Cartoon Saturday

There are five Saturdays in August this year. This is the fourth. And if you're like me, you need the cartoons ...

The US stock market plunged by a dramatic 531points yesterday, marking its biggest loss of the year and its worst week since 2011, and other major indexes around the world also fell for the week and most are negative for the month; three Americans on a French train, including two Service members, attacked and subdued a man armed with an AK-47 and hundreds of rounds of ammunition, probably averting a massacre; every year since 1963, the Japanese government has presented each citizens turning 100 a commemorative silver cup worth about $65, but with 29,357 persons turning 100 in 2014 alone, Japan can no longer afford the estimated 260 million yen ($2.1 million) cost, and is considering less expensive options; a rally in Mobile, Alabama, attracted 30,000 supporters of Donald Trump's presidential campaign ... in other news, roving packs of zombies in search of brains went elsewhere; and tensions in Korea continued, with North Korea continuing its bombastic barrage of threats even as representatives of the North and South met to try to defuse the escalating situation.

In honor of the miserable state of the stock market, today's collection of theme cartoons deals with that mainstay of middle-class economics: loans ...

You have to know what the terms mean before you fill out that loan application ...

Here's another example ...

This is probably how the question really ought to be phrased ...

This one reminds me of the old joke about the loan officer being a person who is happy to lend you his umbrella, but wants it back as soon as it starts raining ...

Most of mine were like this ...

Applying for a loan really is a pretty straightforward and simple process ...

But enough about loan misery ... let's move on to some other topics. I thought this was a great historical look at the traditional vacation picture ...

If you're on Facebook like I am, you get used to the sorts of things your friends post ... especially the fitness nuts who have to let you know how far they ran, how may Buicks they bench-pressed, how many laps they swam, or ...

We finish up with two cartoons taking different looks at the common shepherd. There's nothing like a little high-tech to make things easy ...

I wonder if he really needed the financial advisor ...

And that's it for the fourth Cartoon Saturday in August. I hope you enjoyed my attempt to help you survive another week of bad news, political buffoonery, and overall chaos. Yesterday was a glorious day here in NoVa, weather-wise, and today looks to offer more of the same, but with a bit more humidity. It looks like a great day for a nice long walk ... I think I'll see if Clara is available for a date, since Agnes will be in Germany for another week and a half.

Have a good day and a great weekend, and come back tomorrow for Poetry Sunday. More thoughts then. 

Bilbo