Then I read this. According to Yahoo News:

Some 14,700 rich Americans, worried about a stepped-up U.S. crackdown on offshore tax cheats, have turned themselves in under the government’s amnesty program.

The Swiss Justice Department said it would hand over the names of wealthy American clients of UBS with accounts holding more than 1 million Swiss francs ($986,200) where there is a reasonable suspicion of tax fraud.

Accounts of a lesser size, as low as 100,000 Swiss francs, could be included in certain circumstances when there is a “scheme of lies” identified, according to the document.

“The threshold for disclosing accounts, in my opinion, is low,” said Kevin Thorn, a Washington-based tax lawyer. “Most believed the threshold would have been $1 million-plus but it appears the government is holding to its word and looking at conduct more than amounts and is going after taxpayers across the board.”

Senator Carl Levin, whose congressional panel has investigated tax evasion for several years, said the language leaves too many loopholes for the Swiss.

Is anyone surprised he’s a Democrat?

I truly believe everyone should pay taxes, and only bad people don’t. But enough is enough. I also believe people have a right to decide for themselves where to put their hard-earned money! Aren’t some people good taxpayers and yet also wise and thrifty investors? Are all off-shore accounts – they mentioned Hong Kong as another secret place- bad?

I think financial cartoons are a challenge – and yet they turn me on! It’s hard to include all the facts, the nuances, and also keep it simple enough for a drawing…

Here’s one I did a few months ago, when the IRS first cracked down on the Swiss banks:

Okay, this cartoon is a little confusing. I KNOW THAT! I did my best. Will explain more later today.

——————————

Interpretation of both: All the people who had to turn themselves in to the IRS amnesty in October were scared sh!tless by the IRS that they would end up paying all their money, plus fines. I can’t believe that all these people are in the Mafia, so they must be people who either don’t support our government or have already paid too much taxes. Maybe I’m wrong, but I think people should be able to deposit big chunks of money elsewhere. Why should our incompetent gov’t – and I think everyone would agree, it’s extremely fiscally foolish – get it all?

At the same time, earlier this year the IRS filed a lawsuit against the biggest Swiss bank, UBS AG (oops, just noticed I drew ABS UG in the cartoon, which, actually, is a clothes designer I like!!) to FORCE them to hand over almost 5000 names of Americans who had deposited money with them.

THE IRS IS FORCING UBS AG  BANK TO BE A TURNCOAT AND TRAITOR TO ITS LOYAL CLIENTS!!! So Swiss banks – or at least this one -have lost their cachet! They’re no longer safe, or secret, or savvy. Hate the IRS and how it seems to control more than any other department in the government.

Thus, in the first cartoon, I had IRS dress like a pirate and shoot at UBS, turning it into Swiss cheese.

And in the earlier cartoon below it, I was trying to draw The Blob, from old movies, with dollar bills floating in it, but I’m very poor in Photoshop. :( So it doesn’t look much like a blob! I also added in the storm of bailouts, which is what the IRS should really investigate, to be fair to this country, but instead it surrounds Switzerland, threatening that it will eat it.

There may be additional comments here. CNN has more here.

Cartoon caption: America’s Pirate Problem: the IRS. Nearly 15,000 Americans confess to “saving” money overseas. And then the IRS steals their gold. ABS Bank, Switzerland.

Cartoon Caption of green blob cartoon: IRS, biggest bully in the playground. IGNORES suspicious bailouts. EATS Switzerland, a kind, neutral country.

More cartoons:

1. Japanese Stock Exchange teeters after the earthquake, too.
2. Banks timed failures to hide behind the election. Right?

"IF KIM JONG IL WANTED TO BE A DO-GOODER." ©D. Barstow

I think I just wanted to draw my first nuclear bomb.

I don’t know why, but when I saw how seriously the news was taking reports of Kim Jong Il setting off nuclear bomb tests, it made me kind of giddy, like laughing in church. Perhaps I am a bad person (but not saying I’m wrong, of course.)

I mean, the man might be sick,  in a coma – or there are concerns he had a stroke. In any case, he’s been out of view, so we don’t know what he’s really doing. Today the timesonline (UK) said:

Mr Kim, 67, is believed to have suffered a stroke last year that removed him from the public eye during several key national events. The medical machinery needed is among a number of items banned under the trade embargo on North Korea, which followed the regime’s first nuclear test in 2006.

Oops, this is what happens when you ban things.  

