Okay, I'm trying to be an optimist here on this site but you'll have to admit there has been some grim news lately; a looming recession, inflation, stagflation, a falling dollar and oil and gold soaring to record highs.  I mentioned it would be a great idea to get some help on your retirement portfolio.  Mine needs all the help it can get! 

MSN Money must have heard my plea for help.  Looks like Jim Jubak will be dedicating several columns in the next month to retirement investing strategies.  Jim Juback's Retirement Crisis: From Bad To Worse

But there are things we can do as individual investors to increase our chances of escaping the worst consequences of this crisis. Save more, of course, if we can. Keep on investing. And invest smarter.

In coming columns over the next month or so, I'll look at several strategies for investing smarter for retirement:

• How to put more of your portfolio in strong-currency assets.

• Where to find the stability premium that used to work in favor of U.S. assets.

• A new strategy that I'm calling "unfixed income" for finding better yields in a low-interest-rate environment.

• And, in my next column, set for March 11 (no column on Friday, March 7), I'll describe why, in a falling-dollar world, commodities are about as close to a sure thing as you'll ever find.