Last night, Obama signed an executive order, bringing the dreaded "sequestration" into effect.

That sequestration will lop off $85 billion from government spending this year, via across-the-board cuts to defense and every domestic agency.

Economically, the austerity is dumb (because the economy is still weak) and pragmatically, the across-the-board nature of the cuts is a silly way to cut spending.

And yet, for now, sequestration is here.

What makes it really pathetic is this chart, which our Walter Hickey recently published, and which comes from the Bipartisan Policy Center.

It shows that there's virtually no change to any of our debt dynamic metrics as a result of these cuts. Yes, the cuts might reduce deficits by a little bit (although they might not, if the economy slows too much) but the trajectory of things is virtually identical.

Even for avowed budget cutters, the win is Pyrrhic.

As NYT/CNBC's John Harwood tweeted this morning.

Rs won lower discretionary spending levels than Obama/Dswant. But cost is greater: no entitlement reform AT ALL. Was achievable.

— John Harwood (@JohnJHarwood) March 2, 2013

It seems pretty clear that Obama is open to (at least some modest) tweaks to entitlements. But to make them palatable, he wants them paired with higher taxes, which is an impossibility in this Congress.

So we got these dumb cuts that don't do anything about current debt dynamics.

SEE ALSO: Barack Obama: I am not a dictator >

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Business Insider Joe Weisenthal johalputt

06:50

People have been buzzing about Martin Scorcese's new movie, The Wolf of Wall Street, for almost a year now, but until now, no one was exactly sure when the movie would come out in theaters.

This week, we got an answer to that question. The Hollywood Reporter writes that the movie will hit the silver screen in November, and we can't wait.

That's parly because we've already read a copy The Wolf of Wall Street script, written Terence Winter. It's based on the autobiography of Wall Street castaway, Jordan Belfort, and it is definitely captivating.

Back in the 1990s, Belfort ran Stratton-Oakmont, a Long Island based pump and dump that found itself on top of the Wall Street world. Think: Drugs, hookers, parties with performing midgets.

And then it all came crashing down. Belfort went to jail for 20 months and lost everything.

We think you'll agree that this is a movie worth watching, and so we've compiled some moments from the script that we think will make it really sing.

The movie opens with a very professional commercial about Belfort's firm, and then goes into a scene of he and his brokers having a dwarf throwing contest.

According to the script, classical music plays as "a conservative group of smiling ethnically diverse actors surrounding their young chairman Jordan Belfort" pose through a Gene Hackman voice-over.

Then you head to Stratton-Oakmont headquarters and 700 20-something stockbroker bros are chanting and throwing around dollars bills to see who can throw a cape-clad dwarf into a dollar sign bulls-eye.

Jordan is being played by Leonardo DiCaprio.

More chaos: Jordan's first day in the bullpen L.F. Rothschild in 1980s suspender wearing Wall Street.

Jordan walks in and is immediately berated by his supervisor, Scott Mollen, who tells him he'll be "the connector" calling 500 clients all day. "You are lower than f*cking pond scum," Mollen tells him.

Luckily, Belfort also meets Danny Porush (played by Jonah Hill), Mollen's much more polished superior. "F*ck him," he tells Jordan, "I'm senior broker here and he's just a worthless piker. Let's grab lunch later."

And then then the opening bell rings as Porush yells, "Let's f*ck!" And the race begins — brokers dial like crazy and everyone is screaming — it's the sound of greed, says Jordan's voice-over.

At lunch, Danny and Jordan have a martini drinking contest until one of them passes out.

They're at a high-end restaurant and Danny is doing coke from a spoon when the Maitre'D comes over. He tells him:

"Here's the game plan Luis. Bring us two Absolute martinis straight up. Precisely seven and half minutes later you deliver those you'll deliver two more, then two more after five minutes until one of us passes out."

Jordan says he doesn't drink and tries, and fails, to order a 7-Up.

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Business Insider johalputt Linette Lopez

06:50

Startup Plex Systems has a pinball arcade complete with its own pinball wizard, Michael McDonald.

How cool is that?

McDonald is one of the founding members of the Detroit Pinball League and co-organizer of something called the Michigan Pinball Expo. He's won a few tournaments, too.

When not playing, McDonald is a developer working on the company's cloud-based ERP app.

Michigan-based Plex recently lured Jason Blessing to be its new CEO. Blessing is a former PeopleSoft and Taleo exec who escaped the clutches of Oracle, twice, when each of his employers was acquired.

Blessing jumped at the CEO job back in his home state. But he says his favorite thing about his new company is the pinball arcade.

Michael McDonald shows off the office pinball collection. It's the star of any office tour.

Plex has other games in the room as well, but the pinball machines rule.

Writing code can be similar to playing pinball, McDonald says. The Plex mantra for doing both is: 1. eat a good breakfast, 2. drink lots of coffee, and 3. be in the zone.

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Business Insider johalputt Julie Bort

06:07

Google+ Hangouts, the company's group video chat app, now has special support for sign language interpreters.

When an interpreter is added to the Hangout, he remains in the top right of the app and automatically becomes the focus when he speaks to translate a deaf user's signs.

So not only will a deaf user be able to understand everything that's said in a Hangout, but he'll also be able to verbally speak to the other users with the interpreter acting as a proxy.

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Business Insider Dylan Love johalputt

05:50

Lift is a simple app with a humble mission – to help its users cultivate good habits.

Simply maintain a list of tasks that you want to turn into a habit and tell the app when you want to be reminded to carry them out.

For example, I have a reminder to floss that goes off every night at 9 PM. And you know what? After a week or so of using the app, I no longer need the app to remind me.

The flossing reminder goes off and I've already done it.

What kinds of things would you like to make into habits?

Tap the app to start it up.

It immediately displays the habits you've already added. Let's add a new one by tapping on the plus sign.

You can add a brand new habit or pick one from a category. Let's check out "Popular."

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Business Insider Dylan Love johalputt

05:20