Too Big To Fail? Let's bloody well hope so.

A billion here, a billion there, sooner or later it adds up to real money. 

--Everett Dirksen

It's clearly a budget. It's got a lot of numbers in it.

--George W. Bush

So now I've had ample time to digest the Harper/Ignatieff budget.

Belch.

It's crystal clear from this 360-page document, the product of endless consultation with all and sundry, that nobody in or around Ottawa has the first clue what to do. Their solution--do everything at once--would be laughable if its consequences weren't so frightening.

The knee-jerk accusation of incompetence is perhaps a trifle unfair. First World economies are teetering on the brink worldwide, and nobody knows what to do to arrest the slide. 

Iceland's this coal-mine canary, and it's as dead as Monty Python's parrot. Study this tiny island nation's situation closely for a possible sign of things to come. Their currency is worthless. Unemployment--which was estimated at one percent two years ago--is expected to be eleven percent or higher by the end of this year. Interest rates are sitting at 18.6%. Public debt is so high that the country has had to appeal to the IMF for $10 billion in emergency aid.

And not to scare you unduly, but a host of other European countries aren't far behind. Right now, the U.S. is still sitting comparatively pretty, but only because  the dollar's still seen as a safe haven. 

Which brings to mind an episode of Family Guy wherein Peter and Lois are sitting through a time-share spiel. The salesman's giving a slideshow in which we see, amongst paradisiacal beach scenes, occasional glimpses of some God-awful monster devouring hapless vacationers:

Salesman: These wonderful homes on this beautifully secluded island can be yours with almost no strings attached. Beautiful island. Nothing out of the ordinary here. Just beautiful homes and nothing else. Each residence has 200 feet of pristine oceanfront. No city noise, no flesh-eating ogres, no pollution. 

Sorry, got sidetracked there.

It's hard to imagine an interest rate of 18.6% when our central banks are falling all over themselves trying to get the lowest possible rate without going negative. But when economic strings snap, they can snap hard and fast.

So that's the world economic climate into which Harper poured his budget. Most of it is aimed at "stimulating" the economy. To me, that's akin to defibrillating a guy who's drowning...without removing him from the water first. 

Oh, there's some good and necessary stuff here. The infrastructure spending is desperately needed, recession or no. Money for retraining laid-off workers is more than welcome, especially since many of the industries they've been laid off from aren't sustainable long term, if and when the economy recovers. 

But...tax cuts?

Hey, nobody likes to see their taxes go up under any circumstances, and people without jobs can't afford it, full stop. But, Flaherty? We ain't stupid. We've read the news today, oh boy, and we can't help but notice quotes like

"The banks are fucked, we're fucked, the country's fucked", that from a UK Cabinet minister, no less. Those of us who can are battening down the hatches. Those of us who can't, well, they're just struggling along as always, beneath the notice of politicians in general and Conservatives in particular. We aren't terribly inclined to take our piddlin' tax cut and go spend it on the mountain. The mountain's movin', buddy, and it's coming our way. 

Okay, smarty-pants, what would you have done?

Several things. I'd have made EI uniform across the country. I wouldn't stop at extending the period claimants are (perhaps) eligible to collect; I'd also offer subsidies a la welfare for those who are laid off. 

I'd have focused this budget a bit. As it stands, they're using buckshot and hoping they'll hit something. We need some kind of grand, unifying pan-Canadian project. What was it the last time we brought the country together? Oh yes, the railroad. Pitiful shape that thing's in. Be nice if we could first restore it, then expand it, and eventually put in that high-speed rail line people have been discussing since forever. 

Why would I do that? I'm thinking ahead. We've got enough oil to last us a good long time, if us are the only people tapping it. But we have this behemoth to our south that has an unquenchable thirst and a sudden newfound desire to get off the foreign oil tit. Hey, Obama, we're forei...oh, never mind. Some fights aren't worth even discussing. And even if our tar sands were limitless, that's one hellacious environmental clusterfuck we're creating up there in northern Alberta. 

Robert Heinlein said, a way back in 1980, that what oil's left "is far too valuable to waste on personal transportation". I'm still waiting for a critical mass of people to agree with him. Meantime, we really ought to spare some thought into revamping our transportation system. Catelli says the car's not going away "in 10, 20, even 50 years." He may be right, but only if we can somehow stave off (a) this recession and (b) Peak Oil. (A) is unlikely and (b), so far as I can tell, is highly unlikely. He's assuming, after all, that people will always live and work in the same general pattern they do now.

James Howard Kunstler and others of his ilk have been envisioning what might as well be called the fall of civilization for years. (Incidentally, one member of that club--Dmitri Orlov, has a complementary (but not complimentary) view of the economic "stimulus" package that's worth reading, as is pretty much everything else he writes.) A common theme amongst these folks is the demise of suburbia, a lifestyle that was only made possible by cheap energy. If suburbia goes, the car--at least the common, two-in-every-garage variety--goes with it. People go back to living the way they did in the early part of the last century: within walking distance of most of what they need.

Planes, too, will go bye-bye: that goes without saying. Look how many airlines struggled in the last oil spike. Each subsequent spike will kill off a few more, until the passenger plane is as extinct as the passenger pigeon.

What does that leave? Trains. High-speed, electric trains. The kind we ought to start building. 

What else? Lots and lots of money for R and D. A collaborative approach with other countries on economic and environmental issues. Oh, and I'd probably look at legalizing weed. 

(Huh?)

Again, I'm not a pothead--I've never even tried the stuff--but I can't understand why we let organized crime corner that particular market. There's money galore to be made here--and it might mellow a few folks out in the process. In these times I figure that's a good thing.

One thing I wouldn't do with this budget is try and directly stimulate the economy. The gaping maw of the economy will eat up anything you throw at it, then burp and ask for seconds. By all means, preserve the jobs worth preserving and retrain people coming from ones that aren't. But we could do with a little paucity in our lives. It builds character. As Kunstler would say, do we really need a third salad-shooter?

I'd like to say I join the rest of the country in hoping I'm wrong and Flaherty's right. But I can't. Flaherty wants a return to the status quo. It'd be nice, I'm sure: most daydreams are.