Wisdom-seeker wrote..

Put another way: even if we save ourselves from the looming stock and bond-market crashes, and we hang onto our houses, how do we protect against lifestyle destruction from dollar devaluation and price inflation?

Near as I can figure, you don't, other than by buying the stuff you think you're going to need over the next few years NOW and stash it away and hope it doesn't go bad or your needs don't change. Maybe keep some currency just in case we do get some price deflation. Karl mentioned some sort of financial instrument you can buy if you think we're going to hyperinflate, but I don't remember what it was or even whether it would be any good against consumer market price inflation.