While I agree that this is a time to be very conservative, and that avoiding the stock market is an excellent idea, I don’t agree that one should keep a lot in CD’s or other US dollar-denominated accounts.
The problem is that the dollar is extremely vulnerable to a very large decline, due to the ridiculous trade and budget imbalances, which are closely related to the absurd mortgage and other debt loads in the USA.
So, what to do? Commodities in general are very risky, to be sure, as most of them depend on continued economic expansion in China and the East. However, there is one “commodity” that is different.
I believe a prudent course is to have a significant portion of your net worth in gold. As pointed out by Alan Greenspan (and many others), it is the only money that is acceptable in any circumstance. Every variety of paper “money”, such as the US dollar, has a finite lifespan. Eventually it disappears, taking the wealth of its holders with it. The same is not true of gold, at least in the past 5000 years. That’s a lot better track record than paper.
