Other Things to 'Invest' In

   I think it's unwise to simply buy gold and nothing else to weather any coming economic storm (let alone the one we're currently in). In addition to insane money printing, a problem in our world that won't go away is how we are going to feed so many people. This is a huge challenge not only because there are going to be more people, but because we are so heavily dependent on oil to produce and distribute food. If oil slowly increases in price due to the creeping scarcity of Peak Oil than food prices must increase correspondingly. Another very long-term issue is that humans have historically destroyed their farmland, as all traditional agriculture does, so the environment will be increasingly strained by the industrial farming methods we depend on to feed so many.

   In addition, as mentioned above, our food not only requires oil for the production side, but also the distribution side. Food is transported over long distances due to the industrial, centralized nature of modern agriculture. An inevitable shift our children will perhaps take for granted is that food production should be more local.

   It is because of these considerations that I would make the somewhat unusual 'investing' recommendation that you should learn how to grow a garden.