US Fiscal Cliffffffffff.....

[Opsa]

According to Joshua Green at Bloomberg Businessweek:

"Immediately after House Speaker John Boehner's Plan B fell apart Thursday night, Dow futures plummeted and the media freaked out (Huffington Post headline: "END OF THE WORLD"). Boehner and his deputies skulked out of the Capitol, humiliated. His Hail Mary plan to create leverage for Republicans in the fiscal cliff negotiations with Republicans lay in tatters. Soon, his speakership may, too.

But Plan B's demise doesn't ensure we're going over the cliff–it simply narrows the options. And there are two bits of good news embedded in the failure. First, if we do go over the cliff, a resolution will arrive sooner than it would have otherwise. That's because Plan B's biggest effect, had it passed, would have been to inoculate Republicans against the charge that they blew up the economy to protect "millionaires and billionaires" from tax hikes. Now that they're vulnerable to that charge, public pressure will be much more intense and likely to elicit a quick concession.

Second, it's now clear that the only way to avoid the cliff is through a bipartisan bill that can pass the House, probably with substantial Democratic support. The GOP's self-defeating revolt will shift the center of gravity to the left. Here's where things get tricky: Boehner has said he won't bring a bill to the floor unless it has the support of the majority of his caucus. Lost in Thursday night's disarray was that the overwhelming majority of House Republicans — all but 30 or so of his 241 members — supported Plan B's tax hike on millionaires. So it's not impossible to imagine him gaining the support of 121 Republicans (he'd actually only need 217 because of vacancies) for a deal that raises taxes on households earning, say, $400,000 or $500,000, especially if that deal also contains cuts to entitlement programs and removes the dreaded sequester.

But gaining that support is far from a sure thing. It's what Republicans and Democrats are now frantically trying to gauge. If Boehner can't get a majority of his caucus on board, then he'll truly be facing the end of the world — or at least the end of his speakership. The conservatives I polled Thursday night agreed (contra some media chatter) that Plan B's failure doesn't threaten Boehner's job. But they also thought that if Boehner were to pass a cliff bill without a majority of his caucus, he'd be doomed.

In a drama Aaron Sorkin might have scripted, Boehner may soon be faced with the choice of holding firm and hurtling everyone into the abyss or saving the country from chaos by passing a Democratic-friendly bill with only a minority of Republicans — at the cost of his speakership, which (more Sorkin drama!)  is up for a vote on Jan. 3.

Either way, though, there's a little more certainty this morning that things will end sooner rather than later. So despite the hyperbole and market turmoil, last night's vote actually brought some good news."

[Griffin NoName]

I am puzzled by US potentially going over a Fiscal Cliff, but no mention of European/Britsh Fiscal Cliffs or even Hills.

[Swatopluk]

The so-called fiscal cliff in the US is pure Hollywood, i.e. show, pretense, exaggeration. It has no more substance than the actors give it. This 'crisis' could be solved within a single day (still in 2012) by simply passing one of several already existing bills (variations of each other) in the lower chamber (the Senate already passed one) and having the president sign it immediately after that. Even going over the 'cliff' would not mean anything provided another already existing single page bill would get passed before the end of January and become law retroactively starting January 1st 2013.
Much more critical is another artificial crisis, known as the rsing (or lack thereof) of the debt-ceiling. This too is just a stroke-of-the-pen-removable item but failure to do it would lead to an actual catastrophe and/or a constitutional crisis. It is expected that a non-rise of the debt ceiling, which means that the US have to default on their financial obligation despite not actually being bankrupt, would cause a chain reaction that could blow up the world economy. THE GOP/TP seems to be willing to not just shoot the hostages (if their demand that the hostages be shot is not met) but to blow themselves and everyone else up.
The short and medium term crises in Europe on the other hand are real (while in the US it is the long term that's critical/unsustainable) and not just caused by the stubbornness of some political radicals (this may change should Berlusconi come back into power in Italy).

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

I cannot say how delighted I was, as seeing this do-nothing idiot look the fool.

This has the effect of granting the Dems exactly what they wanted, and it's likely to pass, too-- the ReThugs are literally eating themselves into an early retirement.  2014 is not that far off, either.

I expect to see Boner in the Bone-Pile by Jan 5 or earlier.... I would not even be surprised to see him resign from Congress.  Couldn't happen to a more deserving #*^%#^, either.   Good riddance, if it happens.

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

'Boner' (the name adjust is quite adept) will survive this no problem, and chances are that he will survive as speaker as well.

The so-called cliff is a paper tiger (I think I said this in another thread already), it's bad for a number of social services, but this seems like the only way to cut military spending. I wonder what will pass on January (what if the baggers decide to hold any bill hostage, do they have the numbers to do so?) will they lower taxes to the middle class at the price of same/more military spending? The only nice thing about this whole incident is that however this plays out, the repugs will lose one way or another.

Unless the democrats manage -once again- to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. 

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

Indeed:  snatching defeat seems to be their #1 attribute.