Fiscal cliff gives way to slippery slope.

• Author: Adams, Tucker Hart
• Position: The ECONOMIST

WELL, THERE WAS NO DRAMATIC LEAP OFF THE fiscal cliff on Jan. 1, just the start of a gentle slide clown a long, slippery slope ... which is likely to have us end up the same place.

My husband is raging about his taxes going up $1.000 a year so the government can send barrels of greenbacks to NASCAR. My grandson in Afghanistan writes, "IF the poor are going to be taken care of then jolts need to be created. the educational system revamped and we have to stop spending billions of dollars on programs that are designed in a way that encourages individuals to do nothing."

I'm sick of the whole topic. So, let's talk about something else for the next two months. until the hype about the next budget crisis-$110 billion ill automatic spending cuts and bumping up against the debt ceiling dominates thinking in Washington perhaps I'm being too kind in my analysis and the headlines once more.

I always end the Year with a bunch of column ideas that never got used. One of my perennial Favorites is a quirky measurement of inflation from PNC, a large bank headquartered in Pittsburgh, based on the gifts in the "Twelve Days of Christmas."

Inflation. you remember, is a rise in the price of a basket of goods and services consumed by the average household. Every month the Bureau of Labor Slatisties BLS sends data collectors to thousands of retail stores, service establishments, rental units and doctors' offices all over the United States to obtain information on prices. This results in several monthly "inflation rates." the most widely used being the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers or CPI-U.

PNCT's index takes a narrower. more lighthearted focus-the 364 items you'd get over the 12 days of the song. Last Year they would have cost You $107,300, up 6.1 percent From 2011. The geese and swans were especially pricey, up 29.6 percent and 11.0 percent respectively. Grain prices soared last year and those pesky birds eat a lot. More broadly. worldwide Food prices increased almost 10 percent. Wages, on the other hand, showed little change up 1.3 percent to just under $20 an hour. And those milkmaids--who work at minimum wage of $7.25 an hour--cost the same as they have since 2009.

Then there was an interesting piece on weekly earnings of...