It’s not just Main Street U.S.A. waiting to confront the repercussions of Washington’s attempt to bail out the battered U.S. financial sector. A panel of experts meeting today at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs highlighted the stakes for the global economy in the U.S. financial crisis.

David Hale, chairman of David Hale Global Economics and former global chief economist for the Zurich Financial Services Group, spoke of a global funding crisis in the past week. He noted recent government interventions (Reuters) to rescue banks in Belgium, Britain, Holland and Iceland, among other countries.

Hale said the European Central Bank will likely have to alter its monetary policy, because “with this much damage in the banking system, the European economy is going to be at risk.” He predicted that England will have to cut interest rates from five percent to two percent in the coming year. “Europe has found out they are in this deep crisis,” said Diane Swonk, chief economist at Mesirow Financial. “They don’t have the institutions we do as backstops. They need us more than we need them, and we need them a lot right now.”

As a result of the U.S. export boom in recent years, Hale said, the U.S. manufacturing sector “has not yet had a downturn,” but the global credit shock will likely bring about a slowdown in the global economy. He also noted that although emerging markets are still mostly strong, countries like Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Korea, and Turkey have all had to raise interest rates. ”

William Osborn, board chairman of the Northern Trust Corporation, urged the audience to realize that the financial crisis “is a global problem.” Osborn cited the recent government intervention in the second-largest bank in India. In “all the places where they’ve had big run-ups, there’s just this bubble being burst, and you’re going to see it play out,” Osborn said.

Either presidential candidate will likely institute a bank recapitalization plan if elected, Hale said. He called the shaping of new financial regulatory policy a “job for a new administration,” and said the United States may get a new chairman of the Federal Reserve in 18 months “who is not an economist, but a regulator.”

A new CFR.org Issue Tracker details the presidential and vice-presidential candidates’ financial policy ideas.