Bush says WE need Pope talk re “right & wrong”!! xk*%#

He says we need to be told by the Pope that people are precious, that right and wrong matter!

And, it’s just a “tough” patch we’re going through. Bush just said so. here. But worse:

Listen up, you utterly deprived (not-fit-to-be) lying president, because you caused a great deal of the pain and suffering Americans are right now encountering. You have caused a war that was unnecessary that killed hundreds of thousands of people and wounded many more. Millions are refugees because of your war. Talk about precious life? “Sacred” life? You don’t know the meaning of the word.

Famines may occur because you were unwilling to act on climate change because you wanted to help the rich get richer. Don’t tell me the Pope needs to talk to me about right and wrong!!!!!

Don’t you hate being lectured by an idiot?

~~cross-posted at orange~~

There are so many things gone awry and so many harbingers of other things going wrong that will effect all of us, having an impact on our lives today. Things that have led to starvation, violence and will lead to famine.

OUTRAGE #1: People are Hungry: Food Crisis Sneaks Up On World.

Food Costs & General Inflation Impact on Most Americans, but it’s especially bad in very poor countries.

IN THE US: Food costs so much that people are in shock in supermarkets all across the country, wondering, “What CAN I afford to buy to feed my family this week. Bread is $3.49 in Florida, and was a dollar less last year. Wheat has doubled and rice has doubled in the last three months alone.

Shortages in grains and staples exist. Many excellent diaries have been written on the terrible food crisis, riots around the world. This new article on Haiti is just up on NYT: Across Globe, Empty Bellies Bring Rising Anger

Hunger bashed in the front gate of Haiti’s presidential palace. Hunger poured onto the streets, burning tires and taking on soldiers and the police. Hunger sent the country’s prime minister packing.

Haiti’s hunger, that burn in the belly that so many here feel, has become fiercer than ever in recent days as global food prices spiral out of reach, spiking as much as 45 percent since the end of 2006 and turning Haitian staples like beans, corn and rice into closely guarded treasures.

Fed’s Lacker Says Inflation Is Too High

“Inflation is a problem now. It is too high and personally I would be uncomfortable in waiting for economic slack to bring it down,” Richmond Federal Reserve President Jeffrey Lacker told reporters… “I am particularly concerned about movements in measures of expected inflation…..”

OUTRAGE #2: Economic/Financial News Continues to Look Bad. Investment Banks & Hedge Funds Unregulated Still

Subpoenaes issued to 18 banks as regulators in nine other states are looking into such matters.

In February, many investors found they could no longer get out of the securities because hundreds of auctions failed when big banks stopped bidding in them.

The regulators are looking at how banks disclosed the risks of auction failures to investors, which typically include affluent families and corporations.

OUTRAGE #3: Bush Still Doesn’t Get Climate Change & Impacting World Food Supplies May Lead to Famine.

German Minister calls Bush’s climate change speech: Neanderthal.

A U.S. plan to cap rising greenhouse gases by 2025 drew criticisms as too little, too late from delegates at 17-nation climate talks in Paris on Thursday…  

“The president gave a disappointing speech,” German Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel said in a statement issued in Berlin headlined “Gabriel criticizes Bush’s Neanderthal speech. Losership, not Leadership“.

“The American administration is starting to awaken,” French climate change ambassador Brice Lalonde said. “It’s a bit late.”

OUTRAGE#4: Billionaire Hedgers Make Zillions Last Year and Income Ineqality Rages

Billion-Dollar Paydays for top 50 hedgers.

Hedge fund managers, those masters of a secretive, sometimes volatile financial universe, are making money on a scale that once seemed unimaginable, even in Wall Street’s rarefied realms.

John Paulson, made $3.7 billion last year. He reaped that bounty, probably the richest in Wall Street history, by betting against certain mortgages and complex financial products that held them.

“There is nothing wrong with it – it’s not illegal,” said William H. Gross… “But it’s ugly.”

Given that median family income was $60k last year, the fact that these top 50 guys earned $29 billionlast year is, what, obscene? Is there a word that captures it?

