NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - The prospect of what would happen if foreign investors cooled toward U.S. assets is giving Wall Street the cold sweats again. Perhaps it shouldn't.

The scenario goes something like this: Thanks to the United States' massive budget deficit and current account deficit (that's the gap in the United States' trade in goods and services with the rest of the world), the dollar gets significantly weaker.

Justin Lahart, senior writer at CNN/Money, talks about a weak dollar and its impact on foreign investors. Play video (Real or Windows Media)

This may, in fact, be the only way to adjust the serious structural imbalances in the U.S. economy, but it could also be quite painful. Foreign investors hold nearly 40 percent of U.S. Treasurys outstanding, and a dropping dollar makes those Treasurys worth less in their local currency terms. It's also inflationary, which is bad news for Treasury debt as well.

Imagine what would happen if overseas investors started scuttling those Treasurys to try and get ahead of dollar weakness. The dollar would fall even further, which would prompt even more investors to dump U.S. assets. Which, of course, would send the dollar down even more. Yipes.

But Lehman Brothers global strategist Ian Scott has looked at periods in the past where foreign investors have had a less-than-friendly view of U.S. assets and found that they really haven't been that painful at all.

The sign of such disfavor -- a weaker dollar and foreign government debt outperforming U.S. Treasurys -- has only happened eight times in the past 30 years.

"One might think of these periods as times when international investors lost faith in the U.S.," wrote Scott in a recent note, "demanding a lower price and a higher interest rate in order to hold dollars."

Here's the rub: During five of those eight periods U.S. stocks rose. In only one the three periods of decline -- a 12 percent drop from the end of 1976 to mid 1978 -- did U.S. stocks fall more than a few percent.

So maybe investors shouldn't get their knickers in too much of a twist over the dollar.

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There is one other takeaway from what Scott found, however. During every single one of those periods where global investors shunned the United States, foreign stocks rose. In dollar terms, those gains were quite significant. U.S. stocks may not be a bad place to put your money right now, but investing your money abroad might be even better.