With so many things that have happened over the last few weeks---so many world changing things---it's hard to pay much attention on the more trivial irritants.

On the weekend that Lehman Brothers failed and Merrill Lynch was sold, I thought that this was a history making event; one that will be in the history books for decades. I thought it was the beginning of a new era.

However, I don't seem to sense that same feeling in most whom I know. The only folks who seem to have any concerns about it are a few guys who are in higher positions in financial/financial-related companies. Others in those same companies seem to view it as mostly a US problem with some possible affects on Japan.

Just last week one guy mentioned how he thought recent events indicate that Japan and the US have again reached opposite ends of what he called a "cycle" where Japan will be at the top just like it was in the 1980s. I never bothered to ask how he thought Japan could achieve that if the US could no longer borrow money to pay for Japanese and other imports.