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Hey, Stan! Look at what I found while I was “excavating” my bedroom last week.  I’d always treasured this t-shirt for the delicious irony of its message…Given that I had spent 2000-01 at the Council of Economic Advisers writing about President Clinton’s legacy of fiscal responsibility and (unsuccessfully) working against the idea of the Bush tax cuts, how ironic that during that period I would win one of Stan’s weekly “Budget Battles” trivia contests to receive this shirt claiming a 2001 budget victory.  It’s one of my favorite mementos…I’ll keep it stored next to my high school varsity cheerleading sweater from now on. 

One 20′ dumpster (rented from Home Depot), parked in front of my house for 9 days, then hauled away today:  $525.00.

One almost-full truckload of old furniture, moved out of my house today by 1-800-GOT-JUNK:  $571.00.  (They did a great job, by the way, hence the “plug” here.)

A half a front porch full of toys, books, and clothes, to be picked up by Goodwill tomorrow:  FREE.

Sitting on the floor of my living room because I can (and don’t care that I don’t have new furniture yet), and basking in my semi-decluttered bliss:  PRICELESS.

….

I still have a lot left to do before Labor Day and am headed off to the beach tomorrow (until IOUSA comes out on Thursday, because it’s not showing there…), but I’m bound and determined to pretend we are moving so that I fool myself into actually getting rid of maybe 1/3 to 1/2 of my “stuff.”  Seriously.  As the 1-800-GOT-JUNK guys were moving out my old living room furniture today, I was ecstatically sweeping up the dust and remarking to them how “liberating” it felt.  Do I really need to replace the old furniture?…  I can sit on the floor just fine, what with all the yoga I do!

Anyone else get giddy over getting rid of stuff?  I think it feels even better than the opposite “retail therapy.”  Of course, that’s my problem…I think I’m clearly a “binge-and-purger” when it comes to “stuff.”  (I know, totally irrational and not in keeping with my economist upbringing.)

Actually, I’m working pretty hard around home today, so you know, I haven’t had time to focus on the blog…  But I did read this morning’s paper (Washington Post) and caught three cartoons very relevant to recent topics on this blog.

First, Mike Peters for the Dayton Daily News on Obama’s (and McCain’s) energy policy:

and Rex Babin for the Sacramento Bee on the U.S. budget deficit, compared with the Iraq budget surplus:

…and finally, Nick Anderson for the Houston Chronicle, on Paris Hilton’s energy policy (and candidacy?):

I.O.U.S.A. is the front page Business section story in the Washington Post today!  Alas, no naming of The Concord Coalition or our star Bob Bixby; Bob is basically dubbed a stunt man–and Dave Walker gets “action hero” billing.  As writer Frank Ahrens puts it:

…Early reviewers have dubbed the film “An Inconvenient Truth” for the economy, meaning it’s not exactly the feel-good movie of late summer 2008.

Except for budget wonks in love, it hardly counts as a date movie. The film’s thrilling action sequence has a guy going to a refrigerator for a Tab. There are no car chases and nothing blows up.

Except, possibly, for the entire economic future of the United States.

“I.O.U.S.A.” offers up as its action hero David M. Walker, former head of the Government Accountability Office. With movie-star looks that scream “accountant” rather than “Terminator,” Walker has been the Cassandra — or Chicken Little — of America’s growing deficit for some time…

Check out the reference to Arthur Laffer later in the article, who is held up as if he’s the only kind of naysayer when it comes to the “heading off a credit cliff” message.  That won’t make entitlement-status-quo types happy…  (Laffer is not interviewed in the movie although there are old clips of him from the “Reaganomics” days.)

And here’s the reminder of where and when at the end of the Post article:

The film will debut in 400 theaters around the country on [Thursday] Aug. 21, followed by a live video town hall meeting from Omaha, featuring Walker, Peterson and Buffett. The next day [Fri., Aug. 22], the film opens in 10 cities, including Washington.

You can go to the Fathom Events (the promoter’s) website to find out if the special premiere/town hall event will be coming to a theatre near you.

Hey!  I know this is bizarre, but I think she’s got it just about right, suggesting a reasonable compromise position between the supply- and demand-side strategies on fossil fuels, in this video.   (Yes, perhaps you will see other things she has just about right, too…)  Who wrote this script?

