My introductory posting on Drawger was a showcase for images created for ROLLING STONE for a remarkable article by Matt Taibbi on the banking/financial crisis titled “The Big Takeover”. Now comes an even more unsettling piece of journalism from Taibbi focusing on Goldman Sachs. Until I read the rough copy to work on the illustrations, I still had a portion of our retirement portfolio invested in GS on the premise that they were the best of breed and not as crazy as the others. Out of sheer dismay after finishing this assignment I dumped my holdings, which might not be a smart move from a financial standpoint, but it came down to feeling like investing in tobacco companies. Not good. Anyway, my original approach with solutions to the article was to focus on Taibbi’s analogies of GS to vampires or leeches of the public wealth. The powers that be at RS wanted me instead to focus on the title, which has to do with bubbles, and keep the images to that basic theme. Since this wasn’t going to be another round of caricatures of a rogues gallery within the power structure of GS, it became a concept driven set of images tied together by the image of things inflating, like balloons, bubbles, gas pumps, etc.. The issue (with the Jonas Bros on the cover) has just hit the stands (at least in upstate NY) and it is well worth the read. Along with Steve Brodner’s post today (“Pardon My Boehner”) on the Energy Bill, this article is another nail in the coffin of the notion/hope that government works.