Cue the wingnut head asplosions in 3…2…1…

POPE STRIKES PROGRESSIVE ECONOMIC MESSAGE, CALLS FOR END TO ‘SELF-REGULATION’

Pope Pope Benedict XVI arrived in Spain today calling for a more equitable, fair, and regulated economy, saying, “[T]he economy cannot be measured only by maximization of profit but rather according to the common good.” As American conservatives call for ever more deregulation, the pontiff said the marketplace “cannot function as a self-regulated economy.” Benedict explained his economic views more fully in a 2009 treatise, which called for protections for “labour unions — which have always been encouraged and supported by the Church,” the elimination of world hunger through “wealth redistribution,” the protection of the “natural environment” — “God’s gift to everyone” — from unchecked economic expansion, and a strengthened “family of nations,” like the U.N. with “real teeth.”