Obama gave a speech back in February wherein he laid out plans to cap the pay and bonuses of executives working for companies who received taxpayer-funded federal bailout money, noting that such executives could still receive compensation (like options) tied to the long-term health of the company.  The move was in response to events like the AIG fiasco that occurred after the first round of Bush bailout money.

This week, the Federal Reserve “pay czar” Kenneth Feinberg – hired to oversee the companies who took the bailout money – issued a set of guidelines (The White House likes the term “formula” and “guidelines” better than “pay cap”) aimed to limit the pay at 7 firms who received the most bailout money.  The White House ordered what’s being described as “drastic” pay cuts for 175 top executives at these companies, which are:  AIG, Citigroup, Bank of America, GM, Chrysler, and the financing departments of the two automakers.  However, it’s worth noting that the guidelines don’t specifically prohibit multi-million dollar paychecks or substantial deferred compensation.

Said Obama in a speech, “I’ve always believed that our system of free enterprise works best when it rewards hard work.  But it does offend our values when executives of big financial firms — firms that are struggling — pay themselves huge bonuses even as they continue to rely on taxpayer assistance to stay afloat.”

The Fed also noted that it would begin reviewing compensation practices at some our largest largest financial firms. In its guidelines the Fed stated, “Banking organizations too often rewarded employees for increasing the firm’s revenue or short-term profit without adequate recognition of the risks the employees’ activities posed to the firm.”

The Fed also noted that the hope is for other banking institutions to adopt the “pay cut model” in an effort to focus on long-term profitability and stability, rather than short-term cash.

And so we award a Fantasy T-Wearer Award today to Kenneth Feinberg, with what we’ll call the People’s Republic Executive Salary Cap, above.

In a move that’s been widely approved across party lines, President Obama took a vacay break to announce that Ben Bernanke would be reinstated for a second term as Chairman of the Federal Reserve.

Bernanke has been cited as being instrumental in the economic recovery efforts, by both the President and financial analysts, and his reinstatement is viewed as a safe and wise move for both political and economic stability reasons.  For the T-shirt designers ’round these parts, though, Bernanke is synonymous with “bailout” – a trend that started with the $700 billion Paulson/Bush/Bernanke Wall Street bailout of 2008, continued through the auto bailouts, and is still relevant given the Obama stimulus package – which of course included bailouts for Main Street residents in danger of, you know, having to leave Main Street due to impending foreclosures.

Indeed, a look back at the catalogue reminds us that Bernanke was the subject of the “S” word long before Obama showed up to earn like-minded design work.

Given the flavor of the designs about Ben Bernanke, we award a Fantasy T-Wearer Award to him today on behalf of our design community with the “Get out of Debt” card mousepad, at right.

It may not seem like a Vice Presidential candidate has a lot in common with a local plumber and a teenage vampire, but then again this was a year of surprises.  Sarah Palin, Ron Paul, Joe the Plumber and Edward Cullen showed the kind of impact that can be made when the everyman appeal hits home.

Sarah Palin

John McCain’s surprise pick of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate spurred a Republican resurgence of energy and a national media frenzy.  As Palin fascination grew, the t-shirts came pouring in – Palin actually unseated Obama for a time in the t-shirt primary, thus proving that a Bible-and-Gun-totin’ Hockey Mom could inspire more than her party members. Sarah Palin had a lot of nicknames and colloquiallisms applied to her that lent themselves naturally to merchandise, and many of them had to do with animals – not entirely inappropriate, given that she hails from the bucolic state of Alaska.  She was the Cougar, the Barracuda (and the Sarahcuda), the Moose-Hunter, Caribou Barbie and the Pit Bull with Lipstick.  She was also the Maverick (and used the term liberally to describe both her and McCain), the Hockey Mom, the MILF and the VPILF.

Given her unabashed love of hunting, guns and her religion, it wasn’t surprising to see strong opinions on both sides of the political fence about Sarah Palin.  The religious right embraced her as the All-American poster girl and portrayed her as the anti-Obama; liberals and feminists, insulted at the implied assumption that women would vote along gender lines rather than on political issues, decried her as inexperienced and anti-feminist and accused McCain of pandering to the 18 million voters who had chosen Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primaries.

It seemed that everything Palin did was worthy of a headline, most notably any homespun gaffes she might make in front of a camera.  But when Palin spoke, people listened.  From her noting Alaska’s proximity to Russia as foreign policy experience to her performance in the debates, Sarah Palin was someone who’s every word (and choice of accessory) was discussed and debated – and, very often, committed to the almighty t-shirt. In the end, Palin’s newsworthiness was unable to knock Obama out of the minds of American voters on election day.  But in the short time she was in the public eye, Sarah Palin managed to put Wasilla, Alaska on the World Map.  (It’s up by Canada, kinda next to Russia.)

