After the Financial Crisis, a Clean-Up That Changes Everything

By Michael Duffy

The dominoes fell one right after the other: the demise of Lehman Brothers tipping into the rushed sale of Merrill Lynch to Bank of America followed by the federal takeover of AIG. Then, the desperate credit crunch of Wednesday caused the emergency maneuvering by the Federal Reserve and the Treasury on Thursday and Friday.

In a week, the financial crisis of 2008 changed everything — and now comes the cleanup: if the administration's $700 billion Wall Street bailout plan is approved by Congress, the United States will see changes to its political economy that were unimaginable a week ago.