The recent Economic climate has made me ponder the age old question: Is it better to have all your eggs in one basket, or to have a variety of different eggs in different baskets?

As the economic climate in the US continues to fall into a tailspin, it seems the only way to protect yourself is to diversify your portfolio.

There’s something to be said for affiliate marketing at a time like this: With no guarantee that any business will survive the rough economic climate, putting a variety of eggs in a variety of different baskets seems the logical choice.

I was reading an article about Yahoo’s CEO stepping down over coffee this morning; Jerry Yang – who also co founded the company is being branded the scapegoat by the Yahoo Corporation and its shareholders.

Granted, Yang rejected countless offers from Microsoft that might have helped the company get out of the hole it’s currently in (Yahoo shares have fallen 65% this year). But, Yang or no Yang, Yahoo was struggling to find a way to make money as advertisers scaled back amid a wider economic downturn.

In Yahoo’s case, People who had all their eggs in one basket are finding themselves fresh out of chicken. But, Yahoo is a tech company, so I suppose I could argue that it’s safe to trust a business if as long as it’s … an investment bank? A trusted brand name? A US institution?

Not quite. The United States is in the midst of such an economic recession that there don’t seem to be any safe bets anymore: An old Faithful like Morgan Stanley cut 4% of its workforce this year – in addition to selling 20% of its equity would be sold to Japan's Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc.. RBS plans to axe 3,000 jobs from investment bank division. DBS, south-east Asia's largest bank, is cutting 6 % of its workforce. Goldman Sachs is becoming a bank holding company.

What do you think? Does affiliate marketing diversify your portfolio? Or, are all your accounts just different branches of the same tree? Do you feel protected as an affiliate marketer, or do you feel the need to promote companies in different industries and across different verticals?