I have repeatedly said the fiscal cliff is nothing more than a media hype. NOBODY will be immediately impacted because the lazy Congress will immediately pass on Wednesday a stop gap measure to continue the spending and it takes time for the tax increases to be implemented. However the debt is another matter. We cannot borrow from any foreign country now and so must implement inflation to pay the bills. The end result is the masses will either suffer more taxes or higher prices with no increase in incomes.
I respectfully disagree about the present, and agree with your long term scenario of a devaluing currency via printing / fiat as they spend like Linsey Lohan on a bender.
I spent a great deal time to prepare and a commensurate sum to sit with a CPA and see what the effects of the sun-setting of the Bush tax rates and the lack of AMT patches for 12' and 13' would cost my family. Worst case scenario? almost 8 grand for 12' & 13' with the AMT kicking in. The AMT is the biggest bugaboo in this whole mix and hardly anyone is talking about it. Immediate, perhaps if HR's / Payrolls around the country at employers automatically default to the Clinton rates. Yes, they can do a stop gap measure, and yes implementing the tax code back to the Clinton rates would be a nightmare, they don't even have the old code and need to bring some old programmers out of retirement to make it happen. A tangent issue is the CPA and EA I talk to are freaking because of what it will do to their careers / practices between 1/1/13 and 4 /15/13. They cannot give advice or operate with no code via legislation by Congress and said code codified by the IRS so they can actually have something to work with.