Americans took on more debt in May and used their credit cards more for only the second time in nearly three years. Consumers stepped up their borrowing just as the economy began to slump and hiring slowed. How College Students Can Build A Simple Budget The Federal Reserve said Friday that consumer borrowing rose $5.1 billion in May, the eighth straight monthly increase. It followed a revised gain of $5.7 billion in April. Borrowing in the category that covers credit cards increased, as did borrowing in the category for auto and student loans. Borrowing is a sign of confidence in the economy. Consumers tend to take on more debt when they feel wealthier. That boosts consumer spending. Ultimately, it gives businesses more faith to expand and hire. But an increase in credit card debt can also be a sign of people falling on harder times. 7 Affordable Gifts That Build Wealth The economy added just 18,000 jobs in June, the fewest in nine months, the Labor Department said Friday. It was the second straight month of feeble job growth. The unemployment rate rose to 9.2 percent, the highest rate of the year. Economists have said that temporary factors, in part, have forced some employers to scale back hiring plans. High gas prices have cut into consumer spending, which fuels 70 percent of economic activity. And supply-chain disruptions stemming from the Japan crisis have slowed U.S. manufacturing production. Economists don’t expect consumers to load up on debt the way they did during the housing boom. During that period, Americans felt wealthier and more willing to take on increased debt because of the soaring value of their homes. The Federal Reserve’s borrowing report includes auto loans, student loans and credit cards. But it excludes mortgages and loans tied to real estate.
The Romney campaign released a new web video just hours after the the latest Labor Department’s employment report showed unmemployment jumped to 9.2% and the economy gained just 18,000 jobs in June – far below analysts’ expectations. The Audacity Of … Continue reading → Broadcasting platform : YouTube Source : Gateway Pundit Discovery Date : 09/07/2011 12:00 Number of articles : 2
Cameron Crowe-directed retrospective set to premiere in September. By James Montgomery, with reporting by Sasha Hamrogue Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder Photo: Michel Linssen/ Redferns On October 22, 1990, Mookie Blaylock played their first official show at the Off Ramp Cafe in Seattle. Rock historians would come to imbue this event with understandable import: After all, Mookie Blaylock would go on to become Pearl Jam, one of the most important rock outfits of the past two decades. And now, with the 20th anniversary of that debut show on the horizon, the members of Pearl Jam are looking back for the first time in their careers — and they still can’t believe they’ve made it this far. Luckily, they’ve got Cameron Crowe to help them remember their journey from Seattle mid-carders to one of the biggest acts on the planet. He’s directed a documentary called, appropriately enough, “Pearl Jam Twenty,” that culls through more than 1,200 hours of rare footage — plus 24 hours of recently shot interviews — to provide a definitive look at the band’s legendary career. The film is reportedly set to premiere in September — though, on Monday, PBS announced it would broadcast it in October as part of its “American Masters” series — meaning that, at long last, guitarist Mike McCready, one of Pearl Jam’s founding members, is being forced to come to terms with his band’s own mortality. “Yeah, it all went very quickly,” he said, laughing. “There were many highs and lows throughout our career, and many arcs of creativity [and] tragedies … that run the whole gamut of human emotions, being in this. From being in a band with guys for 20 years, and having fights and making up, and being brothers in a way, looking out for each other.” And part of what appeals to McCready about Crowe’s film is that it somehow manages to tie all of those things together into one cohesive and comprehensive work — one that had even the longtime guitarist getting a bit nostalgic. “When I saw the early … edits of it, I thought it was very interesting and kind of exciting and, like I said, it runs the gamut of all those emotions,” he explained. “And it actually put in some sort of musical perspective the past 20 years, like, ‘Oh yeah, we did do that, we did do this’: the Ticketmaster thing , there was Roskilde , there were all these issues, and there were these great highs and interesting beginnings. The story it tells is: Why did it work, and why does it still? It made more sense when I saw the movie.” But “Twenty” isn’t the only thing Pearl Jam have in store for fans to commemorate the occasion: They’ve also announced plans for a Labor Day weekend concert alongside the likes of the Strokes, Queens of the Stone Age and Mudhoney, and, as McCready hinted, there might even be some new music on the way. Or maybe not. After all, all this nostalgia takes up a lot of time. “Jeff [Ament] and Ed [Vedder] were really wanting to do more music in the terms of, ‘It’s our 20th anniversary. Let’s celebrate that, but let’s also do some new music,’ and we’re all into that,” McCready said. “So, you may see some new music, you may not. I know we’re going to record some new music this year; it may not be finished by the end of the year.” Are you excited to see the Pearl Jam documentary? Tell us below! Related Artists Pearl Jam
