March 15, 2009
Trap
From The Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights: Obama’s Backward Economics by Yaron Brook.
“Barack Obama claims that Americans can only stave off economic disaster by trillions in government spending--which means trillions of dollars taxed or borrowed to finance government make-work programs,” said Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights. “Obama-nomics couldn’t be more wrong. “Prosperity requires that the government drastically cut government spending. That way, as much real capital as possible will remain in private hands, and be put to productive use by entrepreneurs to create valuable goods and services to sell at home and abroad. By taxing and inflating our wealth away, Obama will simply be creating more of the crushing debt that brought about the current crisis.”From RealClearPolitics: The "Can-Do" Economy-Killer by Robert Tracinski.
Obama is offering the basic Roosevelt method or formula: buoyant American "can-do" optimism--in the service of the economy-killing agenda of a high-taxing, high-spending welfare and regulatory state. Get the people to love you for giving them a pep talk that lifts their spirits--even as you impose policies that dash their hopes.If Obama is identical to FDR in his basic method, all we can hope that he does not achieve the same result: another ten years of economic collapse.
From Capitalism Magazine: Obama's Plans Will 'Work' -- To Breed Servile Dependence by Richard Salsman.
Oddly, these [conservative] “critics” [of Obama's economic policies] bestow undeserved compliments on their political opponents – and thus provide them with crucial political cover. By implicitly praising their enemy’s underlying motives, these critics effectively shield them from justified criticism. The critics who argue this way – including Rush Limbaugh – unwittingly carry water for President Obama. By insisting the schemes “won’t work,” the “critics” mean they won’t work to grow the economy – won’t revive the stock market – won’t fix the banks – won’t attract capitalists on strike – won’t bolster job creation – and won’t lift the poor out of poverty. Well, all that’s true, but it’s false to assume the Obama administration actually wants to achieve these things.In fact, it wants no such thing.
It has other ideas -- a wholly opposite aim.
Besides a desire for re-election, shared by all politicians, at root the Obama Administration wants individuals and firms to become more dependent on government. That requires not merely a more intensive redistribution of wealth to the needy (whether needy people or needy firms), but also programs and plans that might proliferate the ranks of the needy, even if that requires turning otherwise healthy people and firms into unhealthy, needy ones.
November 21, 2008
Road to Recovery
This cartoon is from February 2002 but may be more relevant to the news now than it was then.
From RealClearMarkets: Bank Share Collapse Points to the Failure of TARP (via TIA Daily)
To its proponents, Paulson’s plan surely sounded nice amid frightened markets, but so far the results have shown yet again that government intervention in the private economy is always and everywhere a false God. Since mid-October the shares of Bank of America, Goldman Sachs and Citigroup are respectively down 45, 51 and 60 percent. Many would note that this past month has been a difficult one for stocks generally, but over that same timeframe, the S&P 500 has fallen a relatively pedestrian 11 percent. It’s also notable that the shares of San Antonio based Frost Bank, a banking concern that refused TARP funds, are down a scant 4 percent.None of this should surprise us. By definition, federal money invested in private companies can only weaken them. Money supplied absent the sometimes rough hand of market discipline allows its unlucky recipients to delay the changes that brought them to the brink of collapse to begin with, all the while allowing the architects of those same mistakes to remain in place. It can’t be stressed enough that companies don’t so much fail due to lack of money as they collapse because investors lose faith in the executives in charge.
But even more problematic is that despite Paulson’s protests otherwise, there is no such thing as a government handout that doesn’t come with strings attached. Many, including Paulson, will note that the federal government’s shares are non-voting, but whether that’s true or not misses the point. Indeed, just six weeks in we’re already seeing the harm wrought by our federal minders. ...
Speaking once again to the truth that there’s no federal money absent strings attached, Treasury has made it clear that banks must aggressively lend in order to lift the economy out of the ditch. That being the case, it’s very apparent that to the degree banks comply, more non-economic lending will materialize such that the seeds of the next financial crisis are being planted right now.
Worse, governmental demands that banks lend with no regard to prevailing market conditions are an impoverishing concept. How soon we forgot that a successful capitalist system is reliant on the efficient deployment of capital.[Emphasis added]
From The Ayn Rand Institute: Stop Blaming Capitalism for Government Failures by Yaron Brook and Don Watkins:
Speaking of the financial crisis, French president Nicolas Sarkozy recently said, “Laissez-faire is finished. The all-powerful market that always knows best is finished.”Sarkozy was echoing the views of many, including president-elect Obama, who assume that the financial crisis was caused by free markets--by “unbridled greed” unleashed by decades of deregulation and a “hands off” approach to the economy. And given this premise, the solution, they say, is obvious. To solve this crisis and prevent another one, we need a heavy dose of Uncle Sam’s elixir: government intervention. Whether it’s more bailouts, stricter regulation, a new round of nationalizations, or some other scheme, the only question since day one has been how, not whether, government is going to intervene. ...