Ron Paul

Republican Congressman Ron Paul burst onto the 2008 election scene Howard Dean-style.  Using the Internet as his canvassing ground, he amassed millions of supporters (The “Ron Paul Revolution“) who viewed the Republican Presidential Candidate from Lake Jackson, Texas as a heroic, no-nonsense, common-sense-talking anti-Bush.  Though a Libertarian at heart, Ron Paul has been open about the necessity of running for public office as a Republican in order to have a viable shot at Congress and the Presidency.  He is openly critical about President Bush and his administration, particularly as relates to the Iraq war and Bush big government straying from intrinsic Republican values.

Ron Paul hit the t-shirt scene in earnest in late 2007, and saw big sales and interest through early 2008.  He outsold McCain until March and outsold all other Republican candidates (with a minor hiccup from Huckabee) throughout the election season.  Shunned by the Republican party who later went so far as to try to ban him from the debates, Ron Paul nonetheless showed up and made some Libertarian-style points that won him cheers from his supporters and gave him first-place finishes in online polls by MSNBC, ABC News and C-SPAN.    His debate performance simultaneously guaranteed that he wouldn’t be receiving an invitation to the Republican National Convention, and it seemed that thereafter both mainstream media cameras and his own party took painstaking efforts towards pretending that he was Harvey the Rabbit.

Without the money to buy quality airtime and with the cameras aimed elsewhere, Ron Paul used the Internet and in-person speaking engagements to spread his message.  His dedication to his ideals and the massive online support he amassed did get people to stand up and take notice, though ultimately – like Dean before him – he was unable to transfer his online popularity into real-world votes.  Still, though, Ron Paul made a name for himself as an honest-to-a-fault public servant who stays true to his beliefs and his constituents, and he was the first candidate in the 2008 election to harness the power of the internet to mobilize his message and his supporters.

Joe the Plumber

Joe the Plumber (known as Joe Wurzelbacher by those who can pronounce it) made a name for himself during the third Presidential debate.  Better said, John McCain made a name for him (namely, Joe the Plumber), mentioning Joe 21 times.  Obama was good for 5 mentions, for a grand total of 26 mentions for Joe the Plumber. By contrast, Iraq came up 6 times and the economy was mentioned 16 times.  Joe far outshone mention of Sarah Palin and Joe Biden as well. Not surprisingly, we saw Joe the Plumber designs hit the system mid-debate and within a few hours Joe had about 1/4 the content of all plumber designs.

Joe became an unlikely hero for the McCain campaign after having a discussion with Obama on the campaign trail about the Illinois Senator’s proposed tax plan. McCain used Joe as an example of a hardworking American (dare we say Joe Six Pack?) who would pay more taxes under the Obama plan.  The Obama/Joe conversation was recorded by cameras; the uncut version ends with Obama noting that chatting with Joe was good debate prep:

As it turns out, Joe the Plumber doesn’t actually make $250,000 a year; it seems he was simply concerned about the principle behind Obama’s plan.  Despite being made an instant celebrity thanks to McCain, Joe initially wouldn’t endorse either candidate and went on-record that he was keeping his vote private.

His vote was kept private for 12 days, at which point he jumped on the bus and hit the campaign trail with John McCain.  In the meantime, Joe was made an instant celebrity and unlikely political pundit, being interviewed as a symbol of the everyman by everyone from Katie Couric to Mike Huckabee.  Local television stations around the country scrambled to find their own Joe the Plumber (my own local station used Eduardo the Electrician – yes, really), but none could match the t-shirt worthiness of the actual Joe the Plumber.

As is the case with so many relationships rushed into by two people who barely know each other, the McCain/Wurzelbacher romance hit the rocks a couple weeks later over McCain’s support of the Paulson bailout plan.  While Wurzelbacher now says he was “appalled” by McCain at that point and considered moving out (read: getting off the bus), he reconsidered due to their mutual desire to move the Arizona Senator into more modest accommodations in Washington, D.C..

With the election over, Joe has found a place for himself on conservative talk radio and television; he also has a book deal in the works.  When all is said and done, Joe the Plumber will go down as someone who took his 15 minutes of fame and ran with it.  (Er… or rode a bus with it.)

