we re tight for time. i want to go on something here. a popular argument i hear among democrats pushing for a vote on the infrastructure package itself, the core one, is that if we don t, it will be another tarp deal that congress surprised people by not approving on the first run and led to an 800-point fall-off. and you know, they were that panicked them. they got back, regrouped. they got another package together, passed that one. the irony being as time wept on, thursdays more points fell in the dow. so it did little to alleviate that. that is what will happen. i don t think so. neil: if this fails. i don t think it s a proper analogy. what do you think? it s not. the banking system was about to collapse. that was a problem. if the banking system collapsed, you can t literally you cannot use your credit card to buy stuff. the economy collapse.
something. tune in tonight to find out. the wall street journal, apple ceo cook s combination hit 4.2 million and last year it was $367 million. i don t know how he will eat. parade features al roker of the today show. check that out this weekend. right now once again bringing us together writing come together on the side of his eyeglasses and coffee cups and anything else he can find, our own white house correspondent for politico mike allen. mike, how are you? happy friday. there we go, happy friday. listen, this fiscal cliff deal, everyone is so sick of hearing the phrase. i it talked to several this week, members of congress and members of the senate who indicate we re going over the cliff.
people s lives and the risk factor. we are trying to calculate, it may not be that bad. once you go over a cliff, you don t know how bad it s going to be, and how long it s going to take given the politics. i remember after the election the president met with progressive leaders. i was in the meeting. i believe the republicans were not if he gave things many of us felt we shouldn t put in social security, if he did that we ll get a deal. i cannot believe people are going to be as incense activces they were p the lives of their constituents. when you go over a cliff, you ve seen old roadrunner cartoons, it s fun for the first few seconds and realize there s gravity and fall like wiley e. coyote. the crash kind of gets your
americans. they have no safety net left. also, the payroll tax is going to go up. you know, people keep talking about this as a slope and not a big deal. it takes a while for the full impact fob felt. we ransom numbers and to give you a sense of perspective on this, a family with two working parentses making $82,000 a year. all the tax hikes they experience, it will add $6,000 a year to the tax bill. that s not nothing. that hurts people in the middle. in addition, we get the consumer confidence stuff. according to a recent study, the fiscal cliff gridlock in washington has taken a tol. a new survey by the conference board shows levels in the first half of december falling to the lowest level since august. an unexpectedly sharp decline. the survey indicates that consumer anxiety stems from worries about the fiscal future and not from the current state of the economic.
work in the beltway. that s why i had a hard time as someone that covers markets seeing what was going to happen and go over the cliff. i aagree with you. i think the markets are a discounting mechanism. gene, to your point, most people think a deal will be reached at some point. maybe after jan 1 and retroactive and pinch in the near term. most of the people in the financial markets believe a deal will get done. number twosh, the stock market holding up better because the world is reinvesting in the united states. not to go too off topic shgts but the american retail investor is gone for a couple of year. the world is slows down and we re looking better. so capital is is flowing back for the united states. i think that s helping the real concern out there in the stock market. we could think brazil and chinese and european investors for holding us afloat. you know who has been gone a while and is back now? kelly o donnell.