That was a case of me asking a question while knowing my answer all along.
Really the only significant sum I have in the market is my 401k, and I've already lost about 35% of its value. What the hell do I care if I lose 10% more? Since it's money I don't need, it would be silly for me to guarantee those losses by selling now.
With the little money I do move around in the market, I have done fairly well. I bought Google in the $200s. Got Exxon in October and sold in December.
Besides, if the world does "end" and the financial system is in its death throes and the world is ending, then food, water, fuel, and land are going to be the only currencies that really matter. Anybody seen Mad Max? 
Because it's a lot easier to lose money in a market than it is to make it, and avoiding certain loss is a way to enhance your earnings. Mutual funds are supposed to do the buying and selling for you, but most don't even outperform the performance of the index.
IMO, the reason stocks go up over time is inflation, and nothing else. Most business profit at such and such a rate because there are limits to their productivity and business model. When a new pioneering business comes along- more of a generational thing, like Microsoft, that creates an exception for a while, but by and large all stocks move together in a market.
If you take the loss in your 401K now, that's not a taxable event, unless you withdraw money from the account. You sell what you're holding and put it into another of the fund's offerings within the 401K. That way when the market hits bottom you can repurchase what you had before and profit from the rise. If you do this, you improve your rate of return remarkably, which is the whole point of investing.
Long-term investments that are tax-sheltered allow you to buy and sell tax-free, so you may as well take advantage of that. Most of the time you accept losses within your 401k, but when the entire market is heading off a cliff, it makes sense to step off. There are going to be several opportunities over the next 10 years or so to buy and sell where if you make the proper decision you will increase your return dramtically over another individual who simply holds. There are only a few big days that occur in the market, where stocks really have a big gain or a loss. If you can manage to be on the right side of those more often than not, it is well worth the effort.
Eventually if there is inflation, it will find it's way into the stock market and into the gold market. Right now Gold is hot and the rest of the market isn't. It won't always be that way, but right now that is the way it is.
Just as in Mad Max, if the money breaks down enough, that's what can happen to a civilization. I doubt things will get that far, but America might look very different depending on what happens. It is good to have food, fuel and water, but as long as there is a perception of a future, people will still need and want to be able to store wealth in some other way for the purpose of transactions.
