Money is, by design, worthless. Especially since America got taken off the gold standard & money printer go brrrrr. It’s all held up by our faith in the dollar, and the system.

A wise rich man would have plenty of stuff on reserve to pay essential people, just not in money. Maybe they could work in exchange for a year’s worth of freeze-dried food. A chunk of land & a house. Quality goods. Idk I just don’t think it’s as bleak as you say; we could revert back to a barter system, and people exchanging labor for [stuff] or a cut of the product [sharecropper].