It's official. Capitalism sucks.

Yeah, I know, except for all the other systems that suck worse.

I used to laugh in senior political science classes when someone said that capitalism held the seeds of its own destruction within itself. Who said that? Marx? Well, The chickens have come home to roost on that one.

So, right now, an enemy of the people would be the non=consumer. Even while people are losing their jobs, their houses and their lines of credit, they are being told that not spending money is not helping the situation.

The problem is that people have been spending like drunken sailors. More credit cards. Paying the minimum balance on one with a cash advance from the other. Making the minimum payment on the final card with your overdraft. Buying a house you can't afford, driving a car that's way beyond your means, shopping, eating out, drinking, travelling. It made the economy crazy.

At the same time, Boards of Directors were demanding increasing profits and higher rates of return on investments, so chances were taken, debts bundled into something notional called asset backed commercial paper or ABCP. Employees were given large bonuses for keeping the whole thing together with Elmer's Glue and #6 Binder twine.

Then it started to go wobbly. Like Roseann Roseannadanna once said, "It's always something." What was the first thing to go wrong? Not sure. But I remember reading a few years ago that there was a correction coming. At the time it didn't seem possible. I didn't think the end of history was going to be the complete collapse of the American economy. Things were steaming along so nicely. But remember, one of my profs said, the Mexican currency crisis didn't only affect Mexico.

So what does the little guy do now? In the USA, Mr. Obama might send out cheques. Does the little guy pay down his Visa? Does he put it into savings and chip away at it in the months to come? Or does he buy a flat screen and a case of beer and sit on his couch and weep silently as he watches Homer Simpson in high definition? I hear the big corporations, who are getting big cheques, are still handing their employees bonuses and remodelling bathrooms.

Tomorrow we'll see what Mr. Harper does with our money in Canada, which shells he moves around in front of us. Should we be building new roads or propping up the railways, which have a smaller carbon footprint? Does Mr. Harper care? How do we best want to be bribed with our own money into thinking we can spend money we don't have again?

So figure out which side of the fence you are on, folks. Are you an enemy of the people and cautious? Putting off that consumption? Wearing clothes from the consignment shop? Brewing your own lattes? Or a devil may care type who will have as many Visas or Capital Ones as you can qualify for?

Do the right thing for your country.

Obama's victory: The triumph of science over opinion

We all value our own opinions, however haphazardly they are formed. Most of us defer to someone we know who has training in a field, and has a right to have an opinion in that field based on years of education and experience. I have an undergraduate degree in economics and political science. I have experience in accounting and policy research. I was in the military.

I hesitate to comment on global warming or nuclear issues, as I don't have experience in those areas, and anything I say would be an uninformed comment.

But there are many people who defer to their own haphazardly formed opinions, which is called "common sense" in the everyday parlance. It is not always common sense. My grandmother told me it was common sense that sex caused babies, and one could not expect otherwise. She died shortly after I announced that I was pregnant for the third time, so I never got a chance to disabuse her of the notion that I believed that nonsense. ( I had no subsequent children.)

When it comes to science, there has been a disdain for science in the US and even in Canada in the last few years. It comes with the Conservative dogma. That dogma has waned in the United States with the decline of Bush and the catastrophic market and economic crash that ensued because of the decline of regulation. Science was pooh-poohed in favour of dogma, with other catastrophic repercussions around the world, especially in countries in Africa, Asia and South America. Again, birth control is an example, as well as the use of condoms to reduce AIDS transmission.

Science must always be used to combat ignorance and superstition. Mr. Obama has served notice that science is on the upswing as the basis for decision making again. Where dogma once prevailed, as in the mantra of deregulation, the science of limited regulation will once again prevail.

We're coming back from the dark ages again.

Mr. Obama

Even Harvard guys like low carb

It's refreshing to read and hear that Harvard, Duke and other high quality universities are finally on the low carb track.

Most of the foods that we should eat are low carb. For example, beets, cabbage, swiss chard (I don't like it and my mom tries to get me to eat some fresh from her garden every fall), cinnamon, plums/prunes, pumpkin, sardines, blueberries....

Convenience foods aren't good for us. They are just convenient. We need more biochemistry, nutrition, physiology discussions on the blog sphere, so that people get the facts.

We've only been cultivating grains for about 7000 years, folks. They are not part of our nutritional history long enough that our body knows what to do with them other than to turn them to glucose, which of course is bad news.