Beyond the fiscal cliff

Simon Doyle | Schroders | January 2013

Financial markets ended 2012 buoyed by the last minute avoidance of a dramatic plunge by the US over its fiscal cliff. The irony in the deal is that in avoiding the cliff the US has once again failed to make material inroads into the burgeoning debt load and growing structural imbalance between US government spending and revenue. The market's positive response then needs to be viewed against expectations framed against a background of "it could have been a ...