I find it rather telling that high-roller financier Paul Singer’s average profit return to his clients (including Mr. Mitt Romney), over the span of his 35-year investment career of basically exploiting the economic travails and ultimate demise of once viable, thriving companies, (and even nations), is purportedly in the 14% range…… after fees are factored in, mind you.

Hmm… wasn’t that roughly the same promised return on investments the now incarcerated-for-life, gonef-writ-large, one Bernie Madoff, offered his gullible, yet trusting clients early-on into his massive Ponzi operation?

Just appears, to me, rather odd that when most high-end equity investment firms these days can barely muster even say a modest 8-10% profit return for their average investor, Mr. Singer is allegedly racking up gains hovering around a rarified 15%. (Not that everything isn’t on the up-and-up w/ this Singer guy.)

But you’d think that Singer’s consistently elevated profit gains would somehow wave a red-flag in the face of the Securities and Exchange Commission? Sadly, the Fed’s SEC has been a tad derelict in their prescribed oversight duties, of late; one of their most recent series of embarrassing gaffes coming out of the aforementioned Madoff fiasco.

Clearly, party politics at the highest echelons has unfortunately become a high-stakes game of who can amass the greatest stockpile of PAC dollars, plus individual private donations; much of these campaign funds earmarked for the vilification of the opposition party, or candidates thru barrages of attack ads, while bolstering one’s own image in the eyes of the voter. (Discussion of the the burning issues of the day often taking a back seat to dogged character defamation, and your basic acrimonious political mudslinging.)

Of course, the very controversial decision rendered last year by our Supreme Court that, in essence, ruled that ‘corporations are people too’ (Ugh!), has radically altered the current political fundraising landscape, w/ a clear advantage now skewed toward the GOP, w/ their inherent cozying up to corporate America……. where the bottom line is maximizing PROFIT$.

Steve, Mitt Romney’s (and Mr. Singer’s) GOP pecuniarily-driven vision for America’s future is so radically different from Pres. Obama’s much more all-inclusive, egalitarian agenda for our nation, going forward. (Hence the GOP’s hackneyed snipe at Obama being an outright, Lefty- socialist. Well he is left-handed.HA!)

With a Romney presidency, clearly the much-publicized, wealthy, über-advantaged, 1% of Americans would continue to maximize their affluence, and their lives of relative comfort, whilst the 99% of Americans , some of whom barely subsist at, or daily struggle under the poverty threshold, will likely fall thru the societal cracks. Their lot in life, for themselves and their dependent family members, will only become more challenging, and impoverished over time. Not to mention their quality of life.

In my view, the choices are abundantly clear. Hopefully the U.S. electorate will get it right….. again….. this coming November.

ALEX

Nonetheless, once again, Steve, a beautifully executed, powerful ‘illo’.

For me, that little cluster of floating balloons add lively grace-notes to an otherwise rather subdued, cool, restrained palette. Amazing how just a few strategically placed notes of warm color (those red balloons, in this case), can give that little extra visual punch to an already engaging piece.

Couldn’t help noticing the uncanny resemblance of financier Singer to one V. I. Lenin, particularly those angular, slightly abstracted, idealized, heroic sculpted bust-heads of the former Bolshevik leader from his short-lived formative Soviet glory days. (Unlike Singer w/ his Bernanke-esque, closely-cropped, white, full beard, admittedly the mature Lenin sported more of a dark, pointy goatee, and full mustache. No biggie.)

Still love your cover caricature/ drawing of a quizzical Karl Marx that you did for The Chronicle Review a while back. As I recall, he had a bit of an Orson Wellsian look about him, as he gazed out from the cover page.

IMHO, your sheer effusive talent, and unique satirical ‘bite’ are only eclipsed by your refreshing modesty. (Humility, especially for us creative types, is hopefully a virtue.)

Thanks for your quick reply, as well. It all basically comes down to timing, right?

In rereading my initial commentary, I discovered an unwitting repeated error. I managed to omit the ‘middling’ “c” in Hirschfled’s name, i.e. “Hirshfeld”. (Doh!) Forty lashes w/ a loaded crow-quill pen pour moi. (The pen, as they say, is far mightier than the sword. Groan.)

Maybe I should have just gone your informal route, and referred to the universally-recognized dean of modern caricature as “the great Al”? HA!

Steve, …….”On The Great Briney With Iyer and Brodner”, could be a cool working title for the forthcoming book you two bon- voyagers would ultimately collaborate on, post-cruise, no? (Maybe not?)

ALEX

P.S.: —Steve, just finished checking out your Treayvon Martin/ Zimmerman visual-and-written commentaries. Brilliant analysis, very cool drawings, plus sound supportive ‘attachments’.

This apparent travesty of justice has clearly struck a huge chord w/ countless concerned folk around the nation, dare I say the world. Your caricatures of the assailant, Zimmerman, I felt really captured the evil intent of this self-appointed urban vigilante. This complex case has more circumstantial evidential twists-and-turns swirling around it than a typical one-hour “Mad Men” episode. Just sayin’.

Demonizing the victim, and painting the obvious ‘killer’ as (literally) a former choirboy, and all-round upstanding, law-abiding citizen, is such a sadly predictable, devious, desperate legal defense strategy. But I digress.

Just a marvelous ‘suite’ of cartoon ‘illos’ for the Conde Nast Traveller Pico Iyer ‘maiden-voyage’ piece.

I love the swirling, warmly glowing ambiance you’ve created of the posh cruise ship dining-room interior w/ the beaming iyer, surrounded by his reveling entourage, and doting waiters.

As a cartoonist/ caricaturist myself, in seeing your superb Iyer cartoony pieces, I couldn’t help but harken back to a delightful, humorous travel tome from the late ’40s written by the masterful wit, S. J. Perelman, titled, “Westward Ha! or Around the World in Eighty Cliches”, masterfully illustrated by the late, great Al Hirshfeld.

Perelman and Hirshfeld, life-long buddies, take an actual whirl-wind cruise around the globe, visiting innumerable exotic locales; Perelman chronicling their madcap experiences in prose, and Hirshfeld in his signature caricatured illustrative style—- that Arabesque line, and mixed-medley of fun pen-and-ink textures. Definitely a must-see for any diehard Hirshfeld enthusiast. (Not to sell Mr. Perelman’s engaging, witty writing too short.)

Frankly, IMHO, Steve Brodner, you are today’s heir-apparent to Al Hirshfeld. But where Hirshfeld’s milieu was basically limited to live theater, film, and television fare, yours runs the entire gamut from politics to pop culture, and seemingly everything in between.

When I first discovered and ‘devoured’ your book, “Freedom Fries”, some years back, i realized, in short order, i was in the presence of caricaturing genius……. and I don’t use that term cavalierly. (You can stop blushing now. HA!)

Interestingly, i’m hoping to attend an upcoming ‘evening-with-Pico-Iyer event’ here in L.A., in the continuing “Live Talks Los Angeles” series of celebrity interviews. Your splendid Iyer ‘illos’ will have just sweetened the experience.

Keep up the outstanding work.

ALEX

P.S.: —I felt your take on Pico Iyer in that initial illustration had a bit of a Salman Rushdie ambiance about it. (Heavy eyelids, the narrow eye ‘slits’, perked-up, angular eyebrows. And then your note that his mum’s last name happened to be “Mehta”—-a fairly common Indian surname— could account for a slight ‘sub-continental’-type visage. You managed to capture Iyer, nonetheless.