Good article. Margret Thatcher said "The problem with socialism is after a while, you run out of other people´s money."

So far, we haven´t run out of money from people who will loan it to us, and the Fed is busy printing paper money. We won´t, unfortunately, turn around on the road to socialism until we can no longer print money (never) and people will stop lending it to us (almost never).

This guy is right. The only shot we have is for the Dems to pull the whole system down so fast that even the Food Stamp crowd finally notices something is wrong.

Let´s go off the fiscal cliff. Let the whole thing crash.

The only problem with letting the nation "crash" is that this crash is exactly what Obama has been working for. He has a reason. There is something he wants to do...after the crash. That´s the point of this exercise. How many of you want to see what Obama and his forked tail minions have planned for us....after the crash?

Left unsaid in this article is the hyper-inflation coming due to Bernake printing QE I, II, III, and now contemplating IV. This whole administration is full of morons.

By law,Bernake´s printing should be leading to inflation but it really isn´t all that much. The reason is the people benefiting from it already have all they need so you don´t have demand outstripping supply.That´s when inflation occurs.

The fiscal cliff is nothing but a DC orchestrated stunt to scare people into going along with adding more debt.Supposedly the latest round of Bernake´s QE is being backed up by mortgage backed securities and we saw how well that worked out in 2008.

How does anybody explain that most of the Black Friday shoppers fall into the poor category?

No, #5, the reason severe inflation has not hit us is Bernanke forcing the rate to very near 0% and holding it there. Inflation *HAS* hit us - food, fuel, clothing, etc. has all gone up in price noticeably.

The real fiscal cliff is the $225+ trillion in toxic bank holdings (CDS, MBS), and the $220+ trillion in unfunded liabilities like SS, Medicare, Veterans´ Affairs, municipal and federal pensions, etc.

When considering the three modes of government spending - discretionary, mandates, and interest on debt - the GDP already cannot cover just the mandates and interest payments. Never mind funding the military, FBI, DHS, etc., etc.

So now we have a semi-private/semi-government agency, the Federal Reserve, buying Treasuries (debt) and issuing credit based on that debt. We are monetizing debt. When has that ever worked out well for a nation?

Fiscal cliff? Yeah, we went over that years ago. We just haven´t hit bottom, yet. It´ll hurt a lot when we do.

WWMD? What would Mitt do? Faced with the prospect of said cliff, how would Mitt have handled it? Just wondering. I think he would´ve grabbed this thing around the neck and throttled it into submission. We´ll never know.

Excellent article. I agree:

[[[Democrats want to have their cake and eat it too. I say, let them have their welfare state and let them pay for it too. Raises taxes now, across the board, and let the Democrats start to accept responsibility for what they have wrought. They have sown the wind; now it is time for them to reap the whirlwind. There’s no point delaying the inevitable. Austerity now!

They broke it; let them own it.]]]

It´s all about who they can blame for the mess. Everyone knows the current course is the wrong actual course we should take to fix it.

"Here we are again."

Excuse me.....!! I have never agreed with the direction my country is going with the leadership we have. It´s not a "we" thing, it´s a "they" thing. And unless the Conservatives develop a spine & have the will to fight the good fight, our Constitution will be forgotten & our great Nation destroyed.

Another excellent opinion piece by Frank. He says, "It’s time we face where we are, not just climbing up the fiscal cliff, but long since toppled over it, with two broken legs and a serious economic concussion." I agree we´re over the precipace. The only questions are how far will we fall, will the country ever climb back, and if so, how long will it take.

The welfare state will continue to grow until the average person is required to pay their fair/unfair share of the cost. So long as the ignorant and not so ignorant believe someone else is paying the cost, the ruse will continue.

All I want is for someone else to pay for my cell phone, my rent, my electric, water and gas bill, my food, my medical care, and my car. Then I will be happy. But soon I will want an iPhone 5, a house instead of an apartment, healthcare where I don´t have to wait so long, a SNAP EFT card I can use at Whole Foods, and a newer car.

If we tell every middle class person their tab for the welfare state will be $1,000 for every member of their household, their attitude may change. That also means nothing for the kids for Christmas.