It's being called a failure, a miscalculation and a move that could even cost House Speaker John Boehner his job, but in reality, it's the country that ends up losing. Sure, the Ohio Republican failed to get enough support within his own party to pass his "Plan-B" proposal to avoid the Fiscal Cliff. But even if he had gotten the votes and it passed the House, the bill that would have extended tax cuts on anyone earning less than a million dollars was facing certain death in the Senate and the White House.

Reaction to the latest impasse in the negotiations has been predictably partisan in Washington and mostly mixed on Wall Street, where stocks began the day lower, though only by about one percent. As my co-host Jeff Macke and I discuss in the attached video, the matter goes into the "now what?" phase, where the two sides will endeavor to vilify each other in an attempt to win the blame game, rather than working to "actually fix the problem," as House Majority Leader Eric Cantor says.

Although the stakes are high, in fact in the trillions of dollars, it is our belief that a clean-up pact will be reached some time in early 2013 that will undo most of the damage done as a result of the automated tax increases and spending and benefit cuts that are set to take place ten days from now. Until then, as I say in the attached clip, we will all continue to be witness to a huge political game where the American people will serve as referees to determine who wins the battle to spin a better story.

Traditionally, Santa Claus is the person making a list and checking it twice, but this year one company decided to turn the tables and have a little fun with numbers. Yes, Santa has been audited. ParenteBeard, a top 25 U.S. accounting firm, decided to balance the books of what would be the world's largest non-profit organization — Santa, Inc.

"With what's going on in the economy, with the fiscal cliff, we thought it would be a good idea to check in on Santa and see whether or not he had solid operations," says Jeff Ferro, president of ParenteBeard, in the attached video. "We found out he's got a pretty expensive operation."

In a short report "Santa, Inc: By the Numbers" the firms puts a $42.3 billion annual price tag on the entire North Pole operation. They broke down the numbers starting with the heart of the business.

Gift Production: $39.5 billion

Ferro says 90 — 95% of Santa's operation is gifts. Here's how ParenteBeard determined the costs: There are roughly 526 million kids under age 14 that celebrate Christmas. They estimated a $75 value for each gift.

"We didn't differentiate who's naughty and nice," says Ferro. "We just assumed everyone gets a gift." This costs Santa, Inc. an annual total of $39.5 billion.

Employee Costs: $2.77 billion

Of course, somebody has to make the gifts. ParenteBeard estimated there are 50,000 elves producing the goods. Since the average real life toymaker in the U.S. earns $35,859 a year, the firm assumed Santa would be more generous and pay his employees a $40,000 salary + $15,475 for healthcare costs.