Economist had a review of the movie I.O.U.S.A on Aug 14th 2008. I recommend anyone who is less knowledgeable on our budget deficit should go watch this movie.
“AMERICA’S infamous debt clock, near New York’s Times Square, was switched off in 2000 after the national burden started to fall thanks to several years of Clinton-era budget restraint.
The biggest deficit of all, the film contends, is in leadership: politicians continue to duck hard choices. It hints at dark consequences. As America has become more reliant on foreign lenders, it warns, so it has become more vulnerable to “financial warfare”, of the sort America itself threatened to wage on Britain, a big debtor, during the Suez crisis. Warren Buffett, America’s investor-in-chief, pops up to warn of potential political instability.”
If you haven’t seen this movie yet, I recommend watching it (especially if you are a Tech geek).
Sarcos Inc. has taken the concept from Iron Man and run with it, producing a mature exoskeleton design that may just possibly lead to the first real life “Iron Man” suit. Sarcos comes from a decidedly non-militaristic background of designing robots for “Jurassic Park” rides at the Universal Studios theme park. However, the contractor quickly morphed into a military contractor embarking on an exciting new project — the Sarcos Suit.
This was posted on WSJ Blog. I can’t wait to see this movie. Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged is one of my all-time favorite read ever.
If there’s one thing we know, it’s that Deal Journal readers like Objectivist author Ayn Rand. So, good news for Rand fans who can tear themselves away from their copies of the Romantic Manifesto long enough to get to a theater: a new Atlas Shrugged movie is in the works, and a new Fountainhead (potentially starring Brad Pitt) may not be far behind.
Some of the chess pieces are already in place. Lionsgate vice chairman Michael Burns has acquired the rights. Vadim Perelman, the director of The House of Sand and Fog, will direct the movie, which will star pillowy-lipped, bedroom-eyed actress Angelina Jolie as the heroine, Dagny Taggart.
Shows like this are why we live in New York. This is someone who will be creating important and emotionally impactful art for a long time, the rare artist whose work will send you flying out into the street afterward with an elevated pulse and renewed passion for being alive. Argentinian expat Andrea Cukier’s work is defined by subtlety, yet packs a potently visceral intensity. To say that her collection of nebulous yet riveting oil paintings - on display at the Consulate General of Argentina through April 30- is captivating is the understatement of the year. Many of these works are pensive and stark, yet rich with emotion and sometimes longing. The artist has a special affinity for the port of Buenos Aires, several views of which are featured in this show.
Eager to get American cinema complexes ready for a surge in 3-D movies next year, four major Hollywood studios announced on Tuesday a deal to subsidize the conversion of 10,000 theaters to digital projection systems.
The motion picture industry is racing to roll out digital projectors, not just because they avoid the costly printing and shipping of reels of film, but also because they’re needed to show the current generation of 3-D films, which have often been bonanzas at the box office.
Under the deal announced on Tuesday, the Walt Disney Company, 20th Century Fox, Paramount and Universal all agreed to pay “virtual print fees” for each movie they distribute digitally to the participating theaters. Theater owners will use the fees to buy the projectors, servers and other equipment needed — about $75,000 for each auditorium
MIT has filed a lawsuit against Frank O. Gehry, the starchitect of the Ray and Maria Stata Center, and Skanska USA Building Inc., the construction company that built the Stata Center. MIT alleges that Gehry was negligent in designing the building and that both Gehry and Skanska breached their contractual obligations.
The showstopper home for its computer-science, linguistics, and philosophy departments cost $300 million to build ($200 million more than initial estimates) and opened in 2004 (four years behind schedule). And now the school has turned to the courts to express its buyer’s remorse. A lawsuit filed in October against both the construction firm and the architect alleges “design and construction failures,” negligence, and breach of contract, which have cost the university $1.5 million in repairs already, with millions more likely to come.
![Freakonomics[Revised and Expanded]](/images/21xRHBWYYML.jpg "Freakonomics[Revised and Expanded]")
