can you trust for your personal financial information? Can you trust nationally-known pundits? Can you even trust the manager down at your local bank? My advice is to listen to everything you can handle, take what you need and lose the rest. As Orman stated, your finances are your responsibility. While she might have said this to ward off any responsibility for radical statements, those words are about as honest as it gets.