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Overnight Briefing & General Reality Check - Aug 15, 2013
August 15, 2013
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Your tax dollars at work:
The U-S is less than two months away from getting its new $100 bills --hopefully.
The Oct 08 release date is already more than two years behind schedule, a delay caused by production problems that still persist. The New Yorker magazine says the Bureau of Engraving and Printing has hit yet another snag, per a memo from the bureau. The country has just two currency-printing facilities, and the Washington, D-C, location has had a "mashing" issue, in which the application of too much ink led to what the magazinelikens to a kid painting outside the lines.
The affected bills are "clearly unacceptable" and internal quality checks apparently missed that. They were delivered to the Fed interspersed with ones that were printed just fine, and now the Fed is sending back some 30 million of them --and they won't take any more from the D-C location for now.
Meanwhile, bureau director LARRY FELIX has asked the Fort Worth, TX, facility to step things up. The Atlantic magazine does the math and calculates it that it's a $3.79 million blunder: The bills reportedly cost 12 cents apiece to produce (that's about $3.78 million), and it tacks on another $12,000 for destroying them.
Editor's note: Well, with any luck, maybe these babies will be hard to counterfeit because, obviously, it's even hard to print the real thing. (Maiman)Trash talk and satellite dish:
LAUREN SILVERMAN, the married woman who's carrying SIMON COWELL's baby, has reportedly reached an agreement with her husband ANDREW, and will be proceeding with their divorce.
The NY Post says the pair already had a four-million dollar pre-nup and have been fighting over the custody of their seven-year-old son. Since they live in NYC, the Post says he doesn't want the child to leave for LA so she can be with Simon, despite Simon buying a $15 million house there.
Simon has also reportedly been shopping for an apartment in the Big Apple to rent for Lauren as well --and had recently looked at one that cost $20-grand a month.Idle gossip & unconfirmed rumors:
Has JUSTIN BIEBER moved on to modelizing? The singer was spotted with 20-year-old ASHLEY MOORE on Tuesday. Styleite.com says the model she was riding shotgun in his Ferrari as The Biebs pulled up to a French restaurant in Beverly Hills. (Bartha)
BMW drivers --top-rated jerks:
Warning: note potential sponsor conflict.
Are you pretty impressed with the finely-crafted BMW sitting in your garage? Sorry to break it to 'ya, but you might be a jerk! Yahoo.com reports two different studies from the United States and England came up with the same results. On this side of the pond, researchers at the University of California discovered BMW drivers were far less likely to stop for a pedestrian that just entered a crosswalk and "cheat" at four-way stops. Over in the U.K. motorists were asked to identify the make and color of vehicles that engaged in road-rage incidents. Turns out the most popular answer went to men between the ages of 35 and 50 driving blue BMWs. (Lee) -
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