We are currently in the pre-collapse phase of saving as much liquid assets as possible and otherwise paying down debt, in preparation for the collapse.
The Thinning of the Herd
Post-collapse we will enter the survival phase by which we use our powers of conservation and our savings to ensure that we come out the other end of this catastrophe, intact. Any head start is better than nothing. The ability to maintain optimism and otherwise prevail through adversity is critical, at all levels of income or wealth. Dopamine addiction means depression and 'self-abandonment'; a compromised will and ability to survive. The worst thing to do is to panic and make short-term irrational decisions. There will be plenty of other people to do that already. Not everyone survives what comes next. Not everyone will want to.
Finally, responsibility
Past the debt liquidation phase (which is absolutely critical to the survival of this species and this planet), 'this' generation whichever one survives, will finally take responsibility for building a new economy based upon long-term sustainability, wherein inputs equal outputs, economically and environmentally. The days of the multinational marketing shell extracting obscene profits by buying in one locale from factory slaves and selling in another locale to debt slaves, will be over. What the *new* economy should look like, is in the eye of the beholder.
Suffice to say that all of the 'new' economic models will seem to work for a while, but only the ones that learn from the lessons of history will survive in the longer-term. Communism, Socialism and Capitalism all failed for the exact same reason. They all seemed to work fine for a while, but were eventually hijacked to work for a smaller and smaller insider clique at the expense of the broader majority. They all turned into a zero sum game between the few and the many. Apologists would say they were 'bastardized' along the way, - ok, so what, who is to say they won't be bastardized all over again? Self-interest has a way of hijacking every model, so accountability has to be somehow assured. Under Globalization, that relentless erosion of the majority's well-being has been continuing for decades, but always carefully obfuscated from mainstream view. We live in a fabricated Matrix in which everything is made to appear much better than it really is. A generation of dedicated fakers and liars, no one willing to admit that the "dream" is not working for them.
Finally, let's keep in mind that there are many people out there who are all ready well ahead of the game with respect to survival. For them, there can be no collapse, because there was no bubble. The thin veneer of civilization will be peeled back in short order for all to see, and we can assume that the accumulated inhumanity, desensitization, and decadence won't be pretty.
Nothing can get better until it gets worse.
