US fiscal cliff deal?

[mantra]

What have the US been going on about for the last few weeks? Weren't they supposed to face their real financial problems and take action to avert it? Instead there are big pats on the shoulders for the boys and the share markets have suddenly become buoyant because they've deferred their problems once again.

Is putting off the reality of their looming crisis going to help anyone? All the world can see is a major catastrophe.

Do the US citizens feel secure, or are they so used to living with massive debt that it means nothing anymore? Other nations are forced to practise austerity yet once again the US skate along on thin ice assuming that all will be well. It won't be. How can the markets bounce on a deferment of a debt? Maybe this deferment is for the purpose of allowing the planet's wealthiest people to sell of their stocks before another crash?

The political feuding which spanned the Christmas and New Year holidays reflected the near impossibility in forging compromise in Washington, where power is divided between a Democratic president and the Republican House.

It was also a signal that Mr Obama, despite a thumping re-election win in November, may find it tough to achieve second-term legislative goals that include immigration reform, clean energy legislation and gun control.

The truce in dysfunctional Washington is likely to be brief, given the fight that will ensue over the spending cuts that now loom at the end of February as well as over regular budget bill extensions.

Those fights will be paralleled by one over Mr Obama's request for Congress to lift the country's $US16 trillion debt ceiling.

Republicans are already demanding concessions on expenditures in return for allowing it to rise.

The president issued a blunt warning after the vote that he would not play ball with Republicans by enjoining in another batter over the debt ceiling.

"If Congress refuses to give the United States government the ability to pay these bills on time, the consequences for the entire global economy would be catastrophic, far worse than the impact of a fiscal cliff," he said.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-01-02/u ... al/4450338

[Super Nova]

How they deal with the debt ceiling will be interesting.

The problems for the US are just starting to become transparent.

[freediver]

[Super Nova]

Love it.

That's some deep shit the US is in.

[mantra]

The US have been in trouble for years. At least there have been some tax increases for the wealthiest Americans - but that's anything over $400,000 a year. We're tougher than that, yet we can buy so much less for our money.

Obama has initiated some very generous study/welfare benefits and those who also get state handouts can live very well. If the wealthy only pay 18% tax - it's no surprise they're in trouble.

I heard on the news today that we're catching up fast. Our welfare bill almost equals our tax revenue, so anything beyond that is being borrowed, yet more welfare incentives are on the table for the middle class. Still they'll save a few dollars by reducing the income of single parents, but Labor has always been the same with people of working age. I don't know why they haven't introduced means testing across the whole spectrum of incomes - Hawke and Keating did.