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It's very obvious that 
is circling the drain now, but clearly this didn't just happen in a vacuum. It must've started crumbling at some point... but when?
Some people might say it started after 9/11, others might say it goes back to the Raegan administration. A few might even say it started after losing the Vietnam War, or when they went off the gold standard. Or maybe even earlier...
What do you think? 
but we don't want it to look like we're just stripping the copper out of the walls, so we'll invent ever more abstract financial instruments to cover for ourselves and congratulate ourselves for our ingenuity the entire time