Mr Kim’s health and the destiny of his country are closely linked. He runs the nation via a personality cult that has emphasised the vigour, strength and youthfulness of the “Dear Leader”.

Interesting. In any case, I don’t know if he’s trying out bombs as a science experiment, a threat, or preparation for something worse. But maybe, if he’s not well, he would like to do some good in his name, before his health could get worse. My suggestions are in the cartoon:

• Plastic bags, because it seems impossible to get rid of them, and they don’t decay very well, gross.
• Useless councilmen. I will not mention my councilman (Tom LaBonge) because that would be unkind. And sometimes he does something good. But if you live in a city like Los Angeles, you quickly realize that councilmembers hold WAY too much power. (Jill Stewart, deputy Editor of the LA Weekly, told me she thinks of them as medieval lords.)
• Ring tones. So quickly boring.
• Liberal talk radio. They sound self-righteous, the few times I’ve heard it.
• Add your own.

More cartoons:

1. Nuclear radiation from Japan!!!!!!
2. What would happen if you wore a Swatch watch today?

Well, the cartoon is about swine flu and Mexico, really, and I concentrated on Mexico, because swine flu in the US looks to be about the size of a head cold. It seems to kill only in Mexico – so far. But I’m not a physician, and am not very interested in disease. However, I couldn’t help but notice in the LA Times a few years ago, how the only incidences of tuberculosis in LA County were from Latino immigrants. The Times is a very liberal paper; it must have just killed them to admit this fact.

Well, anyway, I have to report on the news, not wild hypotheses like 8 kids in NYC had a sniffle. And Mexico has been in the news lately for other sad things, has it not? Think of me as the sundial for cloudy days.

Thanks to Mashable (on Twitter!) I found this article in CNN on
Swine flu creates controversy on Twitter:

Some observers say Twitter — a micro-blogging site where users post 140-character messages — has become a hotbed of unnecessary hype and misinformation about the outbreak, which is thought to have claimed more than 100 lives in Mexico.

For example, some Twitter users told their followers to stop eating pork, he said. Health officials have not advised that precaution.

Etc.

That will be nice, won’t it, when the USDC has some actual facts. Besides calling it H1N1 flu, to try to make it look like they’re working on it.

Okay, let’s go to my mailbag -or hate mail, in this case – OOPS, just got another one. Blanca writes

…..and old problem for Mexico, ignorant americans like you

And Mr. del Rio writes:

Donna, you recent cartoon paints Mexico with a series of “sins” that frankly could apply to practically any other country in the world. Particularly accusing Mexico of “guns” when it is a well known fact that over 90% of all the guns in Mexico come from the US; not to mention that a 40 Billion Dollar drug consumption market is fueling the Mexico cartels. Your depiction of Mexico as bad neighbor is both offensive and ignorant. It must liberating to be able to express so freely and so un-funningly (I thought cartoons were supposed to have at least some element of humor?) your own prejudices on the face of a healthcare crisis that could have emerged from anywhere.

Shame on you!

Oh, and a third:

What do u know about mexico Lady!! U are the bad neighbor!! wee dont need ya at all!!!

(I didn’t have room to add Poor Education in the cartoon.)

None said whether they have a trip planned there soon, or whether they would have written if I had made the map of Canada, instead. Swine flu is not Mexico’s biggest problem – notice that I put it last. And obviously, no one BLAMES a country or a person, for that matter, for getting a disease. But the US has been issuing warnings not to drink the water in Mexico for decades. Maybe, just maybe, their health department, run by the corrupt government there, are not the best.

The Drawing I don’t know if anyone remembers the State Farm jingle that goes, “Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.” Apparently not. Maybe I was trying to be too clever, turning it around like this for the caption.

And this will only be interesting to a small slice of readers, but while I was drawing this I was suddenly remembering an embroidered framed linen that I think my grandmother made in crewel embroidery of Cape Cod, which is somewhat similar in shape. It was done on taupe linen, and I think the wool was only in red and black – so simple and handsome. I think it even had a whale like this! And it had a very fancy compass pointing north that I can’t remember, and didn’t have time to research when I drew this. Yay for embroidered linens.

You can also leave comments anonymously on GoComics for this. Please note that this cartoon was picked as BEST CARTOON OF THE DAY for Slate by the editor – that’s why everyone saw it. So….guess Slate is the r- word, too, eh?

More cartoons:

1. Giving out vaccines for Halloween.
2. Memorial Day cartoon.