But while capitalism may be a convenient scapegoat, it did not cause any of these problems. Indeed, whatever one wishes to call the unruly mixture of freedom and government controls that made up our economic and political system during the last three decades, one cannot call it capitalism. ...
Consider the current crisis. The causes are complex, but the driving force is clearly government intervention: the Fed keeping interest rates below the rate of inflation, thus encouraging people to borrow and providing the impetus for a housing bubble; the Community Reinvestment Act, which forces banks to lend money to low-income and poor-credit households; the creation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac with government-guaranteed debt leading to artificially low mortgage rates and the illusion that the financial instruments created by bundling them are low risk; government-licensed rating agencies, which gave AAA ratings to mortgage-backed securities, creating a false sense of confidence; deposit insurance and the “too big to fail” doctrine, whose bailout promises have created huge distortions in incentives and risk-taking throughout the financial system; and so on. In the face of this long list, who can say with a straight face that the housing and financial markets were frontiers of “cowboy capitalism”?
This is just the latest example of a pattern that has been going on since the rise of capitalism: capitalism is blamed for the ills of government intervention--and then even more government intervention is proposed as the cure. [Emphasis added]
October 14, 2008
Rescue me
Since stopping editorial cartoons a year ago, John and I have continued creating gag cartoons for my automotive publications. Occasionally one of our gag cartoons will cross over into editorial territory. Such is the case with the cartoon above, which is why I'm posting it here (it's also posted at John's blog). We have no plans to start up again, but it's certainly not for lack of material in the news these days...
From FOX News (using their front page headline): U.S. to Pour Up to $250 Billion Directly Into Banks
U.S. officials announced Tuesday morning a broad range of measures designed to shore up the struggling financial system, including the purchase of stakes in some of the country’s largest banks and guarantees for most new debt issued by insured banks. [Emphasis added]
You think Hugo Chavez is jealous?
UPDATE -- Oct. 15: Good to see that not all banks are wanting government intervention. From the Washington Post: Smaller Banks Resist Federal Cash Infusions.
Community banking executives around the country responded with anger yesterday to the Bush administration's strategy of investing $250 billion in financial firms, saying they don't need the money, resent the intrusion and feel it's unfair to rescue companies from their own mistakes.But regulators said some banks will be pressed to take the taxpayer dollars anyway. Others banks judged too sick to save will be allowed to fail. ...
The opposition suggested that the government may have to continue to press banks to participate in the plan. The first $125 billion will be divided among nine of the largest U.S. banks, which were forced to accept the investment to help destigmatize the program in the eyes of other institutions. [Emphasis added]
Banks are being "pressed" and "forced" to accept money that was "pressed" and "forced" from taxpayers. In defense of this socialist expansion, Bush gives us a classic A-is-non-A denial of reality: "These measures are not intended to take over the free market but to preserve it." Clearly the man doesn't even know what the "free" in "free market" means. And unfortunately neither do McCain and Obama.
March 13, 2008
C&F eBooks for FREE!
That's right—all four Cox & Forkum Editorial Cartoon collections are available in electronic form at no charge, even our out-of-print first volume. Sign up with WOWIO* to download your free copies of C&F books:
Black & White World
Black & White World II
Black & White World III
Black & White World IV
We figure that if you like our eBooks, you'll love our real books (also available at Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble).
Once you're signed up with WOWIO, you'll have access to many, many other free books, from Chris Muir's Day by Day and The Early Works of Dr. Seuss to Paine's Common Sense and Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment.
UPDATE: WOWIO is now available internationally.
February 01, 2008
C&F Original Art For Sale
The originals for many of our cartoons are available for purchase. The artworks are 9" x 6.5" ink illustrations on 11" x 7" acid-free bristol boards. All are signed and dated by me and John. If there are cartoons you're interested in, send an inquiry to me at "contact -- at -- coxandforkum.com", and I'll let you know if they are available and at what price. Prices range from $250 to $500. Some cartoons are already gone or not for sale. As an example, the original below is available for $400:
(You can see the final version of the cartoon here.)
January 08, 2008
Final Bow
(NOTE: The orginal date of this post was September 30, 2007. The post has been redated to keep it on the front page.)
With mixed emotions I announce: John and I will no longer be producing editorial cartoons. John will continue posting his work at his blog, John Cox Art, and he and I will continue working together on various projects, but there will be no more regularly scheduled editorial cartoons. The Web site will remain running indefinitely, as a means to market our books and as an archive of our work.
This decision is primarily mine. I will go into a little more detail below for those interested, but I want to first call attention to some closing matters:
1) The image above is the cover illustration for our final book collection. Black & White World IV contains over 200 cartoons and caricatures. A special section will showcase the development of a few cartoons, from my rough, to John's pencial sketch, to the final product. To order, just click here to place your preorder. The book is slated to ship out by the end of October middle of November.
