Berkeley Breathed is putting his penguin on ice. The 51-year-old cartoonist said he will pull the plug on his comic-strip career and “Opus” after Nov. 2.
In an e-mail to the Los Angeles Times, the 51-year-old Breathed wrote, “30 years of cartooning to end. I’m destroying the village to save it. Opus would inevitably become a ranting mouthpiece in the coming wicked days, and I respect the other parts of him too much to see that happen. The Michael Moore part of me would kill the part of him that was important to his fans.”
Sad, but at least Opus stopped before I did. I have basically been taken to pacing around the house in my underwear, muttering to myself about the entire collapse of the United States. Some hard changes need to occur in this country and nobody is prepared to make them. Mutter, mutter, mutter...
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Penguin Dreams and Stranger Things
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9 comments:
I am in agreement with your last sentence, and I would also conlcude that I am not prepared. However, I believe that for this country to be great once again (and I mean this from the perspective that we have never experienced it great in our lifetime) there must be failure. True capitalism can never be capitalism when the government intervenes. One of Firecracker's great gripes deals directly with this. The corporate world must be held accountable, and it must not be done through taxes or gifts. I believe it must be done through allowed failure.
Ah! Now here is a meaty discussion. I used to believe (simply because I had no reason to disbelieve) that the market worked best when left to self-regulate. I could agree with W2 on letting the corporate world be held accountable if I had an idea of what the consequences would be for everyone else. But since I don't, I'm unable to agree wholeheartedly. (Although without a doubt I think it would be ouly fair that they should dig themselves out, but I don't trust them to do that.)
I simply have no confidence anymore that the market can self-regulate because big business repeatedly has shown that it can't be trusted to act ethically. I hope that people are beginning to realize that the end does not justify the means, the end is inherent in the means - if you cheat to win, eventually you wind up like Enron et. al.
I'm sure that regulation can be misused or simply botched, but when de-regulation runs amok, the little guy gets trampled.
As for Breathed, it sounds like he's making the right decision. He's beginning to go Carlin it sounds like.
The biuggest problem was that the incentives for the financial markets are specifically focused on short term returns, despite the fact everyone is told that a long term diversified portfolio is the way to go. Therefore, they created whatever financial instruments thay can to achieve the short term gains. Screw the future - someone will bail us out, or at least I got paid when the getting was good! Of course this one is so big, the governemnt has to intervene to prevent overall financial collapse. Hard to belive this is all because a small percentage of people can't pay their mortgage because they were too stupid to undertand the large investment they were making and banking on their home price increasing. dumb, dumb, dumb.... mutter, mutter, mutter...
The the banks take crappy mortgages and bundle them together and sell them off as an investment that is secured by the largest insurer, all the while nobody really understands anything about the risk or value... mutter, mutter, mutter...
So many pieces! Add to this the stress the US having borrowed money from WWII on (esp. 1980's on) and the implications of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid and we are looking at the devaluing of the US Treasury Bond essentially causing severe economic collapse. You like infrastructure that works? Screw that! All we can afford to do is pay interest on our debt... mutter, mutter, mutter...
Should have titled it:
"Foul temptress -- she probably thinks Ziggy has gotten too preachy, too."
So, I guess we'll be going down together, I mean getting off together, I mean, AHH!
I'm still not sure I completely understand what's going on with the now global financial meltdown, and based on the way the stock market has reacted to every so-called bailout the Fed and Treasury Department has thrown at it, I'm not sure anyone really does.
I think this all comes down to common sense, and the loss of it. We've all been taught since we were kids that you couldn't live on credit forever. But somehow, that line of thinking has faded over time and instead overshadowed by our inner greed. I'd love to put the blame solely on the banks that sold us on these shady loans and intricate investment schemes, but most of us should have known better than to take them up on their offer in the first place.
Oh well. Unlike Scratch, I try and console myself by thinking back to the days of the savings and loan crisis of the 80's. Granted, I now our current state is a bit larger and wide-reaching than that event, but it has some similarities. The U.S. was drowning in debt and facing an ever growing deficit. A combination of deregulation and bad mortgage loans eventually led to the collapse of the savings and loan industry, leaving the American taxpayer the bill for the bailout. After the whole thing shook out, I recall a certain U.S. History teacher in high school who would regularly get on her soapbox during class to remind us that we and perhaps even our own children would be paying for this in the years ahead. It seemed like some horrible prediction of the future, like my entire income would go to the federal government, leaving me with nothing more than enough money to buy a bean burrito at Taco Bell or something to that effect. Now that I'm a working adult, though, I never thought about the S&L crisis at all until now. Perhaps in 10, 20 years I'll look back on these economic times as a mere afterthought, too. Well, that is if someone in office will be thoughtful enough not to repeat the same mistakes again.
I don't know who defines "The American Dream" but hopefully this doesn't become a right to a big house, fancy car, plasma TV, and iPhone for everyone who can simply sign an IOU.
As all of you remember well I'm sure, when the market crashed in 87 my folks and I had moved to California just a few months before. My Father, who was basically a business investor in the truest sense of the word, was already feeling the economic crunch long before the market truly showed its results. We moved west as all folks seeking a land of honey do. What did we find? That the poverty line in 87 was higher then Mccains old mans pants, and there was no economic bliss anywhere in Reaganmerica. We ended up moving back to Amarillo where at least we were with friends and family while we were broke and unemployed. I'd like to think I learned some valuable lessons from that time. I don't have a risky get rich quick lifestyle like my Father. But, I don't have a job that will be highly needed if we have a true economic depression like my Great Grandmother told horror stories of, either. I obviously didn't learn the lesson well enough. Doctors and banjo players will be in high demand when we're all in tent villages wating for the jobs to come back, and I'm neither. I think where my wife and I will be ok for the most part; we are both high enough in our companies food chains there will be some severance package if they go south, we have no credit cards, and our cars are paid off. That's more then my parent's had going for them in 87 at the very least.
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