A report from Nicole J. Pearce . She covered the Greater Boston Labor Council’s “We Are One” MLK exploitation protest at the Massachusetts Republican Party headquarters: Yesterday I was able to attend the We Are One rally in Boston. This video is of the closing remarks of the event by Greater Boston Labor Council leader Rich Rogers … And check Kimberly Morin, ” Violent rhetoric from AFL-CIO union… Broadcasting platform : YouTube Source : American Power Discovery Date : 05/04/2011 21:20 Number of articles : 2
Red Letter Media’s Mike Stoklasa finishes evisceration of ‘Star Wars,’ creates ‘Half in the Bag’ to skewer movies on more regular basis. By Shawn Adler Mike Stoklassa Photo: Logan Jacobs His video eviscerations of the “Star Wars” prequels were among last year’s most anticipated, widely viewed online videos, garnering millions of views, inspiring new discussions of copyright in the digital age , and making celebrity fans ranging from Simon Pegg to Roger Ebert. But now that Mike Stoklasa, aka Mr. Plinkett, has finished carving up George Lucas — his “Revenge of Nadine: Episode III Review Epilogue” dropped Thursday (March 10) — the Milwaukee based writer/director turned millennial critic is breaking out the entire cutlery set for his next target. And this time, nobody will be safe, Stoklasa laughed in an interview with MTV News. Titled “Half in the Bag,” Stoklasa and friend Jay Bauman have launched a new online review program which will skewer current Hollywood movies in a more traditional review format, a “mix between ‘Pee-Wee’s Playhouse’ and ‘At the Movies,'” Stoklasa revealed in an email conversation. Their first effort, which imagines the pair as VCR repairmen sent to Mr. Plinkett’s house, premiered late Friday evening (March 11). The show is an attempt to cross something like “Siskel and Ebert” with a 80s era sitcom, Stoklasa explained, with the two hosts sitting across from each other while discussing new releases. For Stoklasa, it means that for the first time he’ll be lobbing critical bombs in front of the camera, rather than from behind, a switch he said he made, not without some trepidation, to avoid “the same old thing.” “I was a bit concerned with revealing the ‘man behind the curtain,’, but it’s just not in my nature to go on doing the same thing. If I did that people would say ‘The Plinkett reviews are getting old and worn out,'” he wrote. “We don’t want things to stay the same.” An expansion of and not a replacement for the trademark video stylings of Mr. Plinkett, the program is also an attempt to “make new material for people on a regular basis” while avoiding the labor intensive process inherent in the earlier reviews, Stoklasa wrote. “I like talking about movies and analyzing them, but sometimes it’s fun to deviate into other things and the traditional Mr. Plinkett reviews just take a really long time to make,” he wrote. “I will still continue to make the Mr. Plinkett reviews where I do the voice and everything, but we’re going to do this too.” But not all will be different, Stoklasa cautioned. Fans of his earlier reviews will see a familiar through-line, he said, as the program will contain cutaways, random sound effects, and even skits, such as a portion of the first review where George Lucas comes to destroy their set. Of those familiar tropes, perhaps the most familiar will be Plinkett himself, who will appear to audiences in front of the camera played by Rich Evans. “We toyed with the idea of never showing his face and me dubbing over all of his lines, but it would have been very time consuming to light that for each shot and to have to do all the ADR,” Stoklasa wrote. “Plus, I think Rich is funny in the part, he adds a lot to the role and makes it his own. Rich is really great with awkward physical comedy and comes up with a lot of good ideas on set. Hopefully people will appreciate that there is ‘Plinkett A’ and ‘Plinkett B’ and to understand that Plinkett A is not going away.” Since the show takes place in the fictional construct of Mr. Plinkett’s living room, where the pair are on a never ending quest to fix an old VCR, Stoklasa believes there’s room to criticize not just new movies, but any film that Plinkett might have in his expansive video catalogue, meaning that while the first episode centered on new films like “Drive Angry” and “The Adjustment Bureau,” older films are not off-limits. “The format is open to us doing anything,” he said. “We’ll probably wind up with more current stuff for the primary reviews, but we’ll do old B-movies and stuff like that too. We love terrible old B-Movies quite a bit and I have a sick fascination with movies that are so bad they’re funny.” For now, “the hope is to do it weekly,” Stoklasa wrote. The next episode of “Half in the Bag” premiers early next week.
