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"The Interview" is the closest thing you will find to an "Austin Powers" movie.
It is hilarious. I don't recall anything this funny in many years.
However, it is filled with non-stop profanities, vulgarities and crudeness.
"Austin Powers" movies were made so you could actually take any family member from 8 years old and up and a family could enjoy it together.
You do not want to be sitting next to anybody in your family under 25 either at the theater or in your living room. It would be very embarrassing.
It does have a moment of seriousness which comments clearly on Kim Jong Un and his totalitarian 1984 state.
I have been talking about that family on here for 7 years. This film could be very educational for many people.
The largest banks in America have just been handed the greatest Christmas gift from the American people. The most one-sided piece of legislation since the creation of the Federal Reserve was quietly attached to the major spending bill which will keep the U.S. Government running another year.
The White House and President Obama was pressured into signing it even after they protested the contents of this attachment. Obama knew it was detrimental to all Americans, but couldn't afford another government shutdown.
The gift is a dream come true for all of America's "too big too fail" banks. It's another bailout courtesy of the American taxpayer.
A "derivative" is a bet that banks make on the future.They bet on oil, commodities, livestock, corn and stocks. Here is how it basically works:
A bank bets that soybeans currently valued at $100. a bushel, a year from now will be worth $150. a bushel. They invest millions on that future event. They don't have to put down the full amount now, only 10% on it.
A year goes by. Demand for soybeans did go way up and they now have a marker, which they can sell in the open marketplace, which covers the other 90% they owed from the profits made and gives them a huge profit besides. That profit can be in the billions!
But wait. Weather conditions were extremely bad over that next year. People decided they can do with other foods instead. The price of soybeans went down to $50. a bushel.
The banks owe that 90% they didn't put down up front and they also lost billions when the price of soybeans dropped.
What will the "too big to fail" banks do? They lost billions by making a bad bet in the marketplace.
Not to worry.
When all of you were busy being amused by the antics of the North Koreans and Sony Pictures, your Congressmen and Senators created a last minute attachment dealing with big banks and derivatives.
They have now aligned trading and swapping derivatives for the big banks with the FDIC. This is the government agency which insures your bank savings and checking accounts for up to $250,000.
As of now, if a big bank suddenly loses billions in a derivative deal gone bad, the amount lost will be fully covered by the FDIC and returned to the big bank. And where does the FDIC get its money from? From your savings and checking accounts.
You will now insure the big banks against any bad derivative deal they make. They cannot lose. If they make profits on a derivative deal -- they win! If they lose money on a derivative deal -- they win! Because you have insured their losses.
Can you imagine going to Las Vegas and playing Roulette and if your number comes up -- taking all the profits! And if your number doesn't come up -- the casino refunds back all the money you put down?
How did Congress come up with a piece of legislation like this? We cannot expect our representatives to work too hard. The attached piece of legislation was written by Citigroup, the owners of Citibank. Congress just changed a few words around. Banks had been trying for years to get this passed. Your representatives--the best money can buy--found just the right time to take care of it. America was so distracted by what movie executives were saying about major movie stars, they just slipped this one past us.
Derivative Santa has one message for the American people:
HA! HA! HA!
What if the following announcement was made in 1964 by Columbia Pictures?
"Columbia Pictures has decided not to release the cold war comedy 'Dr. Strangelove' starring Peter Sellers because of the response from Soviet premiere Nikita Khruschev. The head of the Soviet Union has determined that the film makes his nation look bad and must not be exhibited in America or anywhere else. Khruschev says that failure to follow his demands will result in total non-cooperation and more desktop shoe banging at the United Nations."
Americans would never had stood for such an announcement. And they should not allow a rogue nation now to dictate our right to engage in social satire.
Columbia (Sony) needs to release "The Interview" for free online worldwide.
The inside business revelations revealed by the hacking of Sony Pictures computers says a great deal more than just about the movie company. It says something about American business in general.
As top executives at the Sony company sling insults at their biggest stars, directors, creative people and other industry personnel, the public cannot be more amused at learning what really goes on behind the scenes. And even how they try and cover things up with coordinated PR jobs, is revealed better than any textbook or Harvard business course.
The unethical hypocrisy demonstrated at the highest levels at Sony is no different than what goes on daily at every major American corporation.
The exposure of any major company's email would show the same dishonesty, callousness, treachery, double-dealing and corruptness emanating from the top down.
Yet, young folks just recently out of college find out when they try and get a job at any of these companies that a double standard applies. Young folks are told their credit isn't good enough, they wrote about a party they went to on Facebook, they are given psychological tests designed to weed out anybody but the most perfected human beings--there is always some reason why they are not eligible for employment--which eventually goes to somebody's family member or relative anyway.
Companies that are fined hundreds of millions of dollars for some of the most illegal activities, then turn to young people who worked hard for an education, and tell them that they just aren't good enough to be employed at their corporation.
Americans are hypocrites. From politics to business to sports to education to media--especially media.
I think most people are aware that when World War II started, the government called on the entertainment industry to convince Americans to give full support to the war. America's favorite pastime, the movies, soon reflected that with non-stop propaganda films, newsreels, shorts and cartoons.
Superman, Popeye, Bugs Bunny, Donald Duck and other cartoon favorites stepped out of their normal innocent roles to attack both Germany and Japan. Those cartoons were put away after the war in the studio vaults, the baby boomers that were introduced to these characters on TV never saw these WWII versions and only recently they have been making the rounds.
I really thought I had seen them all.
Then I heard a rumor that Archie Andrews and his pal Jughead of innocent Riverdale also took their own turn against Hitler in a comic book.
That seemed impossible. Archie and his friends always were concerned with the malt shop, school and comical romance.
I tried to research it but came up with nothing.
I could not believe what I finally found.
Take a look for yourself. Archie and Jughead against the Nazis! It appeared in a 1943 PEP comic book before Archie got his own comic series.
