Welp. It happens every year in the Fall, but it still makes me jittery. I’m a buy-and-hold kind of stock guy – a long term investor. I’m interested in 10-year returns, not monthly. Having said that, the stock market has dropped 2000 points in the last month, about 6% (maybe that’s why we call it Fall). It’s hard to stay on the sidelines and watch that kind of sustained carnage in one’s retirement accounts.

And with all the recent chatter – not all of it from wingnuts – about the US dollar losing traction as the world’s index currency, this is doubly alarming. The wingnuts say buy precious metals and short the dollar. Buy options on foreign currencies that will benefit from the dollar’s decline. None of those actions are in my comfort zone.

I will say IF (and it’s a large if) the USD loses its position as the world’s default trading currency, then the US economy is in for a world of economic shit. Great Depression part two. Ten to fifteen years of shit, no quick fix, just in time for my final days around these parts. Figures.

I need to think long and hard about what to do in case that scenario becomes more probable. Move to real estate? Follow the wingnuts? Go all-in on infrastructure/utilities (no matter how awful the economy, we’re gonna keep the lights and water on until we can’t)?

Serious research and thought required, when all I really want to do is play golf, read, and have a bourbon.