Zina Saunders takes on the CEOs

ProPup pal Zina Saunders kindly allows us to use her illustrations to accompany some of our stories - and when it comes to political illustrations, nobody - nobody - does it better. You may not know that Zina is not only a talented artist, she also maintains a blog that we highly recommend. Below are two of her recent works, Piggy Banker and Miracle on Wall Street, dealing with the greed and arrogance of America's financial barons.

From Zina's blog:  What's happened to the $350 billion of our money that Bush handed out to the banks back in the fall? That bank bailout costs $1,100 for every man, woman, and child in the country...  If we’re going to throw this much money — remember, $350 billion is half the bailout — if we’re going to put that kind of money into the banking system, we should get much more leverage. And the one other thing I think is really important, you’ll notice that in the entire debate over the bailout, nobody has really tried to make the point or ask the question: is spending $700 billion, a trillion dollars, giving it to the banks, is that the best way to improve our economy?  And for the second image Zina writes:  A reprehensible miracle occurred on December 29th when John Thain, top dog at Merrill Lynch, conjured up $4 billion in bonuses for all his little elves. It was their reward for leading the powerful brokerage to the brink of bankruptcy: the company had lost more than $27 billion last year. Thain made sure his busy little helpers got their due by rushing the bonuses through a few days before he turned the company over to Bank of America.

Zina's illustrations have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, The Progressive, ESPN magazine, Hemispheres, and The Utne Reader.  Her client list includes Chronicle Books, Simon & Schuster, Random House, Scholastic, Oxford University Press, and Nickelodeon.  So you can see why The Progressive Puppy is thrilled to be associated with her - even if only tangentially.  The woman has The Gift.   (images courtesy Zina Saunders © 2008)