200k in good quality under-or-moderately valued commercial real estate with moderate leveraging (say, 60% LTV)
100k in a hedge/growth fund with a consistent record. I know of one that has delivered 20% returns average for 12 years in a row. It's a computer algorithm based trading system with no direct trading control by humans.
100k in a contrarian play, like long japanese + korean small caps and short US govt securities, or maybe short USD.
50k in gold and silver (physical, not bits of paper promising it)
50k spread across a number of speculative investment ideas, including junior miners, maybe a promising biotech, some chinese automotive companies.<p>Things I would stay away from : long 'ordinary' stocks, single family home residential real estate in most places (except somewhere to live), cash or near-cash like bonds/cds, growth based companies, anything that is relying on government policies/subsidies to create a profit. Stick to modest leverage.<p>My belief is that we're going into a short period of deflation (<5 years) followed by 10-20 years of solid inflation as governments inflate their currencies to get rid of debt. You want to own something real that earns money (commercial RE), something that works off volatility (automated hedge fund), something that has low probably/high payoff across a number of bets, and something as a protection against inflation (precious metals). Debt is OK as long as leverage isn't too high (to weather the deflation problems)