The BRICS meeting (Brazil, Russia, India, China) passed without fanfare, but some incident. The dollar didn't take a public hit; but the four emerging economies will try to eliminate use of the dollar in trade between them. Not a sudden death, but one of a thousand cuts, as the World Currency Watch puts it.
Predictions of the demise of the dollar have been around for years. The bailout hastens that demise.
If the dollar is no longer the reserve currency, the US cannot keep living beyond its means. As well as collapsing living standards at home, the American Empire will have to disengage. Its ill-conceived military endeavours in the Middle East are predicated on complacency about the economy, an ideologically blinkered attachment to free-trade at any costs, which the Americans probably thought would be a mechanism to democratise and westernise the world, rather than impoverish them. Ultimately the debt is about America's inability to produce enough to support its spending. Off-shoring has a lot to do with it.
How will geriatric, defence-spending shy Europe feels when the Americans take away their military umbrella?
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