2) Signed, original art for many of our editorial cartoons is available for purchase. I hope to create a special Web page for the art eventually. In the meantime, if there's a cartoon you're interested in, send an inquiry to me at "contact -- at -- coxandforkum.com", and I'll let you know if it is available and at what price. Prices range from $250 to $500. Some cartoons are already gone or not for sale.
3) Be sure to visit John Cox Art daily. John has posted loads of excellent work since we launched his site in May. He's been painting, illustrating and cartooning for over 20 years. Currently you can see a page from a comic-book project he's working on. He'll be posting his Newsmaker Caricatures there too. Contact him at "johncee10 -- at -- hotmail.com" to inquire about commissions.
Let me start by saying that quitting editorial cartooning has been one of my toughest decisions. Having such a creative outlet for expressing my opinions is immensely satisfying. It's an art form I've admired for decades, so I do not take lightly having the opportunity to work in the medium and to have that work seen by others. One of my proudest moments came soon after 9/11 when I held in my hands our first published cartoon. It was easy to feel useless, even helpless, in the weeks and months following the attacks. But to be able to fight in the battle of ideas was empowering.
For better or worse, I've always had to approach the editorial cartoon work as a "part time" career. I never quit my "day job" as co-owner of a small newspaper publishing business. The editorial work, though intellectually rewarding, is not very financially rewarding. Furthermore, researching the cartoons, writing/designing them, managing the blog, publishing the books, marketing them, and running the business side all take an enormous amount of time.
All of that comes with the territory, of course, and John and I have done pretty well over the last six years. We're fairly well known on the Internet, we have a few newspaper and magazine clients, we've self-published four books, and we've made some money, if not a living. But lately, for reasons I won't go into here, I can no longer afford to divert so much time and attention away from my publishing business and other personal concerns, such as my family.
I also want to stop focusing so much of my creative energy on negative aspects of daily life. There's still an ideological battle to be fought, not to mention an actual war, and I will stay engaged in some form and medium. But at this point, anything seems more appealing than immersing myself in the sewer of daily politics.
That said, I imagine we won't be able to resist creating an occasional editorial cartoon. And if we do, we'll post it here.
Over the years we've received many letters of encouragement from all over the world and from all across the political spectrum. The feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. Of course, we've received our share of criticism too, but surprisingly little of the hate mail so common on the Internet. We're thankful to all of you who have shared our work with others, bought our books and products, and stood beside us along the way, even if not on every issue.
There are many people we're grateful to for their support, from bloggers, to clients, to friends. I can't begin to list them all here; hopefully you know who you are. But there are two "firsts" I want to mention by name. Robert Tracinski was the first to publish one of our editorial cartoons (see the cartoon here) in the November 2001 edition of The Intellectual Activist. And Charles Johnson at Little Green Footballs was the first major blogger to regularly post our work on the Internet (see the cartoon here). They both saw value in our work, and we thank them for publicizing our cartoons when others wouldn't.
And finally, though John and I will continue to work together, I want to say that it's been an honor and great fun to work with him on these editorial cartoons. Though we had collaborated for years prior to starting the editorials, we discovered that there was a lot to learn about working together on a near daily basis, and from two different cities. There's been plenty of give and take. But ultimately we were able to say to one another "split the balloon with his head" or "make the worm neck longer" and be completely understood. John breathed life into the cartoons by giving the characters emotion and humanity. We simply could not have produced this work separately, and I will be forever proud to have the work bear our names.
And so, we take our bow.
UPDATE: Daryl Cagle is an accomplished cartoonist at MSNBC.com who also has his own syndicate. He began running our cartoons a few months ago. When we informed him that we were quitting, he asked us a few questions. You can read the interview here.
UPDATE II: Thank you, Chris.
UPDATE III: Kind words from Charles and the lizardoid army.
Continue reading "Final Bow"Cox & Forkum Book Collections
Black & White World Volumes II, III, and IV can all be ordered from this page. Volume I is out of print.
Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble also have all three titles.
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January 07, 2008
C&F in Best-of-Year book
You'll find a few Cox & Forkum cartoons in the newly released book The Best Political Cartoons of the Year 2008. The book is compiled by Daryl Cagle, a cartoonist who also runs the most popular editorial cartoon Web site. With over 900 cartoons by over 160 artists, the book is an excellent review of 2007 from the perspective of editorial cartoonists.
January 01, 2008
John's Comic Book Available
Matamoros, John's comic book project, is finally complete and available for order here.
See John's announcement at his blog and a few more sneak peeks here and here.
I enjoyed the book, particularly seeing how John applied his talents to a medium very different from editorial cartooning. The basic story, written by Sleet and Darius Lamonica, is a familiar one in the comic world, but the modern-day context of the Islamist war gives it a relevance that readers of this site might appreciate. The book is designated #1, so hopefully we have more to look forward to from John in the graphic-story medium.
