

God, the Queen must save.

That's the decree in a new report from a U.K. House of Commons committee tasked with overseeing the royal finances.

You see, Queen Liz's reserve fund is down to its last million pounds. The palaces are crumbling. The advisors are making an awful mess of the budget. And no matter how hard the royals try, they just can't seem to cut spending.

I say, let the Queen go bankrupt. It can't happen soon enough. The last thing the Commonwealth or Canada needs is a costly reminder of a period when an aristocratic elite ruled supreme -- especially in an age in which a plutocratic elite rules supreme. The royals, after all, were the original 1 per cent.

Of course, there is little actual risk of royal ruination. The Queen received £31 million pounds ($57 million) from the U.K. Treasury in 2012-13, as well as generating £11.6 million ($21 million) in "other" income. And the amount of funding the monarch receives is guaranteed to increase every year. In 2013-14 Elizabeth will receive £36.1 million ($67 million) from the British taxpayer. That's a lot of corgis.

But those are the government numbers. When you take other costs into consideration, such as security and her special tax status, estimates for the cost of the monarchy can jump to as high as £200 million ($368 million) per year.

In short, the Queen is still pretty flush. And Canada is doing its part to reward the royals for, well, being born.

The federal government doesn't contribute to paying for the Queen's fleet of Bentleys, Jaguars and Land Rovers, but it does cover the cost of royal visits. In 2011, we contributed $1.2 million (not including security) to help the royals rebrand via Will and Kate's official visit.

It seems the royals are well aware that the public is (or was) tiring of paying for Charles to play polo. The less-than-charming Prince was never particularly adept at doing the one thing that keeps the monarchy around -- posing for pretty photos that feed the public's voyeuristic obsession with wealth. Because, as Lorde says, "we'll never be royals" ourselves.

Hence the global campaign to recast the monarchy as new, attractive, glamorous and considerably less inbred. And much of the public has enthusiastically embraced Will, Kate and baby George.

But there are signs of dissent. Lorde scored the best song Grammy for "Royals" on Sunday. The track is an astute critique of our culture's obsession with the trappings of wealth and the lyrics tell the story of a change in the air.

"It don't run in our blood / That kind of luxe just ain't for us."

I was relieved to see that Lorde may be right. There are 138,000,000 Google hits for "Occupy Wall Street." "The Royal Baby"? 30,800,000.'

There's no reason Canadians should indulge in the curious human habit of celebrating the rich and powerful people who oppress us. The case is even stronger when it comes to the royals because they've done nothing to earn their status. At least Kim Kardashian has made some pretty noteworthy videos.

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