Bring. It. On.
So let’s just get this straight.
This apparently disastrous “fiscal cliff” will raise US taxes to a more normal level by worldwide advanced economy standards, slash the bloated US budget and dramatically reduce their deficit, and thus their need to go cap in hand to the Chinese for money all the time.
The whole of the rest of the world is taking a haircut thanks to the chaos a greedy Wall Street foisted on us all by selling houses to people who couldn’t afford them, thanks to ludicrous under-regulation cheerfully supported by most Americans under Carter and Bush. Tell me again why they shouldn’t now share the pain?
Someone tell me again why jumping off the cliff a bad idea? How come Americans aren’t running towards the cliff like a bunch of lemmings on crack cocaine?
At the very least, if it forces them to make some real changes, then this much-chattered-about cloud will have had a very silver lining. Not that this will stop the media from declaring it a disaster, and getting people yet more worried.
But don’t worry, everyone, they’ll cobble together some sort of looking-good doing-little nonsense to put off having to make any really innovative, hard or difficult decisions to deal with their structural economic problems.*
I see I am not alone in this assumption cum criticism of American lawmakers on all sides: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/dec/30/obama-tax-reform-balance-books
Interestingly, getting along for one in five Americans actually think the cliff dive will have a positive effect for them and the economy, too, as you can see on this chart which I found on http://scinvestlink.wordpress.com/
Washington Post survey shows some Americans aren’t too worried.
OK, so how’s this for innovative thinking? A new $200 levy for each gun in a household set against a new $100 payment for each unwanted gun handed in might be a start: I reckon it’d be revenue positive for the Feds and reduce the current population of guns from it’s current ludicrous level of approximately one per member of the population.
Oh and while we’re about it, can anyone whisper “cut the ludicrously high level of American defence spending” without ending up in Guantanamo Bay, as this excellent article points out.
Bah, humbug. Happy New Year, Dear Reader.
*UPDATE – er, yup. Expect to hear “Kick The Can” a few thousand times in the next couple of days. Happy reading.
YAHOO FINANCE http://au.finance.yahoo.com/news/fiscal-cliff-deal-just-patch-225254454.html
RADIOVICEONLINE (quotes various right wing commentaries) http://radioviceonline.com/over-the-cliff-senate-kicks-the-can-down-the-road/?utm_campaign=twitter&utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=twitter
HUFFINGTON POST BLOW BY BLOW ACCOUNT http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/01/fiscal-cliff-news_n_2393443.html
Related articles
- The Fiscal Cliff: Manufactured Crisis or Not? (crystalclearconservative.com)
Well, This Is What I Think 
I am with those who prefer to call it an “austerity bomb” rather than a “fiscal cliff.” The situation was deliberately set up in order to force lawmakers to work together to forge an effective deal. What a hope! Since certain people are completely inflexible and refuse to do what they were elected to do, it almost guarantees any deal will be a bad one.
There actually are some good Representatives and Senators in there, just not enough, and their hands are tied by the overwhelming majority of idiots.
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The problem is, entirely as I predicted, the real decisions in the cobbled together compromise just “kick the can down the road”. Americans need to accept – fat chance – that their taxes are too low to sustain their wants from Government.
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