Headlines (Scroll down for complete stories):
1. 'Three Stooges' Remake, Three Financial Stooges Real Life
2. 'Special Relationship' Spotlights Bill and Hillary
3. Chris Matthews’ World Currency Fit
4. The Milli Vanilli Movie
1. 'Three Stooges' Remake, Three Financial Stooges Real Life
Another remake is coming soon to a multiplex near you.
A “Planet of the Apes,” “Superman,” “The Manchurian Candidate,” “Titanic” or “Psycho” redo?
No, it’s a 21st Century feature film version of — “The Three Stooges.”
Two real-life stooges of Hugo Chavez will be in it. Sean Penn is all set to play Larry and Benicio Del Toro, Moe.
Jim Carrey is slated for Curly, and he’ll reportedly shave his head for the role.
Maybe studio execs should consider doing a flick on the Three Financial Stooges, Robert Rubin, Lawrence Summers and Timothy Geithner.
These numbskulls had a lot to do with getting us into the economic jam we find ourselves in.
In fact, long before Barney Frank and Chris Dodd threw a gigantic wrench in the works when others were trying to stop Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac from hemorrhaging, the Three Financial Stooges laid the groundwork for the current economic catastrophe, and they did so under Bill Clinton’s administration.
Rubin was treasury secretary, Summers was his assistant and Geithner served as an undersecretary.
Rubin, Summers and Geithner lobbied then-President Clinton, and ultimately the Congress, to get rid of the Glass-Steagall Act, which stopped banks from entering into the securities market. They were also part of the group that rammed the Commodity Futures Modernization Act through.
Banks could then gamble with credit-default swaps and collateralized-debt obligations — financial instruments that ordinary folks and even some regulators didn’t really understand.
These were the things that Warren Buffett called “financial weapons of mass destruction.”
Banks were then able to use derivatives to make their books look better, buy mass quantities of subprime mortgages and become “too big to fail” institutions.
Geithner went on to become head of the New York Federal Reserve, where he would be instrumental in backing the Paulson bailouts, including the infamous AIG bailout.
Today Geithner is President Obama's treasury secretary, and Summers is a key economic adviser.
These individuals knew about the AIG bonuses. They were informed via a Feb. 28 memo that the AIG bonuses were coming on March 15.
They’re also the ones offering us a new plan, one in which taxpayers would essentially buy back from the banks the very toxic assets the Three Financial Stooges helped to create.
Rubin, recently said he plans to leave Citigroup in April; this after he oversaw the bank’s stock go from $50 a share two years ago to today being worth less than $2.
He’ll apparently still avail himself to the Obama administration to give more sage advice.
Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk.
2. 'Special Relationship' Spotlights Bill and Hillary
Just what we needed, a movie, likely to be jointly produced by HBO and the BBC, called “The Special Relationship,” which will take us on a trip down Memory Lane to the Clinton years.
The “special relationship” apparently refers to the political one between Bill Clinton and Tony Blair and not the “inappropriate” one between little Willie and Monica Lewinsky, although that will supposedly be included, too.
Dennis Quaid will portray the ex-prez and Julianne Moore will play Hillary.
In a hint about how the story will be told, the writer and director is Peter Morgan, the same guy who penned “Frost/Nixon.”
Why can’t Hollywood come up with some more current script ideas, like the story of a man who worked at Freddie Mac, the mortgage entity with an accounting scandal that led to a major management shake-up and huge fines; the story of the same guy being on the board and taking in more than $300 grand for the gig; and the story of a dubious dude who goes on to become chief of staff to the president of the United States?
“Rahmbo,” with a cliffhanger of an ending, would make for a good flick.
3. Chris Matthews’ World Currency Fit
MSNBC host Chris Matthews was more apoplectic than usual about a line of questioning from Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann.
Matthews hyperventilated about how “nobody on the planet” was “talking about switching to some new multinational currency here.”
Matthews was referring to some inquiries Bachmann made to Secretary Geithner during a Financial Services Committee hearing about whether he would denounce efforts to move towards a new global currency.
The issue hit the news when Zhou Xiaochuan, the governor of China’s Central Bank, announced that the U.S. dollar should be discarded as the world’s reserve currency.
Matthews could use a geography lesson, and maybe a few sessions with Dr. Drew.
Rep. Bachmann was merely doing her job when she asked Geithner if he was for or against changing the international reserve currency from the dollar to some new monetary measure. Geithner, incidentally, answered Bachmann’s question in the affirmative; that he would denounce a move away from the U.S. dollar.
A day later, though, the Treasury head made contradictory remarks to the Council on Foreign Relations, saying that he was “quite open” to the idea of dumping the dollar for a new world currency.
Guess Geithner was against the Chinese proposal before he was open to it.
Predictably, his remarks caused the dollar to drop in value.
Not surprisingly, George Soros, the U.N., China, and Russia all agree with Geithner’s flop position.
Rep. Bachmann has introduced a resolution that would bar the dollar from being replaced by any foreign or new currency.
We now have a president who’s breaking our grandkids' piggy banks, a secretary of state who blames the U.S. for the Mexican border debacle, and a Treasury secretary who says he’s open to ditching the U.S. dollar in favor of a new global reserve currency.
With leaders like these who needs enemies?
4. The Milli Vanilli Movie
Milli Vanilli was a duo from the late 1980s and early 1990s that rose to superstar status on Clive Davis’ Arista Records.
The two were forced to give back a Grammy when the public discovered that they didn’t sing their own songs.
Universal Pictures actually optioned a Jeff Nathanson script on the Milli Vanilli story to make into a motion picture.
In a similar inauthentic vein, a rep for “American Idol” has reluctantly admitted, according to The New York Times, that the group performances on the show are lip-synched.
Meanwhile President Obama, who seems to be overly attached to his teleprompter, recently conducted an Internet town-hall meeting that smacked of showbiz sleight of hand.
The event had been promoted as being open to any and all citizens with an Internet connection.
But questioners called on at the event by Obama included a member of the pro-Obama Service Employees International Union; a member of the Democratic National Committee who campaigned for Obama in the Hispanic community; a former Democratic candidate for the Virginia House of Delegates who endorsed Obama; and a Virginia businessman who was a donor to Obama's 2008 campaign.
So the virtual deck was stacked with supporters whose questions would give the president the opportunity to launch on his preferred message of the day.
Maybe Obama should lip-synch his next town-hall meeting.
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