December 4, 2017

No Image

Entertainment December 4, 2017

Today in Movie Culture: Best of 2017 Countdown, a Recap of the Year in Movies Overall and More

Here are a bunch of little bites to satisfy your hunger for movie culture:

End of Year Countdown of the Day:

It’s the time for best-of-the-year countdowns, including this annual treat from IndieWire critic David Ehrlich:

[embedded content]

End of Year Supercut of the Day:

There’s no ranking in this video, but Sleepy Skunk’s annual movie trailer mashup is a terrific overview of 2017 in film:

[embedded content]

Trailer Remake of the Day:

The trailer for Avengers: Infinity War has been redone with cartoon footage again, this time by Smart Aleck Comedy:

[embedded content]

Documentary Parody of the Day:

Nerdist sends up the great new documentary Jim & Andy and reimagines it being about Jim Carrey’s performance in How the Grinch Stole Christmas instead of Man on the Moon:

[embedded content]

Vintage Image of the Day:

Jeff Bridges, who turns 68 today, with co-star Karen Allen and director John Carpenter on the set of Starman in 1984:

Actor in the Spotlight:

The latest installment of No Small Parts looks at the career of character actor Keith David:

[embedded content]

Movie Comparison of the Day:

Spider-Man: Homecoming isn’t just the best Spider-Man movie in years, but it’s also an improvement on the very similar Steel according to Couch Tomato:

[embedded content]

Cosplay of the Day:

Here’s some more perfect Wonder Woman cosplay inspired by this year’s enormously successful movie:

Look at this amazing Wonder Woman cosplay. It looks like she just straight up borrowed the costume from the movie set, it’s PERFECT. pic.twitter.com/uHUfnUAk8C

— Denizcan James (@MrFilmkritik) December 3, 2017

DIY Custom Build of the Day:

If you want to cosplay as a TIE Fighter pilot on Star Wars: The Last Jedi opening day next week, here’s a cheap and easy way to make a helmet:

[embedded content]

Classic Movie Clip of the Day:

This week is the 20th anniversary of the release of Good Will Hunting. Watch a classic scene from the Oscar-winning movie below.

[embedded content]

and

Let’s block ads! (Why?)

No Image

Business December 4, 2017

Is This The Right Time For a Big Tax Cut?

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell addressed a tax reform news conference on Capitol Hill last Thursday, alongside Sen. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia and representatives of small-business groups.

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

hide caption

toggle caption

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Republicans say the tax-cutting overhaul being debated in Congress will jump-start the U.S. economy, leading to a lot more investment and hiring by companies.

But some economists say the tax plans — which would sharply cut corporate and business taxes and eliminate numerous deductions for individuals — come at precisely the wrong time. Lower taxes could also be undercut by Federal Reserve policymakers, who are gradually raising interest rates, they say.

Tax cuts can be a good way to stimulate the economy when growth is slowing down, by encouraging businesses and people to keep spending when their finances are growing tighter.

But the economy is in the midst of its longest postwar recovery on record, with an annual growth rate of 3.3 percent last quarter. The unemployment rate is down to 4.1 percent.

Economists often argue that during periods of growth like this, governments should be paring down debt, giving them more fiscal breathing room during the next recession.

“It’s always valuable to keep your powder dry, if you can, so you do have fiscal space if there is a downturn,” says former Fed governor Randall Kroszner, now a professor of economics at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

But the Republican tax cuts would create more than $1 trillion in debt over the next decade, according to Congress’ Joint Committee on Taxation.

“I think the timing of this tax cut from the perspective of the deficit is completely upside down,” says Jared Bernstein, senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

He adds, “When you get to this stage of recovery and you’re closing in on full employment, you absolutely want your deficit and debt to be coming down.”

There’s an even bigger, macroeconomic problem with pushing through tax cuts right now.

If tax cuts are done right, they can increase incentives for investment and lead to productivity growth, Kroszner says.

But they can also lead to higher inflation, which can spur the Fed to raise interest rates. “If it’s seen as something that’s just short term, the Fed is likely to offset that by making sure the economy doesn’t overheat and inflation doesn’t get too high,” Kroszner says.

That’s a real concern right now. To Fed policymakers, the economy is already at or near full employment. They’ve already raised rates twice this year and are widely expected to do so again this month.

While supporters say that tax cuts would boost growth, Fed officials may decide they amount to more stimulus than the economy needs.

