Monday, March 28, 2011

Federal election: The markets don’t care. Should you?

Do the eye (brow)s  have it? National Post columnist
John Ivison sports the new Ignatieff look.
With a Federal Fun Fest (also known as an election) now slated for May 2, I’m staring down the daunting task of re-evaluating which party’s fiscal policy most floats my boat.

It’s going to be a tough call, because as always I’m torn between voting "for me" and attempting the nobler and more convoluted task of voting for the good of my country. Like many of us, I like to try and go to the polls with a sense of which party could possibly lead us – economically and socially – towards a better version of ourselves. Fiscally, it can be easy to get mired in relatively narrow issues – who will raise taxes for whom being the most obvious. Health care, government spending and social programs all come into play in terms of securing our financial and societal well being.

This article in today’s Globe
says don’t worry about your investments – yet. Indeed. Even in a coalition government, the free-spending spoke in that wheel – the NDP – would have to kowtow to the Liberals. That is, barring any crazy upsets, like a mythical landslide victory by the Green Party that everyone knows is never going to happen so long as people continue to engage in certain activities such as the driving of automobiles...

Ramping up to the election, I’m going to try and provide as much unbiased information as possible on the fiscal policy of the key parties. And, because that alone would be totally boring and unfun, I’m going to throw in some extremely biased and hopefully amusing commentary, as well.

Just so you know where my sympathies lie: Steven Harper is not my friend. Nor is he yours – especially if you’re gay, aboriginal, a feminist, or just really don't like war. In past I have spoiled my ballot rather than vote for the Cons. Will that even be an option this time around? Please note also that I am no fan of Liberal Party leader Michael Ignatieff - a man who still has not fully addressed his latent eyebrow issues. True, there is now an actual separation between the brows. Yet this new effort at grooming seems to have rendered them all the more sinister and Communist-dictator-like. This does not bode well.

In all seriousness,
the real test of the men (and one very determined and intelligent woman) will be precisely what was lacking last time around: Vision. Can Harper or Ignatieff come up with one? If nothing else, it will be fun to watch 'em try.


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