The dollar nevertheless remains the world’s leading reserve currency, with the euro in second place. Investors are naturally anxious to protect themselves against markets, including currency markets, which have shown such a high degree of volatility.

The Chinese, who have the greatest number of dollars in their currency reserves, have already suffered substantial losses.

In what amounts to a crisis of the dollar, the euro is in second place as a reserve currency, but there are potential threats to the future of the euro, due to the weak productivity of the Mediterranean economies.

I love hard assets… like energy, agriculture and metals.   Why?  Because there is a good chance that inflation is going to devalue paper currency around the globe.

“Investing in agriculture today will be like investing in the oil sector in 2001-2002,” writes Mark McLornan in the May issue of Marc Faber’s Gloom Boom & Doom Report. McLornan runs a fund that invests in farmland. Some of his on-the-ground observations confirm many of the things I’ve been telling my readers for the past several years.

The price of oil has to at least triple in the next few years. This could easily be your ticket to an earlier or richer retirement.

With dropping oil prices and the current global attitude on commodities, Horacio Marquez of Money Morning recommends this offshore drilling company as a top performer in its sector.

Steve McDonald of Investors Daily Edge doesn’t want to see you get ripped off at the gas pump again. He recommends two Oil ETFs that will play out as part of the “the best buying opportunity since the market collapse of the late 70’s.”

As you read this, huge supertankers filled with oil are moored off the coast of Scotland and the Gulf of Mexico. The question is why… and what it could mean for oil-related profit opportunities in 2009. I came across a great line in Barron’s the other day. You know all about bull markets and bear markets… what we have now is a “Jim Morrison market.”

It was cloudy in the Algerian city of Oran on Wednesday…and a fairly pleasant 14 degrees in the open air… But the assembled leaders of the OPEC oil exporters’ cartel must have been feeling rather hot under the collar. Since hitting a peak of $147 in July this year, the price of oil has fallen by about $100. That has put the oil exporting countries under a huge amount of pressure. And now they are determined to drive the price of oil back up again.

Oil prices have dropped 55 percent from their peak in July and they could go lower. That’s what you want, isn’t it? Cheaper gas and cheaper heating fuel allows you to spend more on things you really need – like your kids’ education or appliances.

“Speculators like you and I are bad. Really, really bad. You should hold your head in shame.” says Garry White of Smart Commodities UK. He states, contrary to many politicians, that it’s the fundamentals, not the speculators that are to blame for the surge and subsequent decline of oil prices.  He remains a long-term bull on price of oil…