Happened in Turkey... 1983-2005-ish. Stock market went up over $2,000,000%... and even if you caught all of it.... you still lost 98% of your capital's buying power when the currency was devalued. Before their government officially lopped 6-zeroes off of the currency value, a cup of tea cost 3,000,000 Turkish Lira.
The owners of "real " property or production will do just fine. So if your trading cannot keep up with the market, you'd be better off just buying the index market of your choice and not worrying about it .
Thats why i bought three houses, its an insurance policy, no matter what happens with the currency, people will always need a place to lie their head, so even through bankruptcy housing holds value, if the shit does happen to hit the fan, im cashing out my property and reloading.
Real assets are the only protection against currency debasement. After TSHTF... RE, oil, gold, copper, water, etc... all of those things will still have utility and value in the "new" monetary world.
Maybe if you put Convert's chart all together you can realize what a mistake Obama has been. You will notice that the only reason Clinton didn't build on the deficit is because of the dotcom boom. But then his crash is always added to blame Bush even though revenue growth is steepest under Bush partly due to his tax cuts. But, one thing is painfully obvious - WE HAVE A SPENDING PROBLEM!!!!! <img src=http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/4fe280b96bb3f7ff2f000009-900/in-recent-years-the-federal-government-has-developed-a-huge-budget-deficit-this-is-because-federal-spending-red-has-surged-while-federal-tax-revenue-blue-has-stagnated.jpg width =500 height=400>
And, this is government spending and revenue as a percent of GDP. The conclusion on current spending growth is obvious. <img src=http://www.heritage.org/budgetchartbook/charts/2011/runaway-spending-tax-revenue-600.jpg>