Yet more huge figures in billions have been floated about frantically over the past week. Only this time, they were not estimates of Brown's latest bailouts, but the predicted size of the government's deficit - in other words, of the bill we are supposed to pay for the state's largesse.
But then, of course, this is Budget time. Celebrating the government's "pro-active" response to the crisis is no longer on the agenda. The only issue that matters today, is to justify the cuts included in this Budget and, more generally, the fact that there is absolutely nothing in it for the growing section of the working class at the receiving end of the crisis - hit by unemployment, shrinking incomes and home repossessions.
According to the official line, the government is "broke" - not just this year, but for years to come, with an annual deficit over £130bn - and it "cannot afford" any of the additional expenditure that is obviously so vitally needed today, to cater for the needs of the majority in the present crisis.
Broke? It depends for whom
Of course, the "affordability" of handing out hundreds of billions, first to the banks, and then to the whole capitalist class, was never questioned.
In fact, at the very same time as Darling will be announcing austerity measures for the rest of us, the Bank of England will be pursuing its £150bn money printing programme (Darling's famous "quantitative easing") which has now been extended to buying corporate bonds issued by big companies. As a result, for instance, the big car companies are now able to raise fresh cash by issuing more bonds, on top of the £2.3bn aid package they have already been awarded.
Ironically, in and of itself - and without even taking into account the far larger sums already spent on the banks' bailouts - this injection of money into the coffers of big business is already larger than the public deficit which is supposed to justify Darling's austerity.
Nevertheless, according to the government, that kind of expenditure is "affordable", because it is designed to help the capitalists to maintain their profits. Whereas printing the same amount of money (in fact, only a fraction of that sum would be needed) to give a big boost to public housing, for instance, is "not affordable". Despite the fact that this would make it possible to both create new jobs for the growing army of unemployed and build the new affordable homes for rent needed to put a roof over the heads of so many embattled working class families, either homeless, in overcrowded homes, or under threat of repossession.
But possibly the most cynical side of this policy, the side that not one of these pro-business politicians would even dream of raising, whichever party they belong to, is that this ballooning public deficit is actually a double-whammy for the capitalist class: not only have the profit sharks benefited from the bailouts which created this deficit, but it will be a big earner for them in the future. Indeed, who will lend the government the money to fund its deficit, if not precisely the same bailed out banks, but at a comfortable "commercial" rate?
It is capitalism which is "unaffordable"!
The entire policy of the government hinges on one single idea - that the capitalist market will eventually sort itself out. So, Brown hands hundreds of billions out to the banks, in the hope that they will resume lending at reasonable rates to the rest of the economy. Except that they don't, not even those which are state-owned, simply because they consider it not profitable enough!
Likewise for the various schemes designed to get industry back to "business", which are supposed to "entice" employers to maintain production levels and reduce job cuts. But they don't. So, for instance, the much talked-about "car scrappage" scheme, whereby the government would pay £2,000 towards the replacement of cars, 9 or more years old, is meant to boost jobs in the car industry. But what stops the bosses from using the excuse of the crisis to cut jobs anyway, while making the remaining workers slave even harder than before? Certainly not Brown, who would never dream of interfering with the bosses' "commercial decisions"!
Leaving it to the capitalists and their market to deal with the crisis is like expecting sharks to turn vegetarian. Crisis or not, they want their profits, regardless of the social cost. And this is precisely why we cannot afford their mad capitalist system, and why their profiteering must be stopped.
Of course, this will not come out of a Budget, nor will it be the result of a law in the Commons or even a change in government. It will only happen if the working class takes upon itself the task of using its huge collective strength in order to dictate to the capitalists and their stooges in government what they can and cannot do.