The big event was a couple of Bear Stearns (NYSE:BSC)hedge funds blowing up over problems with some of their mortgage securities. Markets were unsettled and the mortgage markets were especially volatile. By the end of the week, Bear had written off one fund and bailed out the other.

And yestereday, Jim Cramer -- whose show I have come to dislike a lot less than I used to -- reassured his viewers. It was only one hedge fund manager. And it got bailed out. At worst, it'll cost Bear a couple of pennies in the next quarter. Nothing too look at here, just move along please. Try not to look like turkeys.

But if you just ignored the events of this past week, a turkey is exactly what you'd be. Not because we know there's an executioner waiting around the corner, waiting to kill off the economy. But because there might be one out there, and ignoring a possible warning of this is unwise. Personally, I think Cramer spends a bit too much time inside his own halo effect, as described in Phil Rozenzweig's book of that name.

Cramer continued. It was only one manager. True enough. And he was an idiot. Arguable, but also probably true. And everything else is OK in the world. I found myself shouting at the TV: "How do you know???" He answered with his usual explaination. He used to run a hedge fund and he knows how things work. I guess his former status as fund manager allow him to know exactly what 10,000 worldwide fund managers are doing right now, and that there are no other bad apples, or bigger ones. After all, there was only one LTCM. With the right amount of leverage, it would only take one. Ignoring that possibility makes you another of Taleb's turkeys.

And then, he said something that really took the cake. He pointed out that the only problem was that this unfortunate manager had invested in 2006 mortgages. The ones "we all knew" were problems. All the other funds were invested in 2005 and earlier mortgages which had no problems at all. Again, I found myself shouting. "According to whom???" Apparently according to the same S&P and Fitch valuation models that failed for this Bear Stearns fund. But which Cramer tells us are still completely reliable for other ones.

Oops, maybe not. Another turkey that didn't become widely known until late in the day after Cramer's show was taped. Another victim of those same "turkey like" models that merely presumed the future to be necessarily similar to the past. But this time, Fidelity's National Financial unit decided not to be a turkey, not to believe the future would necessarily echo the past, and instead to mark down the positions and hit Brookstreet with a $5b margin call.

Does this mean we need to plan on disaster? No. That would be equally as foolish as presuming a disaster can't happen. But we need to allow for it in our thinking, in our positioning, and in our tolerance for reality. It's a subtle difference, but I believe it's the thing that makes Buffett different from the rest of investors.

You need a map. It's $2.95 if you're not a AAA member. You need to pay attention to where you park your car in a residential neighborhood near the beach. You need to be aware of potential natural disasters. And yes, you need to plan your finances in a manner that doesn't presume that the future is merely an echo of the past.

To do otherwise is to be one of Taleb's turkeys.