On the plus side: this is going to suck bad for Ireland, and frankly they have it coming.

So it is effectively decided then, even if probably a lot of politicians still need to wake up to it, the next move is the EU taxing payments directly when they cross EU borders, contradicting half the reason the EU exists in the first place, and probably in a system that'll make EU VAT look simple. It's going to be a disaster, but not easy to exploit ... It'll take the power to tax further away from the EU and even further into the countries' own tax departments, but of course that's exactly what's needed to stop this.

And the years it'll take to do that will mean multinationals get a few more years of minimally taxed profits.

I've felt some of the same. I believe what I'm actually attached to (both emotionally and financially) is the stability of the old system. As you say in a later comment, the value of the American hegemony has been in the fixed but flexible rules and the absence of any direct power politics. The market based economy and "American philosophy" has been secondary.

It's easy to forget that we used to have small skirmishes with neighboring countries constantly. My country (Denmark) had a war with Sweden every 40 years up into the 19th century.

We have to remember that a new system, possibly without America at the helm, cannot be one of power politics. We cannot let the paranoia of Trumps America dictate our politics.