what to do if you have only cash?
mechanical_fish: I recommend this book:William Bernstein, The Four Pillars of Investing.(I also read Andrew Tobias' book, which is decent enough, although he's more of a light read.)The super-short version: Index funds.The Impatient Person's version: First, pay off all consumer debt (credit cards and car loans) and amass a pile of emergency cash equal to three to six months' living expenses. Anything extra after that goes: one third in a whole-market domestic stock index fund, from Vanguard or Fidelity if you're in the USA (an S&P500 fund is a bearable approximation), one third in an international stock index fund with low fees; one third in bonds. If you can figure out how to buy bonds denominated in another currency, that might be nice, but watch out for the fees.Better, however, to just read the book, which discusses the principle of diversification and drills you on basic skills (distrust most financial industry pros; don't pretend that you or anybody else can reliably pick individual stocks; don't panic in every bear market because the darned things happen on a regular basis; etc.)Don't put undue faith in gold. And don't feel that you have to go crazy buying consumer goods before the prices go up: At the moment, we're as likely to have a period of severe price deflation as anything else. Just look at what the sag in the economy has done to the price of gas, and everything connected to it.