The Fiscal Cliff

The Fiscal Cliff.

Everyone's talking about it, but does anyone really understand what it is and how it works? What are it's concerns and its potential solutions?

Here are 2 reference points to get started:

CFR

about.com

And 2 opinion pieces:

Fox News

NBC News

While I have no control over how people post in this thread, I would prefer there to be, not only criticisms, but also solutions presented here. Hence the reason I decided against adding a poll option.

Let it begin.

1) It's more of a fiscal valley than a cliff.

2) Isn't this what the politicians wanted? The Republicans get the spending cuts they've been yearning for, but never seem to implement when they're in charge. The Democrats get increased taxes on the rich. The deficit gets shrunk by $600 billion bucks. What's not to like?

The shrinkage of the, as of now, rather fragile market?

Republicans have been telling us that cutting the deficit and government spending would improve the market. Are they now saying something different?

They've always said that cutting government spending in certain areas would improve the market. What this appears to be, for all intents and purposes, is an across the board cut in all sectors of government spending.

And the Reps get the benefit of not actually voting on tax increases so they won't have violated their pact with Norquist.

It is the end of your lousy "make believe" world (at midnight on December 31, 2012) vs. the other end of the world on December 21, 2012 as fully predicted by the ancient Mayan calendar...

Really? I've never once heard them put it that way.

Well, maybe not in quite those terms, but, as far as I'm aware, republicans say cutting funding to certain regulatory agencies, effectively ending them, could improve the economy by 'getting government out of X'.

Ahh yes, the 'ol get rid of the EPA argument.

The RED men don't subscribe to the same "casino" as the BLACK men. KNow thyself said Plato; but these people are fickle, and they shall without doubt make interpretations again with the politics lacking conviction and aspiring as false prophets. I conclude it would be better if They simply not know themselves for the interpretation.