UPDATED Copyright infringement is a federal crime! This is how copyright law protects your cartoons and artwork. Fair Use for Images, vs Stealing them I recently had a problem with…
Category: <span>Money Matters</span>
Cool creamy ice cream and money for your summer vacation.
My editor at CalWatchdog, Steven Greenhut, like many journalists in many states now, is really interested in pension reform, and what pensions are doing to the rest of the state as they grow more humongous. I haven’t read his new book yet, Plunder: How Public Employee Unions are Raiding Treasuries, Controlling Our Lives and Bankrupting the Nation (I prefer serial killer novels for the summer), but he’s been on the radio and tv talking about it, so it must be great!
Yeah, I had to read up about it to understand the nuances. Or to understand anything, really. It’s actually very simple: unions (mostly) arranged for moderate to low wages in certain industries, by including benefits on the back end, like retirement pensions, that laborers could feel reassured with.
This makes sense. Until you think about pyramid schemes. I’ve known for a while that the police can retire super young, like 40, and still get a livable pension, while even starting a different career. Since they work so hard, in dangerous situations, it seems fair. But somehow the pensions start to multiply, and with interest rates less than 1%, where will all this new money come from? The city, county and state. Oh.
It becomes more annoying when it’s state workers, who live in cubicles or offices and aren’t in danger at all, unless they jump out a window. I went to a seminar just a couple years ago at the LA Press Club when a smart entrepreneur said that all of us laid off journalists should go get state jobs, with little experience, with wonderful benefits, which you got no matter your age when you started. He teaches courses in Sacramento and other cities, and has a book out on this, too. He made it seem very enticing!
It’s Friday, and I think that that means Baking Day. Oooh, one of my favorite Slate cartoons ever! Who doesn’t like a cupcake cartoon, huh? A baker’s dozen, for you…
I live in a strange, strange state. What’s hiding in all that smog, fog, and detritus, anyway? Is California really the land of dreams, or just schemes? Is it magical, a place to find your success and fortune, and is the weather worth it?
I’m about to find out. I’ve lived here over 15 years, so I have some answers, but what about the heart of it, where all the decisions are made? This month I started my cartoon for a new journalism group that’s covering the state of California, named appropriately enough, CalWatchdog. (Still waiting for a dog in the logo.) It’s connected with – get this – a think tank, called Pacific Research Institute!
I’ve done cartoons in all kinds of venues, but I have to admit, never a think tank. I’m so excited to be a part of it, and especially to have my name associated with something that sounds so…smart. This is Arnold’s last year, so I’m prepared to have as much fun as you can have with a German, and to explore issues all over California. (JUST KIDDING, German-ophiles!) So keep an eye on it, as I’ll be uploading cartoons about California there before they go on Slate or appear anywhere else.
Today was tough. I couldn’t find anything I wanted to do a cartoon about!
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?
and here’s another Halloween cartoon to scare you.
Honestly, this seems like a cartoon a liberal would have done. Woe is me, we’re bad people, let’s forget to be happy when we can mope.
Or maybe they’re proactive capitalists, and they know the way to help the economy is to spend money, even if it’s for a Halloween par-tay. Or network at a party, that really does help. I started guest blogging last week for the LA Weekly, because I know Jill Stewart through the late great Cathy Seipp, and also from the LA Press Club. Hella lot of work to write newsy blogs, but fun!
Back in March, CNN said 4 states had already hit 10% unemployment, including California. Bloomberg says Obama predicted it back in June. However, today Bloomberg says as of September it’s 9.8%, so maybe these numbers are a little suspect, or according to who’s reporting.