Without a doubt, the following article is more frightening than any bear market recession. If you haven't heard, there's apparently many more contaminants in the nation's water supplies than one might think conceivable.

According to the piece from the Associated Press, major metropolitan water sources (e.g., Philadelphia, Washington, D.C.) read positive for very small amounts of various kinds of pharmaceutical particulates -- we're talking sex hormones, antibiotics, cholesterol-lowering nostrums, drugs that combat heart ailments, depression/anxiety, asthma, etc.

Maybe I'm naive, but I was caught completely off guard by this study. Imagine tiny traces of prescription medications floating around in the water both you and I consume -- makes me shudder. And, yes, although I drink bottled water exclusively, this aqua source is not necessarily out of harm's way -- remember that a lot of bottled water might only be filtered from municipal sources. Also, the article says that water from wells might be contaminated, as well as water treated by home filtration units -- apparently it takes unique processes to filter out pharmaceuticals, such as reverse osmosis.