The End of the World as We Know It?

Maybe not that bad, but troubles in the financial markets are starting to cause some grave concerns with government officials. As if Fannie and Freddie weren't enough, over the weekend Merrill Lynch was bought (read: saved) by Bank of America, Lehman Brothers (all 158 years of it's history) chose to declare bankruptcy, and AIG (just the largest insurance company in the country) started pursuing large amounts of capital or it was threatening to go the way of Lehman (AIG's story is still developing).

Talking heads are using terms like "changing landscape of Wall Street" and the "end of Wall Street as we knew it". And they're probably correct. Now that Bear, Merrill and Lehman are effectively nothing more than memories now, and only two large investment banking firms are left standing (Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley), the face of Wall Street has indeed changed. There are plenty of things to argue about regarding the current crisis and these failed institutions. It's just a question of where to begin?

Should these firms have been bailed out?

Could this whole mess have been avoided? And who's to blame?

Where do we go from here? How do we avoid the same mistakes?