On both sides of The Pond people are thinking about what’s in or may soon not be in their back pockets. For starters. It’s a nerve-wracking time Stateside, and uncomfortable here too. But, as our Political Correspondent Peter Spencer reports, at least last week’s budget hasn’t ripped the economy apart.
No question, the money markets had a hefty harrumph as Chancellor Rachel Reeves stood up and delivered the heavy duty tax and spend package that she’d trailed for weeks.
But with that much advance warning the twangy braces brigade weren’t going to, and didn’t, deal the mortal blow that came after Liz Truss’s attempt at doing things her way.
Yes, they punished the government by bumping up how much it’ll have to shell out to borrow money, but no it didn’t blast the Labour party out of the water. And isn’t going to.
A snap post-budget poll by YouGov told a similar story. While a tiny majority of people gave Ms Reeves’ effort a short-term thumbs down it was within the margin of error.
So it’s worth a brief recap of what was actually in it.
Overall taxes during the next five years to go up by forty billion pounds, and spending to increase by nearly double that amount.
There’ll be a massive boost, of over twenty billion, for the health service, and loads more to go on roads, rail, infrastructure, hospitals, schools and social housing.
Tick tick tick then? But of course the money isn’t being shaken out of a magic tree, it’s coming from us lot, though some of us will have to cough up more than others.
Labour’s pre-election promise not to increase taxes on working people got everyone wondering who exactly these toiling masses are. Or aren’t.
The interminable ruminations ended up making the question of how many angels can dance on the end of a needle look pretty straightforward.
Given that bosses are likely to pass on their increased National Insurance costs to their employees the jury’s out and will remain so for some time.
But, very broadly, it will be those with a bit more stashed away who’ll have to part with a bit more when the taxman cometh.
And the overall picture that’s emerging is one of a Labour government in relatively traditional mode trying to do its bit for the many not the few.
Beyond that, however, we could be looking at an effort to get the British to face up to a reality that governments have been trying to swerve for decades.
Namely, that we can’t expect European-style public services on American levels of tax. It’s that magic money tree problem again. Nice idea, but doesn’t exist.
Partly because of that, a fair few Left-leaning commentators have been fretting ever since Ms Reeves sat down that she simply didn’t go far enough.
Fair do’s, you might say. A seismic change on this scale can only be managed on a step-by-step basis.
Labour, this strand of thinking goes, will have to win the next election as well as the last one to achieve its aim.
Much hangs on whether the big spending projects actually achieve their promised results during the next five years.
The High Speed Rail project is the classic seminal warning. It was mismanaged, no getting round it, by the Tories, to the extent that cost and time overruns half killed it.
If Labour doesn’t do better with its heavy-duty undertakings it’ll fritter away its chances of getting in again and finishing the job it’s started. As well as loads of our money.
Goes without saying that the Telegraph, Mail and Express were claiming it’d signed its own death warrant from the moment budget outlines started to emerge weeks ago.
Also no surprise that the Tories’ new leader, Kemi Badenoch, is joining the screeching chorus with her own personal brand of gusto.
Understatement is hardly her style. Neutral-minded commentators regularly quip that she’d cheerfully pick a fight with her own shadow if there were no one else in range.
Certainly, she didn’t play well with her underlings in the government department that she used to run.
There’ve been accusations aplenty of bullying. And her only half jokey claim that many civil servants were so rubbish that they should be locked up didn’t do it for Sir Humphrey.
But even before the party members chose her it became clear that the overwhelming majority of her likely top team preferred her to her rival, Robert Jenrick.
Throughout the leadership campaign he spelt out his aim to drag the Conservatives far off to the right, in an effort to scoop up the millions of voters who backed Nigel Farage.
Badenoch, by contrast, has been all but impossible to pin down on specifics. Interviewers have likened the experience to punching a bowl of blancmange.
Not that any of it has hit many headlines, sandwiched as it has been between Britain’s budget-driven tilt to the left and America’s potential lurch to the hard right under Trump.
Just about everyone has a stake in Tuesday’s presidential outcome. Left-leaning, centrist and even some right wing political leaders across Europe are praying that he won’t get in.
This in significant measure because of fears that he’d hand Ukraine to Putin on a plate, leaving the man free to pick off any other targets that take his fancy.
Aligned with that is the concern that Trump might partly pull the rug out from under NATO, leaving the continent that much more exposed to malign actors.
There’s also the fear that a newly protectionist America will damage trading prospects right across the West. Thus, in time, making us all poorer.
The lengths to which The Donald’s prepared to go are highlighted by his threat to lock up bosses at US news outlet CBS, because he didn’t like something they’d broadcast.
He’s also looking forward to pardoning himself for the many bad things of which he’s accused if he makes it back to the White House.
On top of that he’s already signalled his intention to fight with any means at his disposal a close-run victory for his Democrat rival Kamala Harris.
Little wonder there are widespread fears across the world that this knife-edge contest will end in violence.
It’s not even as if the verdict of a majority of Americans will hold sway. Thanks to their election system the outcome could be determined by a few thousand votes.
People in Pennsylvania and Arizona might ignore the fact that Trump is a convicted criminal, fraudster, rapist and, say some of his own former top aides, fascist.
If so, they’ll swing it his way. And their rationale? Research and polling evidence all point the same way. They think he’ll make them richer.
Which brings us back to the beginning, and the oft-quoted slogan from the Clinton era of three decades back.
It’s the economy, stupid.
Watch Peter’s report at peterspencer.org
Peter Spencer has 40 years experience as a Political Correspondent in Westminster, working with London Broadcasting and Sky News. For more of his fascinating musings on the turbulent political landscape, follow him on Facebook & Twitter.