Posted by LabourChartDude makes some appropriate points about bias in the private business and consumer surveys.
I am not quite as skeptical. While i do not take the individual measures too seriously (for the good reasons he states) i do think that they contain information and judge that including them in factor models adds information about the state of the economy.
ricardian ambivalence 
We have see some high quality blogs of late.
There is of course this one, we have kouka’s, labour chart dude, Mark Graph.
This is fantastic.
I agree with you on the surveys but then I think most people who have looked at them would be of the same opinion.