Edward Cullen

If you haven’t heard of the small town of Forks, Washington or its sparkly resident Edward Cullen, chances are that you don’t have a teenage girl in the house.  The real town of Forks is the setting for Stephenie Meyers’ “Twilight” book series, which portrays a love story between teenagers Bella (a mortal and recent transplant to Forks) and Edward Cullen (vampire, baseball player and Forks resident).

The hit book series was optioned by Hollywood, and the first “Twilight” movie hit theaters on November 21st to rave fan reviews.  Before the movie opened, the “Twilight” folks did something for their fans that’s a rarity in Hollywood: they gave them permission to make “Twilight” merchandise.

Given the avid fan base of “Twilight,” we looked forward to seeing creative, inspired designs – and we weren’t disappointed.  Twilight t-shirts immediately filled the fan portal to the tune of almost 450,000 Twilight products as of this writing, and motivated fans were able to wear their own creations – and those of other fans – to the opening night showing.

While Edward Cullen himself is by far the most popular character in the land of t-shirt fandom, there’s also a wide variety of shirts celebrating Bella, Jacob and the story itself.  All in all, it’s been a real treat to see the enthusiasm and creativity that “Twilight” enthusiasts have demonstrated over the past few months.

So what would Edward wear?  Well, we think he’d find something.

As mentioned in Part I of our 2008 retrospective series, this was a year of ups and downs for America.  From politics to the economy, the sudden changes engendered a virtual case of whiplash as tides turned on a dime and fortunes were reversed on Main Street, Wall Street, and at seemingly unlikely location of the local gas pump.

Gay Marriage / Prop 8

In May of 2008, the California Supreme Court overturned the gay marriage ban, noting that the fundamental “right to marry” extended to same-sex couples equally.  While gay couples around the country celebrated a stride in the name of equal rights, opponents of gay marriage scrambled to introduce an initiative to the November ballot in order to alter the California State Constitution, thus deeming same-sex marriage unconstitutional.

Thousands of gay couples, many of whom had waited years to have their unions legalized, rushed out between May and November to tie the knot under the law of California.  All in all, over 10,000 couples were married in the three months following the May ruling – more than were married in the first four years after Massachusetts legalized gay marriage.

The November ballot initiative, Proposition 8, was primarily supported both financially and vocally by religious organizations – most notably the Mormon and Catholic Churches.  The official Yes on 8 (ProtectMarriage.com) camp estimates that about half of the $35.8 million raised came from the Mormon Church and its members, which also supplied volunteers in such large numbers that 80-90% of the early door-to-door canvassers were actually out-of-state members of the Mormon church.

The battle over Prop 8 was touch-and-go down to the wire.  The measure passed by a margin of 4%, leading gay marriage and equal rights proponents to a series of post-election protests.  Supporters of a repeal will argue about the Proposition being unconstitutional, and that it violates the separation of Church and State; those who passed the measure will argue that the will of the people is the final word.  This argument is of course far from over; on November 19th, the California Supreme Court accepted three lawsuits challenging Proposition 8.

Since the May ruling and the subsequent November election, we saw a flurry of gay marriage, equal rights and Prop 8 t-shirts be created and bought as folks decided to voice their opinions in a more public manner than the ballot box.  Of course, California wasn’t the only state to have anti-gay marriage initiatives on their November ballots; Florida and Arizona passed similar laws, and Arkansas passed a measure to prevent gay couples from adopting children.

What the future holds for gay couples and their rights is uncertain, and at this point it seems that it’ll take a lot of time, lawyers and money to determine it.  One thing’s for sure: when religion and civil rights clash as a political issue, there is never an easy solution.

Wall Street Bailout(s)

Early in 2008, we saw a troubled mortgage industry lead way to some bank failures and dramatic government bailouts.  Bear Stearns was the first to make headlines, but it most certainly wasn’t the last.  By early September,  Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were taken over by the government.  By mid-September the government bailed out AIG, which showed its gratitude by treating executives to a $440,000 corporate retreat a week later.

Around the time that AIG executives were golfing and hitting the sauna, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson announced his plan for a taxpayer-funded bailout of Wall Street so that We the People could foot the bill for AIG’s $25K in spa treatments.  The plan allowed him to spend $700 billion in taxpayer money without any oversight, and was met with raised eyebrows by much of the American public and political leaders.

While political pundits had managed to avoid head-on discussion of the financial crisis for previous 6 months by arguing back and forth on semantics as to whether or not this kind of action (i.e. the Bear Stearns rescue) was a “bailout,” those days were over.  It was bailout time, and Paulson warned that the time was now.

