The fiscal cliff is a diversion, designed by politicians to conceal their inability to come to grips with the fact that they continue to spend too much, and refuse to reform a tax structure that reduces the competitiveness of American companies in world markets. No matter what deal is cut, whether before or after the new year, it will at best nibble at the edges of the trillion-dollar annual deficits that are being piled up.
The real action has shifted from America’s inactive politicians to our hyperactive central bankers, the members of the monetary policy committee, who are making Las Vegas high rollers look like risk-averse wimps. And the highest roller of all is bewhiskered former Princeton economics professor who presides over the Federal Reserve Board’s printing presses. Ben Bernanke, the board’s chairman, has an advantage over his Vegas counterparts. He can’t run out of money because he can always print more.
