An Unconventional Guide to Investing in Troubled Times

This unconventional Guide to Investing in Troubled Times will help you avoid the potentially risky limitations of conventional investment perspectives and help you design an investment strategy that works for you and your household. The next 20 years will not be a simple extension of the previous 20 years. Everything that is currently seen as permanent--the Savior State, the financialized economy, cheap energy-- is visibly unsustainable. Status Quo personal finance strategies--"buy and hold" and global diversification--are doomed by their reliance on increasingly unstable global markets and a myopic focus on the rearview mirror, for the recent past is no longer an accurate guide to the future. Uniquely troubled times require an unconventional understanding and "tool kit" of investment strategies. This comprehensive guide offers practical ideas for everyone, from those seeking to protect 401Ks or IRAs to entrepreneurs to those with more time than money to invest in their future. This book offers a broad spectrum of strategies for investing your human, social and financial capital in low-risk, decentralized, diversified assets that increase resiliency and self-reliance. Topics include systemic risk, the spectrum of potential investments, gold, hedging, relative value, hybrid work, income streams, ecosystems of local enterprise and the essential tools of lower-risk investing.