Will the obsession with the fiscal cliff make us do something even more stupid?

Sometimes it makes sense to take yourself hostage in order to compel yourself to do something difficult. But that doesn’t mean that if you don’t actually do the difficult thing, it makes sense to shoot yourself in the head. Nor does it mean that hastily-arrived-at solutions, even ones that are labelled “grand bargain,” are necessarily preferable to the status quo. America may have a long-term debt problem. Throwing the economy back into recession isn’t the way to solve it. ...James Surowiecki, NewYorker