3/30/2009

General Motors Corp. Chairman and CEO Rick Wagoner will step down immediately at the request of the White House, administration officials said Sunday. Although Wagoner has been trying to steel the automaker giant towards the right direction, his effort is considered by some administration officials too little and too slow.

Wagoner's resignation is seen as a step in President Obama's effort in restructuring and transforming the U.S. auto industry. I hope his resignation would allow f...

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3/18/2009 AIG CEO appeared in front of furious lawmakers on Capitol Hill yesterday to shed some light on over $165M bonus awarded to his employees - many of them in AIG's financial products unit. That's the very same department blamed for plunging AIG into the financial turmoil that eventually led the government to lend and invest about $170 billion in the company. In defending his decision foregoing the bonus payments, CEO Liddy said that AIG needs these employees to continue working to un...
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3/12/2009 The disgraced financier, Bernard Madoff, pleaded guilty on Thursday to 11 charges, including fraud, perjury and money laundering. Judge Denny Chin ordered him jailed immediately. Madoff's plea came without an agreement, which means he faces a statutory maximum of 150 years in prison when he is sentenced June 16. Madoff's Park Avenue penthouse reported worth of $7 million is going to be up for sale.
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3/11/2009

President Obama signed the $410 billion bill Wednesday morning to keep most of the government operations running until September 30. Banking on Obama's willingness to sign the bill, both Republican and Democratic lawmakers jammed the bill with about 8,500 earmarks worth of $8 billion. At $410 billion, the bill represents an 8 percent increase over last year's spending levels, more than double the rate of inflation. Given the fact that the U.S. national deficit has been making its re...

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3/3/2009

S&P 500 index dropped to the lowest level below 7000 since October 28, 1996. Although the drop on Tuesday was moderate, the Dow Jones industry average tumbled 300 points a day earlier that sent both the Dow and the S&P 500 index to their lowest level in more than a decade. Monday's slump in the stock market was primarily triggered by the bigger than expected loss of $62 billion for the fourth quarter announced by AIG -- the biggest in U.S. corporate history. The U.S. government injec...

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Many of you enjoy drawing pictures or cartoons. You probably have been doing it with pencils on papers. Ever think of drawing on your computer? How about right on your computer screen or LCD display? Wouldn't it be exciting drawing or tracing your favorite gigglePets and the giggleBites cartoons right on your computer LCD display. Well... I'm glad to tell you that your dream has come true. I have been using the Wacom Cintiq display tablet and the pressure-sensitive pen to draw all the cartoo...
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1/22/2009 Some GOP governors appear to have difficult time in deciding whether to accept any money from the $787 billion economy stimulus package provided by the federal government. Some even are doing their calculus in determining which portion of the stimulus aid would be accepted and which portion not. Their reasons: The stimulus package is a waste of the taxpayers' money and is not going to help much of the economy or create enough jobs. Well... California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is ...
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2/11/2009 After Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner announced yesterday that the government, the Federal Reserve, and the private sectors would spend around $2 trillion to bailout the troubling financial institutions, US bank CEOs appeared in front of the House Financial Services Committee in an attempt to repair their tarnished reputation. The banks are accused of using the money to cushion their balance sheets or buy up rivals. They are also accused of rewarding themselves with exceptional amo...
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2/10/2009 How much would it take to turn around the sinking economy again? The Obama administration has been considering for the government and private sectors to purchase so-called toxic assets from the struggling financial institutions. According to the new estimate, the amount of government and private funds combined will be "on an initial scale of up to $500 billion, with the potential to expand up to $1 trillion."

In addition, the Federal Reserve announced it would commit up to $1 tri...

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2/9/2009 President Obama held a conference today to call on Republicans not to "play the usual politics games" and pressure the lawmakers to approve the massive economy stimulus plan. "The plan is not perfect," the president said. "No plan is. I can't tell you for sure that everything in this plan will work exactly as we hope, but I can tell you with complete confidence that a failure to act will only deepen this crisis as well as the pain felt by millions of Americans." President Obama sa...
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President Obama has suffered a great political setback due to recent withdrawals announced by Nancy Killefer and Tom Daschle. Killefer's withdrawal was due to her tax issues, while Daschle's has to do with both his tax issues and interest conflicts related to his work with some health care companies. Not long ago, Gov. Bill Richardson withdrew from consideration of Commerce Secretary due to the federal probe of a company's business dealings with the government he leads. Although Tim Geithner...
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Apparently, Timothy Geithner is not the only one who has failed to pay taxes. But, he is luckier than Tom Daschle and Nancy Killefer. Due to concerns over his tax issues and potential conflicts of interests, Daschle has announced his withdrawal from the nomination by President Obama to lead the nation's health-care reform. Concerns about Daschle's failure to fully pay his taxes from 2005 through 2007 had been growing, even after he paid $128,203 in back taxes and $11,964 in interest last mo...
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1/29/2009 Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich was thrown out of office Thursday. The Illinois Senate voted 59-0 to convict him of abuse of power in related to his attempt to profit from the U.S. Senate seat left open by President Obama. Even so, he is still going to face the corruption charges from the federal prosecutors. The now former Gov. argued that he did nothing wrong and that there is no sufficient evidence to support such verdict. "You haven't proved a crime, and you can't, because it di...
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To fend off rising gasoline prices, more and more Americans are looking for smaller cars with high mileages. This time, though, even Toyota Prius that has run a huge backlog over the past few years is not able to match up. Welcome to the new era of "tiny cars". The two-seat cute looking tiny cars, such as, Smart ForTwo from Smart USA has mileage over 70 mpg. The newer models of its rival - Mini Cooper claims to reach that level soon. The stop-smart system used in the Smart ForTwo MHD has bee...
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1/26/2009 The Senate on Monday voted unanimously to postpone the upcoming transition from analog to digital television broadcasting by four months to June 12. Monday's Senate vote is responding a growing concern that many Americans are not ready for such changeover. According to The Nielsen Co., more than 6.5 million U.S. households that rely on analog television sets to pick up over-the-air broadcast signals could see their TV sets go dark next month if the transition is not postponed. The...
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Most of the first half of the $700 billions bailout money has been handed out by the Treasury Department to the nation's banks. The idea was to inject enough money to the banks, so they would start making loans and lending money to businesses or consumers. In theory, that would thaw the frozen credit market and help jump-start the economy. "Banks might normally be leveraged 10:1, so some of the logic is that if you invest a billion dollars in a bank in capital, then over a period of time tha...
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1/22/2009