“I think they would say we already have pretty much a fully employed economy. A boost to aggregate demand is not exactly what the doctor ordered at this point. So maybe we should offset some of it by raising interest rates faster,” says former Fed Vice Chairman Alan Blinder, a professor of economics and public affairs at Princeton University.

In an interview with The Wall Street Journal last week, New York Fed President William Dudley said he supported efforts to make the tax code simpler, but he appeared to question the need for a tax cut.

“It would be a reasonable question to ask, is this the best time to apply fiscal stimulus, when the economy’s already close to full employment?” Dudley said. “It’s probably not the best time.”

Let’s block ads! (Why?)

No Image

Health December 4, 2017

What The CVS And Aetna Merger Has To Do With Amazon

The $69 billion merger of the drug store chain CVS with insurer Aetna is about several things. Depending on whom you ask, it’s about transforming the pharmacy store experience, getting a stronger foothold in lucrative sales of specialty prescription drugs — or about preparing for a future threat from Amazon.

MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:

To other news now – drugstore giant CVS wants to buy the insurance company Aetna for $69 billion. This would be a huge deal with ramifications for the whole health care industry, and we’re going to explore now why these two companies want to pair up. I have a hint for you, which is, it may or may not have something to do with an online giant named Amazon.

NPR business reporter Alina Selyukh is here to walk us through all this. Welcome.

ALINA SELYUKH, BYLINE: Hello.

KELLY: So what’s the driving force behind this merger? Why do CVS and Aetna want to get together?

SELYUKH: Well, in many ways, this was kind of the logical next step both for CVS and Aetna. They’re both already feeling pressure in core businesses from competitors like UnitedHealth. Aetna had tried to grow by buying a rival insurer, Humana. The government interrupted that merger. And as for CVS, it’s a company that spent the past few years attempting a bit of a metamorphosis. They’re trying to shed the image of a corner drugstore and become a health care company. And this merger could help that.

KELLY: What does that mean – to become a health care company? Has CVS shared what their grand vision is here?

SELYUKH: The head of CVS, Chief Executive Larry Merlo, has been using this catchphrase America’s front door to health care. And one of the things that companies are promoting is this plan for a nationwide network of community medical clinics. The idea is to use CVS locations, of which there are 9,700, and turn them more into clinics where you can get a wide array of basic health services like seeing a nurse practitioner, getting some labs, dealing with chronic conditions like high blood pressure or diabetes.

KELLY: Ok. So I mentioned the name Amazon – threw that into our conversation a moment ago – Amazon, which does not run health care clinics yet.

SELYUKH: No, not yet.

(LAUGHTER)

KELLY: But they do sell a lot of the things that you could walk into a CVS and buy like your toothpaste, your Band-Aids, whatever. Why is Amazon a factor here?

SELYUKH: So it depends on whom you ask whether Amazon even is a factor. Amazon has a powerful and threatening backstory. It forced major bookstores out of business, and so its share – its shadow often looms larger than any kind of specific thing the company might do.

So remember; Amazon bought Whole Foods. Immediately after that, there was a – epic predictions of just how the – Amazon might use those physical locations to become the store that sells you everything. And so that kind of a spread to pharmacies as well – Amazon has been coming up on earnings calls in the health care industry, including for CVS, whose CEO, Merlo, was asked about the threat of Amazon earlier this year. Here’s what he said.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

LARRY MERLO: Listen. There’s no question that Amazon is a competitor in the marketplace. They’ve done a great job. And you don’t take anything that they’re doing for granted. But at the same time, I think that we have a lot of capabilities and a value proposition that can compete effectively in the market.

SELYUKH: In short, CVS is just kind of watching Amazon for now.

KELLY: Well, and Alina, what do we know about Amazon’s ambitions? I mean, does Amazon want to get into the prescription drug business?

SELYUKH: The company itself does not say, but analysts have been reading various tea leaves to speculate about Amazon’s plans. And some even think that the merger of CVS and Aetna was a defensive move against that possibility. But I also spoke with an industry consultant, Adam Fein, president of Pembroke Consulting. And he is a skeptic.

ADAM FEIN: We actually know almost nothing about what Amazon wants to do. And so I think the speculation about Amazon has far, far exceeded anything they’ve said or hinted at.

