Back in the 80's, I lived temporarily in a country that experienced hyperinflation within a very short period of time. Gold was plentiful and people of all income level seemed to have access to a fair amount of gold, either through personal possessions or family. However, dealing and using gold as a currency was never an option, people immediately switched to using U.S. dollars (or some European currency like the Franc, Sterling Pound, or Marc). The government then started paying salaries in U.S. dollars, real estate was bought with U.S. dollars, industry and suppliers switched to dealing with dollars, you get the point.
What I see having a higher possibility of occurring is not a U.S. dollar collapse, but rather a Euro collapse, after all, Europe is in much dire situation than the U.S., now if hyperinflation were to start in Europe, I see the Europeans forced to switch to using the U.S. dollar and thus making the demand for dollars stronger, not weaker, and giving a lot more leeway to the Fed to not tighten the money supply, help the treasury pay off debt much faster. Then there's the possibility that a stronger dollar means that commodities fall in price actually. Could this happen, I don't know, but those who only view the U.S. debt problem and the monetary policy of the Fed through a narrow prism may be left holding the bag. The argument that printing money leads to a weaker dollar and that leads to inflation (or maybe hyperinflation) may be too simplistic in their views or understanding of the world economy as a whole. Would the dollar collapse at some point in the future, that may happen too but in my opinion, it wouldn't be the leading collapse but rather one of the last currency to collapse. I also don't see gold being such a great hedge, if there was a major catastrophic economic event, the world powers would get together, wipe the slate clean and issue a brand new currency altogether.