Will the special one-night screening and simulcast panel discussion of I.O.U.S.A. on Thursday, August 21st (one night before the theatrical release) be coming to a theatre near you?  Go to the Fathom Events website to find out; you can plug in your zip code.

Two thumbs up!  (I have two thumbs!) 

I have mentioned the movie I.O.U.S.A. before here on this blog, starting with my “about” page in discussing the new and improved (almost totally hip?) Concord Coalition, and then again in mid-June when the movie was shown at a DC-area film festival.  Well, mark your calendars… The movie opens in theatres in 10 major metropolitan areas–the “I.O.U.S.A. the movie” website lists New York, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Miami, Philadelphia, Kansas City, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C.–on Friday, August 22nd.  The evening before the theatrical release, on Thurs., August 21st, a much broader nationwide distribution of about 400 theatres will be treated to a special screening/sneak preview, to be immediately followed by a simulcast panel discussion featuring Warren Buffett, Pete Peterson, and David Walker.  (***UPDATE:  go to this “Fathom Events” webpage to find the theatre nearest you.)  If and when it will come back after the 21st for a run at your theatre, I’m not sure.  So save the evening of the 21st to see it when you can–and early.

Because I’m so privileged to work with many of the ”stars” in the movie (the movie features the Concord Coalition’s Fiscal Wake-Up Tour, great shots of our executive director (my boss) Bob Bixby in our humble Concord offices in Arlington, VA, and is very much oriented around Concord’s mission), I’ve had a chance to see the various versions of the movie as it has developed and improved and have even had the opportunity to meet and give feedback to the movie’s director, Patrick Creadon (how cool is that?).  I’ve now seen the movie four times, having just viewed the theatrical release version just yesterday, and I love it more each time I see it.  (I’m always the first one to clap at the end.)  I really think it’s so brilliant how Patrick has turned what would seem to be a dull, ”inside the Beltway” policy issue that one would normally only read about in too-technical government documents or see through C-SPAN coverage of too-tedious congressional hearings, into a sit-on-the-edge-of-your-seat (and learn), thoroughly entertaining motion picture.  Amazing.

But you might think I’m a little biased.  After all, I find the issue of fiscal responsibility so engaging that I thought I could build a blog (this blog) around it!

So don’t take this budget geek’s word for it… Check out this review by Jessica Mosby, of the Women’s International Perspective blog, who must have seen the movie at one of the film festivals or other special screenings.   Jessica is not an EconomistMom–she is, in her own words, ”a writer and critic living in San Francisco, California. In the rare moments when she’s not traveling across the United States for work, Jessica enjoys listening to public radio, buying organic food at local farmers markets, trolling junk stores, and collecting owl-themed tchotchke.”

My favorite parts of Jessica’s review:

…Creadon’s new film, which is based on the book of the same name, rebuffs the notion that “economics” and “fun” have to be mutually exclusive. For 85 minutes, I.O.U.S.A. zips through 200 years of American history to explain how the richest country in the world is currently $9.5 trillion in debt.

…If you have no idea or don’t even care that this debt exists, I.O.U.S.A. makes you want to learn. The film’s complex premise and daunting numbers are made more accessible by the use of colorful graphs and illustrations. Creadon effectively contrasts what average people think (or think they know) against experts’ analysis, which keeps the film from being too weighed down by statistics and theories.

…A significant portion of I.O.U.S.A. follows former U.S. Comptroller General David Walker and The Concord Coalition Executive Director Robert Bixby as they tour the country speaking in town hall meetings as part of their Fiscal Wake-Up Tour. Since 2005, Walker and Bixby have made it their mission to educate the public on the reality that the future of the country depends on making difficult financial decisions. Hearing two middle-aged bureaucrats talk about economics and the country’s dire future is oddly compelling and even funny (maybe it’s all the Tab soda that the good-humored Bixby is always drinking).

…Between 1980 and 1990 the national debt more than tripled. After being elected in 1992, President Bill Clinton broke his campaign promise to lower taxes, deciding instead to balance the budget and eliminate the debt by 2012. But we haven’t continued to pay down our debt; the rising budget deficit, and what that means for the country’s future, is why Walker and Bixby started their Fiscal Wake-Up Tour.

