Over the weekend a friend of mine asked me missed required minimum distribution about the impending “Fiscal Cliff”. For those who fancy themselves news hermits, at the end of the year the US will be up against a budget deadline that was set in the Summer of 2011 Debt Ceiling Crisis. In short, if Congress doesn’t do anything it will force America into a very unpleasant series of spending cuts. The immediate effect is that Gross Domestic Product would go down by 3% immediately which puts us straight back into a recession assuming nothing else is done.So, this is bad news. My friend asked me what I thought about it and I told him that it was a serious thing, but that it was also just the apocalypse missed required minimum distribution du jour. There will always be things that seem like perfectly logical current events to be scared of. What if Iran gets a nuclear bomb? What if Greece defaults on its debt? What if the Eurozone breaksup? What if the guy I don’t like wins the election?