It occurs to me while reading Atrios’s tongue-in-cheek posts detailing some of the financial news coming tomorrow that we’re in some pretty amazing times right now. I don’t think we’re really talking, as a nation, about what it means when old financial houses like Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, and Merrill Lynch are either going down or are basically getting given away. This is pretty big news and yet it’s not coming up in the campaign, nor is it really in the news aside from how it might make the market move.

Key portions of the American financial empire are getting damaged, or are getting cash infused from Middle Eastern countries (Citi). This seems like it ought to be a huge deal, yet it doesn’t seem like it is creating the sort of serious thought and contemplation that it ought to.

Maybe it’s just me…

Calculated Risk has the summary of what happened today, and The Big Picture’s Barry Ritholtz has even more details. I would go to the main page of both sites and at the VERY least scan the last 3-4 posts on each. You’ll get a sense of what’s happening.

I’ve mentioned this before, but I’ll say it again in light of this news: I think we’re seeing a serious decline in the power of the U.S. hegemony that can be linked directly to the policies of the Bush administration. This is a serious thing, and a seriously bad thing for those of us who live in the U.S. The housing bubble, I think, will be remembered as the triggering event.

I don’t have the time to really study this and back it up, so take it less seriously than you take anything I write anyway. It’s just a gut feeling/read of the situation in the context of the larger history…