In his presidential campaign trail, President Obama had pledged to close down Guantanamo, where many suspects have been detained for years without trial or charge. Thursday, he signed an executive order to halt the torture of suspects and close down the Guantanamo prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, within a year.

"We intend to win this fight. We're going to win it on our terms," Obama declared. In the mean time, he appointed ...

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1/21/2009

The inauguration ceremony is over. President Obama goes to work in the Oval Office of the White House the first time in his presidency.

The hand-off of the White House from former President Bush to President Obama went more smoothly that Bush's own eight years ago. Unlike the 2001 hand-off, Bush found that all the Ws were removed from the keyboards in the executive office building of President Bill Clinton's departing administration. When Bush ...

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I've loved cartoons as well as cartooning ever since I was a kid. At age of 10, I tutored cartooning at class breaks in exchange of nice treats at my school cafe. On our field trips, my classmates in the tour bus clustered together and enjoyed my comic books that I brought to share. I still remember that I always reminded my readers of going back to do their homework instead of getting addicted to comics, which was a common problem for many parents at that time.

I grew up and chose a very dif...
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Hello World! It is my great honor to invite you to the grand opening of the Cartoosh gallery at Zazzle. The gallery features your favorite Cartoosh cartoons on a wide verity of products and gift items including T-shirts, mugs, postcards, stamps, and etc. These products and gifts are the best ways to share your view and humor with your friends, family, and colleagues through your favorite cartoons. To visit the Cartoosh gallery, either click ...
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Due to the recent economy stimulus plans, the U.S. national debt has rapidly reached to a new high - over 10.6 trillion as of 1/13/2009. And, the increasing rate is not expected to slow down, until the economy turns around the corner. By any standards, a corporation with a red ink of this kind in its book would have filed for bankruptcy long ago. Luckily, the nation is run by Uncle Sam who can keep borrowing money from foreign countries without worrying w...
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More and more evidences have attributed the record number of hurricanes over the last couple of years to global warming. Using buoys that transmit readings directly, as well as remote sensing satellites, researchers have found record temperatures in the gulf and Atlantic Ocean. Based on those studies, the ocean temperature over the last 50 years has increased by one degree.

The other study has found that the salmon in the North Atlantic Ocean have lost sig...

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As President Bush prepares to leave the White House, many people plan to hold celebration parties - not farewell. Over the past few months, Bush's approval rating has slid to its historical low level. If you ever wonder what that mean, take a look at what happens, when Uncle Sam goes return "The Bush Administration" book that he checked out eight years ago.
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1/12/2009

President-elect Barack Obama has asked President Bush to request the 2nd half of the $700 billion financial bailout money. While Congress considers Obama's request, they are concerned how the first half of the bailout money was spent. The treasury department has failed to provide enough insights regarding how the $350 billion was distributed.

"Many of us have been disappointed with the absence of clarity, the lack of transparency, the failure to ...

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12/30/2008 On December 9 of 2008, U.S. Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich was arrested from his residence on the accusation of a "political corruption crime spree" that was to sell the state's U.S. Senate seat left open by President-elect Barack Obama. He was later released on $4,500 bail and back to his office on Thursday to continue his governor business as usual. On December 30, Gov. Blagojevich made a surprising announcement that he would appoi...
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The biggest bubble in the modern U.S. history has started to pop. The average U.S. housing market has tumbled for more than 20% since its peak in 2006. In some areas, the declines in prices have exceeded 50%. The housing bubble has sink not only the financial industry, but the entire economy. In fact, the whole global economy is shattered. Many has attributed the housing bubble to the long-time federal reserve chairman, Alan Greenspan, who had kept th...
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1/9/2009

Two months after winning the election, Mr. Obama warned that if Congress resisted or delayed approving a stimulus package designed to counter the worst effects of the recession, “a bad situation could become dramatically worse”.

He said in his speech: “At this particular moment, only government can provide the short-term boost necessary to lift us from a recession this deep and severe. Only government can break the vicious cycles th...

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(Click to see the full size cartoon.)

(Click to see the full size cartoon.)

1/3/2009

According to the Congressional Budget Office, our federal budget deficit will nearly triple to an unprecedented $1.2 trillion for the 2009 budget year, figures. The 2008 deficit was $455 billion. The eye-popping includes about $400 billion spent to bail out the financial industry and take over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The $700 billion bailout for the financial industry is expected to actually cost taxpayer...
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You may have heard enough of bad news and don't even want to look at the stock indexes again. The Dow Jones Industry Index lost 33.8% in 2008 alone. The two other years in which the Dow did worse than that were 1907, when the index lost 37.7%, and 1931, when the Dow lost 52.7%. OK, I'll stop right here. But, wait. Let me show you one more stock index chart...
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December 14, 2008

Baghdad, Iraq - On his farewell trip to Iraq, President George W. Bush hailed progress in the war that defines his presidency and got a size-10 reminder of his unpopularity, when a man hurled two shoes at him during a news conference. Apparently, not everyone agreed with him.

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