The point where the dollar falls off a cliff is the point where predictions end, it's a kind of singularity.
Who knows what will happen when the US can't import 1/10 of what it currently imports? What happens when the imploding dollar throws all of the banks into immediate bankruptcy, not chapter 11 as there won't be the kinds of credit needed to facilitate that? what happens when at least the majority of the financial industry disappears? what happens happens when the large corporations can't operate any more due to financial apocalypse? what happens when the majority of service industries go to the wall? When the country can't import the oil it needs? Can't import the wheat it needs? Can't, in essence, sustain itself.
Dead dollar = dead banks and financial institutions.
Dead banks = dead financial system.
Dead financial system = dead economy in the US and major disruption to the world economy... and with that... the societal impacts are anyone's guess.
Property might be nice to have at some point, I'm just not sure what that point would be exactly? Where would you buy? why? Is there a possibility of ghost cities? If so which? Where will people run to?
Just a thought... The US used to maintain a strategic wheat reserve. The Bush administration (iirc) decided that interfered with the smooth running of the market and abolished it. The reserves ended this year. Dry shipping - how wheat is moved globally - has collapsed, effectively. What is that going to do?
NationMaster - Grains > Wheat imports (most recent) by country
Think the collapse of the Soviet Union to a couple of orders of magnitude and on a pretty global scale
This is a pretty apocalyptic view, but it's a pretty apocalyptic situation and I'm pondering my fears out loud.
I'll gladly look a fool in a couple of years if this doesn't play out.
('fixed atm' - i was trying to suggest that if you can refinance, get into a fixed interest rate if at all possible... and if any sort of apocalypse happens, it doesn't matter.)
BTW, it'll probably happen to the UK first. Family members are reporting spikes in the price of basics already... I don't know if any UKsians can back that up.