https://hotair.com/headlines/archives/2012/12/05/the-phony-cliff-and-the-real-one/feed/HotAir is the leading conservative blog for breaking news and commentary covering the Biden administration, politics, media, culture, and current elections.en-usTue, 09 Jun 2026 05:24:04 -0400<![CDATA[But, as I among many others have recounted here and everywhere, economics in a sophisticated economy like that of the United States is half Psychology 101 and half Grade 3 arithmetic. But no one, including the learned debaters last week, at this point seems to have grasped that both tests will be flunked, unless the avoidance of the fiscal cliff includes measures that radically cut the deficit and end the unspeakable fraud of 70 percent of the country’s $1 to $1.5 trillion federal deficit being covered by phony notes cyber-clicked into existence from the Treasury’s 100 percent subsidiary, the Federal Reserve. No test of psychological confidence will be passed by this charade, nor any test of Grade 3 arithmetic either. The administration swaddles itself in a few weeks of a record-breaking rise in economic-growth and tax-collection rates. But this is only three weeks, and applies to a built-in annual budget deficit of $1.5 trillion on top of an accumulated national debt that took 232 years to get to $10 trillion in 2008 and made it to $16 trillion this year. (And there are still 5 million fewer people working in the U.S. than there were four years ago.) &#8230;]]>Wed, 05 Dec 2012 15:30:15 -0500<![CDATA[Erika Johnsen]]>https://hotair.com/headlines/2012/12/05/the-phony-cliff-and-the-real-one-n98034