Over the past several weeks, I’ve talked to scores of readers on the verge of throwing in the towel on their investments, be they stocks, bonds, mutual funds or anything else. Some find it unbearable that the S&P 500 could fall another 25 to 30 percent, dragging everything else down with it.

For others, it’s the fear that the US economy is sinking inexorably into a greater depression. And still others are worried that President Obama and the Democratic Congress are blowing it when it comes to handling the nation’s economic problems.

In my view, it’s absurd to judge a new president as a success or failure after barely a month in office. But the first two concerns are very real. Market history shows that stocks don’t bottom in a bear market until there’s some clear visibility on how bad things are going to get in the real economy. And unfortunately, it doesn’t look like we’re there yet.

To be sure, there are some encouraging signs. For one thing, a number of businesses continue to navigate the crisis quite well, by virtue of light leverage and occupying relatively recession resistant niches.

That, happily, is true of the companies in our New World 3.0 Portfolio, which remains up roughly 15 percent since its Sept. 22, 2008 inception, versus a more than 40 percent loss in the S&P 500. Good companies backed by strong businesses haven’t been immune from the selling. But they are making it through as businesses, and that means they’ll be among the first to recover when the cycle turns, as has been the case in the aftermath of every bear market in history.

The global banking system remains very weak. But even in the US–the epicenter of the meltdown–there are pockets of strength, notably the small deposit-based banks. Moreover, credit spreads have begun to contract sharply.

A-rated electric utilities, for example, can again borrow at 200 to 250 basis points over Treasury yields, versus paying nearly 600 basis points just a couple months ago. And we’re seeing more credit agreements rolled over at very favorable rates, as banks unfreeze lending to those with sound finances.

Until it passed Congress, the promise of President Obama’s stimulus package was a major prop to the stock market, then being buffeted by a steady flow of lousy economic news. The optimism was based not only on the sheer amount of money that would enter the economy, but on the implicit pledge it conveyed from government to do whatever it takes to revive the economy.

Ironically, since then the unprecedented USD773 billion in new spending has been fueling runaway pessimism. Perhaps whipped up by the scream-fests on “investment” television and/or partisan political feelings, many now seem to believe the package is the harbinger of a dangerous new period of socialism. Some fear Washington will “nationalize” banks and then move on to other industries, raising taxes on anyone prosperous in the process.

To these people, my answer is threefold. First, we don’t really know what the new administration is going to do after barely a month in office. We do know that the president has appointed mainly seasoned political veterans to cabinet positions who are considered centrists. A few listen-ins on C-SPAN confirm the president’s apparent governing style, i.e. basically to get a lot of people of different backgrounds, expertise and persuasions into a room and keep them there until they hash out something that makes sense. That incidentally is pretty much what community organizers do.

We also know that administration officials have stated repeatedly that they don’t want a government takeover of the banking system, and that any institution they’re forced to seize will be returned to the private sector as soon as possible. As I said, time will tell. But where’s the evidence now that the Obama administration wants a government-run financial system? In fact, doing so would take a major new bureaucracy and leave the budget busted for years, which would be sharply at odds with the president’s stated promise of cutting the deficit in half by 2012.

Second, not nearly enough time has elapsed for the Federal Reserve’s rate cuts and the capital infused to the banks to make its way through the system, let alone for stimulus package money to do so. Adding everything up, there’s a flood of money nearly half of annual GDP starting to make its way through the system.

That certainly makes me nervous about future inflation. But that won’t happen until the economy revives. Meanwhile, proclaiming the spending failed as a booster of growth at this point is like standing a mile downriver from a dam at the same time water is being released and asserting the river level’s not going to rise.

Maybe the critics are right and the flood of money won’t do anything. But we won’t know that for at least several more months. Again, let’s let the numbers be the judge of success or failure, not screaming emotions and political biases. That means allowing some time for these actions to play out.

Third, and most important, let’s not give up on companies that are still performing well as businesses just because we fear what the future might bring. Market history shows that stocks backed by strong businesses rally sharply when buyers return, and that great companies always erase bear market losses and then some.

The Dow Jones Utility Average, for example, fell nearly 60 percent from early 2001 to late 2002. That induced many investors to swear off utilities all together. But they surely came to regret it as the DJUA eventually more than tripled off its lows, doubling even from the previous bull market peak in late 2000.

That which survives is always stronger for the experience. Some of our picks in New World 3.0 may falter. But let’s wait and see if they do–in the numbers–before we pronounce them dead. That may be hard to do in the emotion of this particularly charged moment. But it’s absolutely essential to surviving this, one of the most difficult markets in memory, and coming out the other side in good shape to profit from the recovery to follow.