Tag Archives: review

The New Push for a Global Currency

You surely didn’t think that the governing elites would let this economic crisis pass without pushing some cockamamie scheme for control. Well, here is the cloud no bigger than a man’s hand, a revival of a 60-year-old idea of a global paper currency to fix what ails us. The IMF study that calls for this is by Reza Moghadam of the Strategy, Policy, and Review Department, “in collaboration with the Finance, Legal, Monetary and Capital Markets, Research and Statistics Departments, and consultation with the Area Departments.” In other words, this paper shouldn’t be ignored. It’s a long-term plan, but the plan has the unmistakable stamp of Keynes: “A global currency, bancor, issued by a global central bank would be designed as a stable store of value that is not tied exclusively to the conditions of any particular economy…. The global central bank could serve as a lender of last resort, providing needed systemic liquidity in the event of adverse shocks and more automatically than at present.” The term bancor comes from Keynes directly. He proposed this idea following World War II, but it was rejected mostly for nationalistic reasons. Instead we got a monetary system based on the dollar, which was in turn tied to gold. In other words, we got a phony gold standard that was destined to collapse as gold reserve imbalances became unsustainable, as they did by the late 1960s. What replaced it is our global paper money system of floating exchange rates. But the elites never give in, never give up. The proposal for a global currency and global central bank is again making the rounds. What problem is being addressed? What is so desperately wrong with the world that the IMF is floating the idea of a world currency? In a word, the problem is hoarding. The IMF is really annoyed that “in recent years, international reserve accumulation has accelerated rapidly, reaching 13 percent of global GDP in 2009 — a threefold increase over ten years.” You see, monetary policy isn’t supposed to work this way. In their ideal world, the central bank releases reserves and these reserves are lent out, leading to a boom in consumption and investment and thereby global happiness forever (never mind the hyperinflation that goes along with it). But there is a problem. The current system is nationally based and so the economic conditions of one country turn out to have an influence on the borrowing and lending markets. Without borrowers and lenders, the money gets stuck in the system…. Continued at: http://www.campaignforliberty.com/article.php?view=1049 added by: Dagum

REVIEW: Ridiculous Twelve Overdoses on Utter Vapidity

For a film meant to delve into the experience of being young, rich, and messed up in New York City, Twelve rarely lets its subjects open their mouths. Instead it plays like the filmstrip an anthropology student from Zambia might make about Upper East Side teenagers after a semester of research involving nothing but episodes of Dragnet and Gossip Girl . And maybe The Rules of Attraction , the atrocious 2002 adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis’s novel of the same name. Over-narrated by Kiefer Sutherland in full “this is extremely important and also very, very cool” mode, from its first self-important minutes Twelve seems as if it can’t possibly be serious. Would that it were not.

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REVIEW: Ridiculous Twelve Overdoses on Utter Vapidity

Mad Men Video: Who Wants to Watch Joan’s Visit to the Gynecologist?

On the heels of yesterday’s two-minute Mad Men preview, which managed to spoil at least one storyline of this Sunday’s new episode, AMC has released another two-minute clip from the upcoming installment which will tell you everything you wanted — or never wanted — to know about Joan’s “procedure” history and her OB-GYN’s bedside manner. Click ahead to find Joan Harris waiting for you in a hospital gown.

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Mad Men Video: Who Wants to Watch Joan’s Visit to the Gynecologist?

REVIEW: Other Guys Leaps to the Head of the Summer Comedy Class

Adam McKay’s comedy The Other Guys has a lot going for it: Even though it mines perennial cop-buddy-movie material, it doesn’t feel generic or strained, and unlike other recent comedies — Dinner for Schmucks pops to mind — it never descends into grating self-consciousness. Forget impressing us with its cleverness; it’s happy to seduce us with its dumbness, and when McKay and his performers — chief among them Will Ferrell, Mark Wahlberg and Eva Mendes — dangle that shiny lure, damn it if it doesn’t work at least half the time.

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REVIEW: Other Guys Leaps to the Head of the Summer Comedy Class

The Company Men Trailer Offers Everything But the Credits

What is it with fall movies starring Ben Affleck? If you thought that trailer for The Town gave away the entire movie , allow me to introduce you to the just-released trailer for The Company Men , which gives away pretty much everything . Want to see this movie in two-minutes-and-thirty seconds? Take a look after the jump.

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The Company Men Trailer Offers Everything But the Credits

Signs of the Pop-Culture Apocalypse, Vol. MCXII: Mel Gibson Edition

Today’s must-read Mel Gibson news comes from neither the salty, screamy audio archives nor the legal front, but rather from an unlikely source who pledges to initiate a reversal of the actor-director’s downfall — at least romantically, which is where this whole Rantgate controversy began in the first place. There’s just one condition.

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Signs of the Pop-Culture Apocalypse, Vol. MCXII: Mel Gibson Edition

Emmy Spotlight: Could Modern Family’s Supporting Actors Split the Vote?

After investigating the other comedic races , it’s time to ask: Who’s running off with the 2010 Emmy for Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy? This year, the question comes with philosophical underpinnings: Is it more honorable to serve a dependable, under-rewarded actor, a quartet of shiny newcomers, or a past winner? Let’s break down all the odds, including the chances of a Glee or Modern Family victory.

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Emmy Spotlight: Could Modern Family’s Supporting Actors Split the Vote?

REVIEW: Salt, Angelina Jolie Deliver the Action-Packed Summer Blockbuster Goods

Somewhere midway through Phillip Noyce’s exhilarating, over-the-top yet strangely modest action-thriller Salt, Angelina Jolie, as on-the-run CIA agent Evelyn Salt, ducks into a ladies’ room to dress a nasty-looking flesh wound — with a maxi-pad. It’s an elegant and ingenious solution to a sticky problem. But then, Salt is a do-it-yourselfer, a resourceful spy who has been trained by the best. She can fashion last-minute weapons from common household items (fire-extinguisher flamethrower, anyone?) and leap off overpasses onto moving semi-trucks with the grace of a lemur (a creature that, with her wide-open, smoky-rimmed eyes, she somewhat resembles). Salt could surely, as an old perfume commercial — borrowing straight from Peggy Lee — used to say, bring home the bacon and fry it up in the pan. But who’d want to watch that?

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REVIEW: Salt, Angelina Jolie Deliver the Action-Packed Summer Blockbuster Goods

Watch the TV Role That Robert Duvall Thinks is Better Than Any Film He’s Made

While making the promotional rounds this morning for his film Get Low , Robert Duvall mentioned in two separate interviews that his best work didn’t come from any of the five films that earned him Oscar nominations or even the one film that earned him an actual Academy Award ( Tender Mercies ). Instead, Duvall singled out an ’80s television project.

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Watch the TV Role That Robert Duvall Thinks is Better Than Any Film He’s Made

REVIEW: Farewell, the Week’s Other Spy Film, Explores Human Toll of Espionage

Farewell, a cold war drama by the French director Christian Carion, isn’t just a movie set in 1981; in many ways it feels like a movie made in 1981. Unflashy and unpretentious, laid out before us in a modest, slightly grayed-out Eastern Bloc color palette, the picture moves tentatively at first: It slumps into action, rather than springing into it. But scene by scene Carion, working from a true story, builds a spy story that focuses more on the human costs of betraying one’s country than on the political fallout. To put it another way, if one man’s leaking of a few maps and documents can precipitate the downfall of a country, just think what it could do to his family.

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REVIEW: Farewell, the Week’s Other Spy Film, Explores Human Toll of Espionage