SELYUKH: Fein points out that the big money in prescription drugs is not in selling your routine meds for cough or blood pressure, which is kind of implausible Amazon territory. But it’s the expensive specialty drugs for very serious conditions like cancer or MS.

KELLY: Right.

SELYUKH: Plus, many people may not realize that CVS already has a foot in the insurance business. It makes a lot of its money serving as a sort of middleman, negotiating prices of prescriptions between insurers and drug companies. All of that makes for very tough competition for a company like Amazon to enter after never being in the health care industry before.

KELLY: That’s NPR’s Alina Selyukh. And you heard her here on NPR News.

Copyright © 2017 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

Let’s block ads! (Why?)

No Image

Sports December 4, 2017

Team Russia Waiting To Learn Fate For 2018 Winter Olympics

On Tuesday, Russia will learn whether it will be allowed to compete in the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea. Officials have already stripped six medals won by Russia in the previous Winter Olympics because of doping.

KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:

The Winter Olympics in South Korea are coming, and tomorrow we will find out if Russia is going. The International Olympic Committee is set to decide whether the Russian team can compete because of Russia’s ongoing doping scandal. NPR’s Tom Goldman reports the IOC’s decision could have a major impact on the entire Olympic movement.

TOM GOLDMAN, BYLINE: The IOC faced a similar decision last year. Leading up to the Rio de Janeiro Summer Games, an independent report detailed a widespread state-sponsored doping system in Russia during a period that included Russia’s hosting of the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi. Russian athletes won the most gold medals there and the most medals overall.

There were calls to ban Russia from the Rio Olympics, but the IOC essentially punted and had the federations that run individual sports decide. This resulted in a last-minute patchwork Russian team competing in Brazil. This time, says Olympic historian Jules Boykoff, the IOC has to act.

JULES BOYKOFF: I think we have too much evidence now.

GOLDMAN: Boykoff wrote the book “Power Games,” a political history of the Olympics.

BOYKOFF: Unlike ahead of the Rio Olympics, the process has moved through IOC channels. And so the IOC commissions that have been set up to look at doping are now banning Russians on what seems like an almost daily basis.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: (Speaking Ukrainian).

GOLDMAN: This Ukrainian newscast announced some of the nearly two dozen Russian athletes who’ve been sanctioned since last month, including Olympic medal winners. And the numbers are expected to grow. Additionally, the World Anti-Doping Agency, WADA, says Russia still hasn’t fully complied with WADA standards. The push for IOC action includes a call to ban all Russian athletes from the upcoming Winter Olympics. But even those most affected by doping think that’s a step too far.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: (Speaking German).

GOLDMAN: When American biathlete Lowell Bailey earned his first podium finish top three in this 2014 race, he didn’t know the Russian athlete who finished one place ahead of him was, in Bailey’s words, doped to the gills. The Russian served a two-year suspension and returned to competition. The incident sharpened Bailey’s attitudes toward doping.

LOWELL BAILEY: Such a vile act, the worst thing you can do as a competitor.

GOLDMAN: But the anger doesn’t blind him to the fact that a total Russian athlete ban for the upcoming games would unfairly punish the clean Russian athletes.

BAILEY: In this case, I would like to see due process first and foremost. I think every athlete deserves that.

GOLDMAN: Many agree. And among those calling for the strongest possible action, the consensus is this. Ban the Russian Federation, but allow individual athletes to compete if they pass stringent drug tests. And those who get in would compete under a neutral flag, wearing a neutral uniform. Russian leaders who continue to deny state sponsored doping don’t like that, and they say they might respond by boycotting the games. For the IOC, it’s a delicate balancing act. Russia’s a major power player in the Olympic movement. But Jules Boykoff says the IOC also knows it has to be firm to back up all its tough talk about fighting doping, especially at a vulnerable time for the Olympics.

BOYKOFF: There’s no getting around the fact that fewer and fewer cities are game to host the Olympic Games. And what could happen if they make a decision that Russia reacts very negatively to – they could fracture the Olympic movement in perhaps a way that would be unfixable, at least in the near term.

GOLDMAN: Critics say the IOC has a history of deflecting tough decisions. Rarely has the call been stronger for the Committee to confront and act and start to repair a tarnished brand. Tom Goldman, NPR News.

(SOUNDBITE OF CFCF’S “RAINING PATTERNS”)

Copyright © 2017 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

Let’s block ads! (Why?)