U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration slaps musical with three citations. By Shawn Adler “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark” Photo: Don Emmert/ AFP He’s been hunted by the Green Goblin, The Lizard, and Venom, but the webbed avenger just got challenged by what might be his most powerful foe yet: The U.S. government. Already plagued by problems ranging from delays , to rewrites to actor injuries , the Julie Taymor directed musical “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark” and its production company, 8 Legged Productions LLC, have been issued three citations for violations of workplace safety standards by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), according to a report in The New York Times . The beleaguered musical, which has reportedly cost upwards of $65 million to finance, faces a proposed fine of $12,600. The citations were issued in response to injuries to four separate actors, sustained during performances beginning in September 2010. Most notable among these injuries was a November 28 incident in which cast member Natalie Mendozaand suffered a concussion and a December 20 incident in which Christopher Tierney, the actor portraying Spider-Man himself, fell into the orchestra pit and suffered a fractured skull and our broken ribs among other injuries. “‘Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark'” remains in compliance with all government agencies and continues to adhere to all safety protocols,” Rick Miramontez, a spokesman for the production said in a statement. The citations, which come on the heels of two violations issued by The New York State Department of Labor, are the latest in a long line of troubles for the musical, the sum total of which prompted Taymor to recently describe the production as a “trial by fire.” “I am in the crucible right now. It is my trial by fire. It’s my company’s trial by fire. We have survived because our theme song is ‘Rise Above,'” Taymor said during the TED2011 conference in Long Beach, California. “Anyone who creates knows when it’s not quite there. Where it hasn’t quite become the phoenix or the burnt char. And I am right there.” The production company has 15 business days to contest the violations. Barring any more problems, “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark,” with music by Bono and The Edge, is set to premier March 15.
Ha! [Cue honking gag horn] It’ll all make sense after a look at the trailer for Super , James Gunn’s outrageous (and outrageously violent) comedy featuring Rainn Wilson as a schmo-turned-crime-fighter working to reclaim his estranged wife (Liv Tyler) from an evil drug lord (Kevin Bacon). Along the way he enlists a young sidekick (Ellen Page) whose expertise in comics (and enthusiasm for head-busting) comes in handy on his quest.
And that’s when Charlie Sheen officially morphed into a sweaty and twitchy edition of The Onion . Speaking with Access Hollywood host Billy Bush, the future radio station said that he plans on heading to Haiti (!) with Sean Penn (!!) to do humanitarian work. “I’m excited as hell because, you know, if I can bring the attention of the world down there, then clearly this tsunami keeps cresting,” said Sheen in the most flagrant example yet of his addiction to mixed metaphors. What else is happening in Sheenworld?
So not only does Take Me Home Tonight get the small details wrong — someone makes a Rain Man reference even though TMHT is set during Labor Day Weekend 1988 and Rain Man wouldn’t be seen for a few more months — it also fails to capture the charm and the laughs that we think of when we recall the great teen flicks of the 1980s. And even taking the great John Hughes out of the equation (and seriously, TMHT , how very DARE you have sent your characters to “Shermer High”? Blasphemy!), there are plenty of actual ’80s movies that will bring you far more joy this weekend on DVD than this crappy new comedy. Ahead, five better options.
The Alliance for Quality Education, the labor & parent group arguing against Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s proposed $1.5 billion cut to school aid, released the below video as part of the organization’s contest to hear real stories about the cut’s impact. It features Cynthia Nixon, who like most of you, I keep in my rolodex under Broadcasting platform : YouTube Source : Capitol confidential Discovery Date : 24/02/2011 17:09 Number of articles : 2
