Editorial
Global risks
As the nation welcomed the new year with much optimism, the world’s biggest economy across from the Pacific teetered on the brink of disaster, poised to fall off a “fiscal cliff.”
As the nation welcomed the new year with much optimism, the world’s biggest economy across from the Pacific teetered on the brink of disaster, poised to fall off a “fiscal cliff.”
Moments after it became clear that US President Barack Obama had won a second term, the media began to talk about the “fiscal cliff” facing the government. This is a striking metaphor. CNN’s talking heads assume that everybody knows what it means. But, like many who do not regularly follow the economic news, I’m hearing it for the first time, certain that it is not a standard trope in economics.
