Initial estimates by economists suggested that the overall legislation would reduce the unemployment rate by one-half a percentage point to a full point over the next year, compared with allowing all the tax cuts to expire and passing no new stimulus. By the end of 2012, the decline could be up to 1.5 percentage points, economists said.

Since economists are not always right and they have been wrong so often recently, I am not sure at all if the giveaway to the rich will do anything more than add to the deficit.

While I am no millionaire, with all the uncertainty in the economy, I plan to make no change in my spending during the next year.  Whatever additional money that I have coming in from payroll tax holiday, I simply plan to save and/or invest, and like any other investor, the money might as well end up in foreign stocks.

(Source: The New York Times)