The situation here is if Congress doesn't act by Friday the US is going to get Greek-style Austerity good and hard, in one fell swoop.  

Unless Congress intervenes, the law requires the Obama administration to impose $85 billion in across-the-board spending cuts to military and domestic programs on March 1. Those cuts would be the start of $1 trillion in cuts over the next decade.

The looming sequestration is much larger than previous ones, though. Over the full fiscal year -- Oct. 1 to Sept. 30 -- the cuts would equal roughly 5 percent of nonmilitary programs and 8 percent of defense programs. Because they would hit almost halfway through the fiscal year, the White House Office of Management and Budget estimates the true impact for the final seven months to be closer to 9 percent for nondefense programs and 13 percent for defense programs.

VERY roughly that is about $200 billion in direct cuts affecting, to a greater or lesser extent, something like $1 trillion of economic activity, using the 1:5 rule.

Ever since I learnt about confirmation bias I've started seeing it everywhere