Essays in Idleness

We used to call them “communists,” owing to our difficulty in pronouncing the word “economist.” This was at the Thursday table, back in Idler Pub days: so far as I recall, the last instance of civilization in the northern wastes. I see that we thus have an official communist now as our Canadian prime minister, or “garbage person” as Instapundit will call him, who rather than being presented with a claim to a pension should have been dropped in the garbage disposal.

Indeed, Mr Carney may be worse than the Trudeau child, because his empty qualifications will confuse people, and Canadians are easily confused. He will be an ideal victim for Donald Trump, who fights rough sometimes, but is genuinely smart.

Since there aren’t obvious things to do, besides make an effort to stop our export and re-export of fentanyl and other lethal drugs, and perhaps lower our 300 percent tariffs on butter and such things, thus perhaps making Trump withdraw his proposed more modest tariffs, we should start preparing for the surrender of our economy. That incredible jack-ass, the Honourable Doug Ford, has a ludicrous scheme to cut off the occasional export of electricity from Ontario. There are at least six reasons to Sunday why he cannot do this.

But I have a simpler, more practical plan. It is to undecimalize our “looney” (formerly “dollar,” dólar, or peso, of eight reales), by letting it be chopped once again into eight pieces. The new pie-shaped bits would thus be worth one half of an old “quarter,” or we could also break old quarters in two. This would enable us to put all our depreciated dimes and nickels in the landfill where we previously abandoned our cents, thus making all the zinc, semi-nickel, and copper-plated relics more convenient for homeless persons to collect.

Then, at their leisure, our politicians could successively withdraw the constituent bits and the giant looney wheels, which must be expensive to mint, even when they are made from the cheapest metals.