Their accountant has repeatedly told them that they have to stop doing this, but Mr. and Mrs. Asu find that irritating and think he is irrational. After all, they’ve been doing this for years and it has been working out so far.

In fact, they used to make up a budget. But since they never followed it, they realized that was just a silly waste of time.

But this year the accountant told them that credit was getting tight and they may not be able to open up any more new accounts.

That got Mr. and Mrs Asu’s attention.

After an evening of pondering their situation, Mr. And Mrs. Asu decided that the problem was that there wasn't enough money coming in. So, they told their children that they were facing a “fiscal cliff” and that if they didn’t come up with a solution, things could get really, really bad for the whole family.

To solve it, they suggested Child 1 pay $1000 more.

Child 1 suggested they stop spending so much.

The parents were horrified by this and called him “stingy” and “greedy”.

The first child protested by stating that he was already paying 80% of the load.

The other children started calling him names too and chanted “Pay your fair share! Pay your fair share!” The parents joined in.

Finally, after Child 1 was shamed into silence, Mr. and Mrs. Asu smiled at him and said they wanted to be fair about it all.

The decision would be put it to a vote, fair and square.

The choices:

1. Every child would pay more; or

2. The first child would pay the whole increase.

The children's votes were counted and the first proposal got one vote and the second proposal got three.

Mr. and Mrs. Asu were delighted. They had saved the family from plunging over the cliff and were excited to get back to their normal lifestyle. 

They planned to celebrate by increasing this year's spending to $40,000.

Happy New Year ’13

(x100,000,000)