Alex Jones must be in convulsions about now, but in this case he should be:

UN chief Ban Ki-moon on Tuesday stressed the need for “global leadership” as he pressed world leaders not to pursue narrow national interests in the face of hard economic times.

“I see a danger of nations looking more inward, rather than toward a shared future,” he said at the opening of the UN General Assembly’s annual debate.

He spoke of a “challenge of global leadership” to tackle the world’s worsening financial, energy and food crises.

“We see new centers of power and leadership — in Asia, Latin America and across the newly developed world,” Ban told more than 120 heads of state or government, including Presidents George W. Bush of the United States and Nicolas Sarkozy of France.

“In this new world, our challenges are increasingly those of collaboration rather than confrontation,” he added.

“Nations can no longer protect their interests, or advance the well-being of their people, without the partnership of the rest.”

On the world’s current financial crisis, the UN secretary general stressed the need to “restore order to the international financial markets”.

“We need a new understanding on business ethics and governance, with more compassion and less uncritical faith in the ‘magic’ of markets,” the UN boss said.

Ban, who has chosen implementation of key poverty reduction goals as a major theme of this year’s debate, said he saw “a danger of retreating from the progress we have made, particularly in the realm of development and more equitably sharing the fruits of global growth.”

“Global growth has raised billions of people out of poverty. However, if you are among the world’s poor, you have never felt poverty so sharply.”

It’s time for Americans to look start putting country first, and “sharing the fruits” of our efforts is going to be impossible for us for quite a while without hurting our own people.

America has been the breadbasket of the world for decades, handing out food aid and money as if we had an unlimited supply. Well we don’t. Next year more than a third of our corn crop will likely be used for Ethanol driving up the prices of food while actually lowering fuel economy. The asinine bailout the government is cobbling together will raise taxes not only on “the wealthy” but on small businesses and people who consider themselves middle class. This will affect job growth. It will affect how much you spend per day and it will impoverish thousands. And it is largely at the behest of “global leadership” that we are crippling ourselves in the first place.

What we don’t need now is anymore global leadership.

What Ban Ki-moon means by “global leadership” is that the other countries who have benefited from American ingenuity for years will bleed us dry when we need help with demands for more aid. It’s time to put the U.N. aside and put country first.