The FT's budget summary runs to 4377 pages, weighs 6kg and if the words were strung together, would run half way to the Moon and back.  Or that's how it feels - like a plot to stop any public economist starting his work before 12pm.   I will not highlight too many articles from here, because Budget fatigue must be widespread and it might actually have a measurable effect on GDP.

So here are my favourites.  The unsung Norma Cohen illustrates nicely the paradox of thrift- that a rush to savings, even though we are greatly overleveraged, will do damage to the economy since the consumption foregone makes up someone else's income. She also questions how much the propensity to save is influenced by tax treatment:

Professor Orazio Attanazio, a research fellow at University College London and joint author of a 2005 study for the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development on tax incentives for pensions saving in the UK and the US, says that over time the evidence suggests consumers shift savings to take advantage of incentives but do not increase savings overall.

In which case, increased tax breaks are merely a nice bung to the saving classes.

Of the many case studies they include, this one intruigued me the most: a former small businessman who over-borrowed in October 2007 (a 9.7% remortgage) and now finds himself struggling on a low-paid job.  Heartbreaking: but how much is his own fault? I mean, 9.7% . . . why do that?

Paul Davies takes the same line as Barclays and me on the subject of the Euro. Nicholas Timmins provides a neat summary of the monumental debate about public services that will consume the next 10 years. Should the earnings link of pensions with wages be restored? User charges for education and health? Undo the good work that tax credits have done in the fight against inequality?

Perhaps the most important reaction comes from the gilt market: not good.  The futures are down 1.5% since the budget started

Finally, some cheer for those of us who judge our performance relatively: the IMF predicts that the UK will outperform Germany this year and next (as well as most of the last 15).  So much for the virtues of manufacturing-driven prudence over Anglo-Saxon short-termism.