How the Fiscal Cliff Might Be Slowing the Economy Already

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Today Matt Yglesias criticizes the idea that uncertainty over the fiscal cliff is the reason big corporations are keeping their cash “on the sidelines” as they build up war chests rather than investing in business expansion:

A firm with profits must choose what to do with the money….Whenever you’re making an investment decision, the fact that the future is uncertain is a real problem. But there’s no particular reason to think that “uncertainty” about the future should specifically bias you in favor of low-yield highly liquid investment decisions.

Now, by contrast, something that very much could bias you in favor of low-yield highly liquid investment decisions is certainty that the inflation rate won’t rise above 2 percent….Another thing that should bias you in favor of a low-yield highly liquid investment decision is skepticism about the economy’s overall growth prospects. If things are going to be generally crappy, then you’re not necessarily missing out on much by opting for liquidity.

That’s why a real strategy for bringing corporate cash off the sidelines doesn’t have anything to do with tax reform (though tax reform might be nice), it has to do with monetary policy.

In the long term, I agree. But in fairness, there’s also a short term, and in the short term firms are wondering if Congress is going to throw the economy into a second recession by heading over the fiscal cliff for a protracted period. The economy is already fragile enough that companies aren’t very excited about the prospects for growth, and if GDP sags further in 2013 because we can’t come up with a deal, that would legitimately affect short-term decisions about business expansion.

So: a deal would be good for business. Better monetary policy would be good for business. In a reasonable world, we wouldn’t be arguing about either one. That, however, is obviously not the world we live in.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

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Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

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