Even people who are aware of the budget deficit (and, according to the film’s hilarious interviews with random people on the street, that’s only a handful) don’t fully understand the complexity and ramifications of the deficit.

… I.O.U.S.A. is an incredibly timely documentary that is able to address a serious issue in an accessible and fun way, which is never an easy feat. Spending money and time on an educational documentary film may not appeal to everyone, but understanding the country’s economy is especially important as a recession looms and the price tag for the Iraq war escalates to $3 trillion. However, some people may be overwhelmed by the amount of information that the film presents, especially those not familiar with economics. 

…To its credit, I.O.U.S.A. does not take political sides; regardless of which party is in office – politicians on both sides of the aisle are responsible for the current situation…

…While it may be easier to simply ignore the complexities of the country’s finances, Americans actually have a chance to reevaluate their fiscal policies with the upcoming presidential elections – watching I.O.U.S.A. is a good place to start.

I will keep you readers informed about the movie’s release as I have more information to share.  For now, go to the movie’s website to check out the movie trailer and photos, and save Thursday evening, August 21st for a possible special screening coming to your neighborhood theatre (the evening before the big theatrical release to those 10 major metro areas).

And… YouTube links:

IOUSA movie trailer

interview with Patrick Creadon, with clips

Just noticed a crucial detail that had slipped by me in that “yoga bears” article from Thursday’s Wall Street Journal… Please check out my update to that yoga post!  (Wow…everything somehow ties together here on EconomistMom…)

Not my “allowance trust fund” daughter, but my Baskin-Robbins daughter–as Virginia “observes” the federal minimum wage, which went up yesterday from $5.85/hour to $6.55/hour.  With the 15-20 hours/week she works, that’s at most $14 extra/week, which is still nothing in terms of the “true value” our family places on her B-R employment from getting that family discount on the ice cream…and even the occasional flubbed-up ice cream cake we get for free!  Which goes to show you that sometimes the biggest work incentive effects–perverse or otherwise–are unrelated to the wage rate. 

(By the way, that’s not my daughter in the costume, but she’d definitely wear one of those if they boosted her wage rate another 70 cents or just hired more fun people to wear such costumes with her.)

UPDATE:  That’s my daughter, Allie, in comment #3 and the photo below (…wow! she’s making good money this week…the $400 is her guess for two weeks work)… She’s the one in the middle here:

I just have to express my glee at seeing today’s front page of the Wall Street Journal.  Not over the sad story about how the states are being “slammed by tax shortfalls” (which I’m reading this morning)–but over the story on “yoga bears” and how yoga has done wonderful things for the well-being of financial professionals, who would otherwise be stressed out, angry, overweight, and dealing with back pain.  (AngryBears, take note?)

Luciano Cortese, a broad-shouldered 48-year-old hedge-fund manager, says he used to bang his desk, throw things or yell at someone when his job became particularly stressful. But since starting yoga in January, he has been taking the stock market’s jolts in stride, he says. “I just say to myself tomorrow is another day.”

Yoga is, after all, another hugely important part of my life; I teach yoga because I love to introduce it to others having been lucky enough to find it myself years ago.  Yoga’s the only way I let myself get “twisted up” over anything these days.  (Yep, that’s me up there, in “garudasana”–eagle pose.)  You should really think of me as “EconomistYogiMom.”  Ask any of my former colleagues on Capitol Hill if they valued me more as their economist or as their (bipartisan) yoga teacher! 

UPDATE (midnight, 7/26):  I don’t know how I could have let this get past me when I first posted… That WSJ article mentions a particularly enthusiastic yogi who I’ve accused of “gross exaggeration” here on this blog before:

Billionaire fund managers Paul Tudor Jones and William Gross both practice Ashtanga, an active form of yoga that involves flowing through a set series of poses. Bond-fund guru Mr. Gross, a founder of Pimco, does yoga five days a week and says some of his best ideas come when he is standing on his head, or sirsasana, supported by the forearms on the floor.

Must be all that oxygen rushing to Bill Gross’ brain during headstands, stimulating his creative thinking!