One point you raise, currency devaluation, is a curious problem. Regardless of your political views, nothing is freakier than the risk of losing everything you've got to inflation (or, perhaps stagflation). Of course, you can make inflation work for you instead of against you.

Big home mortgage? Big win if the dollar devalues. (You still owe the bank the same amount of dollars, but that represents increasingly less of the real value of the home, assuming you were smart enough to get a fixed-rate mortgage.)

Also, you can invest your money in a variety of inflation-resistant instruments, from U.S. government i-bonds (a pretty good deal when you buy them directly from the government at treasurydirect.gov), to multinational corporate stock (they make money everywhere, not just in the U.S.), to real estate (see above), to timber or precious minerals.

In short, if you've got even modest assets (e.g., a 401(k) plan), then you can take modest steps to insulate yourself against dollar devaluation. The only people who get really screwed are the poor, of course, since they have no investments. If the economy and government spending don't get straightened out soon, then you can easily imagine negative consequences.