the economic institute policy said not a cliff, not a slope, it's a fiscal obstacle course with a fiscal climbing wall, maybe a rope swing. first one to fall off the log gets voted off the island. i like to call it the austerity crisis because i think it's accurate. but at a point i gave up on that and stopped trying to make fetch happen. you can call it the austerity bomb the point is, whatever you call it, it's bad. nobody has suggested happy economic fun time because it would not be a happy economic fun time. the question is, how bad it will actually be. even with the clock running down, even if the clock runs out. the federal government has a great deal of control over how much paint is spilt by whom and when. the fiscal cliff could hurt a little or a lot. at least in the short run.