More Chicken Little

The sky is falling! The Mayan doomsday prophecy was correct after all, only it was a few days short. On January 1st, there will be hellfire and brimstone. We won't survive it. That's the day we fall off the fiscal cliff, from which we shall never recover.

But is that really all that likely to happen? Will there be a personal and national Armageddon in the United States?

It's doubtful, really. The fiscal cliff tales of woe seem to be manufactured frenzy more than a serious threat to our health and well being. Think about it for a moment: how often in our lives have we heard gloom and doom, only to wake up the next morning to face a new day the same as always?

Quite often, when you come to think of it. Usually, in fact. This is a new madness, and that's all. The media drives the panic. The very same media which calls the frantic gun buying since Sandy Hook acts of lunacy. They need to take a look in the mirror and draw a deep breath.

This is not to say that the automatic budget cuts and tax increases are not threats to our persons and our economy. They are in the long run, particularly the tax cuts which are set to expire. But has anyone taken a second to think about the big picture? Has anybody asked whether or not the new Congress in January might, just might, mind you, be able to do something about it? So what if the Bush tax cuts expire? Can't taxes be cut later on? Can't spending be re-instituted if necessary on January 3rd?

Call us pie in the sky if you like, but we are, have been, and always will be, skeptical of doomsday scenarios. They tend not to play out. We expect that they won't play out in this instance either.

Take a pill, breathe into a paper bag, do whatever you wish to calm yourself. The high temperature on January 1, 2013 will not be 1800 degrees. Being as we're in Detroit, they may not even making freezing.