Recent turmoil....what to do??

Events of the past few weeks have been unprecedented, and understandably make any investor very nervous....here are some ideas.......

• Initiate or add to positions in Berkshire Hathaway. There is simply no one better than Warren Buffett to navigate the next few years successfully. Berkshire's balance sheet at this point is better than the government's, and as the only AAA-rated company with significant liquidity, Buffett is in his element and can cherrypick assets like the recent buy of Constellation Energy, which was purchased for at a significant discount to book value.
• Gold stocks or ETF's should be a good hedge against a drop in the dollar, as the recent rescues will involve running the printing presses flat out. Some stocks include: Barrick Gold (ABX), AUY, Goldfields (GFI), Goldcorp (GG), Lihir Gold (LIHR), GSS, Newmont Mining (NEM), and an interesting ETF is GDX. Mining stocks moved significantly lower this summer when gold prices dropped (more on a % basis), but have since recovered. It is for this reason that mining stocks look somewhat more attractive than gold itself, which can be purchased thru the GLD ETF. Note that buying the GLD ETF is considered the same as owning a collectible, so the long term tax rate is higher, 28% vs. 15%. Finally, South African gold stocks are somewhat less attractive than those located elsewhere such as Canada or Indonesia, the reason is that production has been constrained the last year because of lack of power.