I have already blogged extensively on the current food price crisis affecting mostly poor countries. Now, via Le Monde, we learn, unsurprisingly, that riots have exploded in parts of Africa in response to the cost of food.

L’Afrique piégée par la flambée des prix des aliments
LE MONDE | 04.04.08

©  Read more 

Via the Independent,

“A deal has been agreed that will place a financial value on rainforests – paying, for the first time, for their upkeep as “utilities” that provide vital services such as rainfall generation, carbon storage and climate regulation.  Read more 

While Democrats are off proving that only Republicans can use a “hold” effectively, here’s what a sober, actually serious mind has to say about what’s coming:

Stiglizt-
The president has not driven the United States into a recession during his almost seven years in office. Unemployment stands at a respectable 4.6 percent. Well, fine.

But the other side of the ledger groans with distress: a tax code that has become hideously biased in favor of the rich; a national debt that will probably have grown 70 percent by the time this president leaves Washington; a swelling cascade of mortgage defaults; a record near-$850 billion trade deficit; oil prices that are higher than they have ever been; and a dollar so weak that for an American to buy a cup of coffee in London or Paris—or even the Yukon—becomes a venture in high finance.

And it gets worse.  Read more 

I’m reminded of that scene in Godfather III, for which I can’t seem to find a YouTube, in which Michael learns that Old Yurp ain’t so askeerd of his new world tough guy shit after all. I don’t know jack about econ, but this seems important to me:

IHT - Politicians, regulators and financial specialists outside the United States are seeking a role in oversight of American markets, banks and rating agencies in the wake of recent problems related to subprime mortgages.

Their argument is simple: The United States is exporting financial products, but losses to investors in other countries suggest that American regulators are not properly monitoring the products or alerting investors to the risks.
“We need an international approach, and the United States needs to be part of it,” said Peter Bofinger, a member of the German government’s economics advisory board and a professor at the University of Würzburg.  Read more 

No, really. No one.

hrough April 2006, DOD has reported about $273 billion in incremental costs for GWOT-related operations overseas—costs that would not otherwise have been incurred. DOD’s reported GWOT costs and appropriated amounts differ generally because DOD’s cost reporting does not capture some items such as intelligence and Army modular force transformation. Also, DOD has not yet used funding made available for multiple years, such as procurement and military construction. GAO’s prior work found numerous problems with DOD’s processes for recording and reporting GWOT costs, including long-standing deficiencies in DOD’s financial management systems and business processes, the use of estimates instead of actual cost data, and the lack of adequate supporting documentation. As a result, neither DOD nor the Congress reliably know how much the war is costing and how appropriated funds are being used or have historical data useful in considering future funding needs.  Read more 

The Times finally reports what we all know:

Americans earned a smaller average income in 2005 than in 2000, the fifth consecutive year that they had to make ends meet with less money than at the peak of the last economic expansion, new government data shows.

The average income in 2005 was $55,238, nearly 1 percent less than the $55,714 in 2000, after adjusting for inflation, analysis of new Internal Revenue Service statistical tables shows.

The combined income of all Americans in 2005 was slightly larger than it was in 2000, but because more people were dividing up the national income pie, the average remained smaller. Total adjusted gross income in 2005 was $7.43 billion, up 3.1 percent from 2000 and 5.8 percent from 2004.

Total income listed on tax returns grew every year after World War II, with a single one-year exception, until 2001, making the five-year period of lower average incomes and four years of lower total incomes a new experience for the majority of Americans born since 1945.

I love new experiences. Don’t you?

Why “values voters” don’t consider the ability to put food on the table and a better life for their children a “value” I will never understand.  Read more 

Schadenfreude is wrong, I guess, because a superior person doesn’t take pleasure from mocking other people’s pains. I am not a superior person. People looked askance at me when I had a financial blowout, and I felt a lot of shame and guilt for signing my name to credit lines when I suppose I didn’t have to. In my defense, it’s hard to say “no” to spouses who beat you and then demand another credit line to support their profligate spending habits, and when they abandon you and you’re trying to pick up the pieces of your life with only a part time income, things like food seem important. But anyway, I got over it, and no one will ever enslave me with money and credit again. But it seems I’m an outlier:

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And at 5:00 on a Friday, too…

But don’t worry! The business stenographers are still optimistic!

The economy has slowed to a snail’s pace, growing in the just-finished quarter at the slowest rate in more than three years and stirring fresh debate about the country’s financial health heading into the elections.

So much for the Bush recovery, which was never all that great to begin with. I never saw a dime from it. Did you? Say, how’s your mortgage?  Read more