***”To some degree it’s a very gigantic version of Las Vegas,” said Gary Burtless, an economist at the Brookings Institution.

****And Mr. Gross, the fund manager, warned that the widening divide among the richest and everyone else is cause for worry.

***”Like at the end of the Gilded Age and the Roaring Twenties, we are going the other way,” Mr. Gross said. “We are clearly in a period of excess, and we have to swing back to the middle or the center cannot hold.”

OUTRAGE #5: Climate Changes Will Make FIRES WORSE and I’m worried! Can’t afford insurance either.Wild fires worse from global warming.

Wild fires are likely to be bigger, more frequent and burn for longer as the world gets hotter, in turn speeding up global warming to create a dangerous vicious circle, scientists say. Last year more than 200 wild fires swept across parts of southeastern Europe, destroying homes and devouring woodland.

OUTRAGE #6: People Losing Jobs, Even in Financial Sector But IMPACT Will Be Felt By All

JPMorgan Chase, reported a 50 percent drop in income this week. Today it’s Merrill: Merrill cuts 2900 more jobs & posts loss of $6.5b The bank will save $800m a year in cutting 10% of its workforce.

“So far the slowdown has been finance-driven,” Mr. Thain said. “What we haven’t seen yet is the impact on the consumer of falling house prices, rising energy prices, higher food prices and higher unemployment.”

The recession… is going to move from being a finance-driven problem to a consumer-driven one, and Merrill may continue to struggle as a result.The ratings agency predicted that Merrill Lynch would be forced to lower the value of its mortgage assets known as collateralized debt obligations by an additional $6 billion.

This is the question:

… how much the losses by banks like (Merrill’s) would “seep” into the real economy. Banks like Merrill may see losses on bets they made far beyond mortgages if consumers find themselves unable to pay back car loans, credit debt and other loans.

OUTRAGE #7: Gas Will Keep Going Up & I Can’t Afford to Drive Anywhere! No Public Transport Either! Goods Will Rise More Also

Gas prices pass $3.40 a gallon, are expected to rise higher

Retail gas prices pushed past a record high $3.40 a gallon Thursday, fulfilling expectations that they’ll keep climbing toward $4 as the summer driving season approaches. Oil prices, meanwhile, fell slightly after setting yet another record high overnight. Analysts said investors were locking in gains from crude’s ongoing rally.

At the pump, the average national price of a gallon of unleaded gas rose 1.9 cents overnight to $3.418 a gallon….

The soaring cost of both fuels is pressuring consumers, who gas up their cars and buy goods that grow more expensive because of rising transportation costs. And their plight will only worsen; many analysts expect average national gas prices to peak close to $4 a gallon later in the spring.

OUTRAGE #8: Hedge fund investors are happy

Commodities such as oil are seen by many investors as a hedge against inflation and a weaker dollar. A falling dollar also makes oil cheaper to overseas investors. The effect tends to reverse when the U.S. currency strengthens.

OUTRAGE#9: We have two economies, One for the Rich, One for the Rest.

There was broad-based weakness in earnings on Thursday from companies exposed primarily to the U.S. economy… “Things that are domestic and exposed to consumer discretionary spending — absolutely they’re having a bad time. This is a recession…”

OUTRAGE #10: Iraq, the war continues unabated yet Bush talks about morality! HA! Bush lectures about moral relativism, as if HE knows right from wrong, as if HE values life.

In a world where some treat life

as something to be debased and discarded,

we need your message that all human life is sacred,

and that “each of us is willed, each of us is loved” — (applause)

— and your message that “each of us is willed, each of us is loved, and each of us is necessary.”

In a world where some no longer believe that

we can distinguish between simple right and wrong,

we need your message to reject this “dictatorship of relativism,”

and embrace a culture of justice and truth. (Applause.)

All barf in unison.

Hedge funds, billionaires, income inequality, oil, prices, inflation, economy, recession, Merrill, George W. Bush, climate change