Canadian Election Bonanza and Electric Cars: Round Eleventy1

The Conservative Party has gone into their patented full swing 1 promise per day campaign. Some interesting ideas coming out. $750 rebate to first time home owners. $1000 more in tax free income for seniors.

And best of all: Maternity/Parental Leave for self employed people. Currently in Canada, if you are self employed and want to take some time off to start a family you have to save like mad or you are SOL. One thing they should really be looking at though is the outright fradulant charging of mandatory Employment Insurance premiums on part-time workers' wages, but denying them benefits if they lose their job because they don't qualify. LOL is all I have to say to that.

The NDP are promising to throw money at things and to set up rediculous social beurocratic programs like usual: $1 billion for more doctors, $1 billion for home care, ad nauseum.

The Liberals are just trying to get off the ground. Literally. They have had a lot of trouble with their leased campaign jet. That and the Green Shift can't get off the ground either because no one, not even themselves, understand how it works, nevermind be able to explain it to voters. And good luck trying to sell a new tax as your platform for why we should vote Liberal. And $70 billion for infrastructure.

The one thing I don't get is why they throw around numbers for these massive projects and programs. What does $70 billion really buy you? Is this a lot or not much? I have no idea. I get the $750 rebate and the $1000 income tax free for seniors. Those are numbers that you can apply directly to your budget. But seriously $1 billion here, $70 billion there... this means nothing to me other than politicians throwing around the words million and billion and gajillion to grab attention. Wow, $1 billion, that's 40 million buyins... and completely ambiguos and irrelevant.

Oh and I'm also looking forward to this:

Chevy Volt

That's if the electric car doesn't get torpedoed again like it did in the 90s (GM's EV-1). They always act like this hasn't been done before. This documentary was very imformative: Who Killed the Electric Car


Edit: I just saw on CNN that the US federal government is now set to take over $10s of billions in bad mortgages. Wow. This is what happens when you let a private group of banks aka The Federal Reserve (misleading name 'eh?) control the nation's currency. Just so you know, private banks generally try to make themselves money, not protect the public interest. People don't listen though:

"If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation then by deflation, the banks and the corporations will grow up around them, will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs."

- Thomas Jefferson