In a nutshell: The Paulson plan proposed to use American taxpayer money to buy distressed mortages in order to prevent a banking collapse.  But would it work?

As it turns out, we’ll never know.  The Paulson plan was shot down in the Congress, despite Bush and McCain both pushing Republicans to pass it.  An amended version of the plan – known officially as the Emergency Economic Stablization Act – did pass 2 days later.  And yet we’ll still never know if the plan would have worked, because Paulson decided he didn’t want to buy those crappy mortgages after all.  Of course, to be fair, perhaps the reason he changed his mind is because some of those distressed mortgages don’t actually exist.  Whoops.  Hmm, if only China would buy the “imaginary debt” story…

The mortgage crisis and resulting fallout led, unsurprisingly, to a personal credit crisis.  And this of course leads us into…

Big 3 Bailout

The latter part of November brought us an early version of Christmas alms, as General Motors, Ford and United Auto Workers showed up in Washington to request a 25 billion dollar bailout from the government.

Of course, given the state of the American economy as a whole, the fact that the taxpayers had just bailed out a bunch of banks, GM CEO Richard Wagoner’s salary increase in 2008 despite GM’s losses since 2005, the fact that Honda and Toyota maintain American plants that employ American auto workers, GM’s aggressive investment in China (thus giving thousands of auto industry jobs to Chinese citizens, while simultaneously claiming that America needs this bailout to save American jobs), and the fact that the American auto industry has spent the past decade proudly and churlishly churning out SUV’s rather than moving toward smaller, fuel-efficient vehicles in spite of a global oil shortage and a war in the Middle East…

Well, all of those things added up were and are a recipe for the aforementioned collective sigh on behalf of the American people.  As well as a whole lotta t-shirts.

The original bailout plan was rejected.  It’s worth noting that the CEO’s didn’t do themselves any favors by using private jets for their trip to D.C..  Likewise, when Ford CEO Alan Mullaly was asked whether he’d accept $1 for a salary (down from his $666,667 salary – yes, that’s the real number, so it’s a good thing he wasn’t asked to subtract $1), his smarmy “I think I’m fine where I’m at” response didn’t exactly endear him or his cause to the members of Congress or to the American taxpayers.

So the CEO’s went back to the drawing board (read: Detroit), and returned again a few weeks later in hybrid vehicles to ask for their money again.  Despite 2 of them putting the corporate jets on the auction block, this time they wanted $34 billion.  But they weren’t asking for a “bailout.”  No, no.  They just wanted a “bridge loan.”

Mmm hmm.

After a lot of back and forth, Bush came to the rescue with $17.4 billion of the taxpayer-funded $700 billion that wasn’t used to buy distressed and/or ficticious mortgages.

The Big 3 have made a lot of promises, including a focus on more fuel-efficient vehicles.  And that leads us to our last topic…

Gas Prices

Until very recently, gas prices were a major sticking point with American drivers throughout 2008.  As prices continued to climb, Americans watched in disbelief with hope that the worst would be over soon.  With President Bush apparently asleep at the wheel and without a roadmap to put an end to the seemingly non-stop price hike, drivers were left with 2 choices: grin and bear it, or find alternate solutions.

During the summer travel season gas was up to $4.00/gallon and up – which is to say that gas prices had moved beyond an annoying inconvenience and into a travel barrier.  Some folks, looking for productive ways to deal with the gas price crunch, channelled their frustration into creativity.

While gas prices have dropped since the election brought in a new President who’s already assembled the key players in his energy team, the robust collection of gas price t-shirts will forever serve as a reminder of a time when beer by the keg was cheaper than gas in some places.

Just when you thought the auto industry’s $35 billion bailout request sounded astronomical; when Blagojevich arrived on the scene as a new shoe-in for the heavily contended 2008 ClownLouse of the Year award; when we’d kind of almost forgotten about bailing out the banks earlier this year… Wall Street took back the headlines with news of the largest Ponzi (pyramid) scheme in history, to the tune of $50 billion dollars.

Bernard Madoff, former Chairman of the NASDAQ, was arrested last week for allegedly engineering an investment fraud scheme that may date back to the 1970′s.   How someone managed to perpetrate such a long-standing and far-reaching fraud scheme raises serious questions about the efficacy of the SEC, which seems to have been asleep at the switch an awful lot in recent history.  While sending Martha Stewart to jail may be a shining moment for investment fraud investigators, that daring nab is slightly overshadowed by fiascos like Enron, the Bear Stearns bailout, the mortgage crisis, and – last but most assuredly not least – Bernard Madoff.

Madoff was turned in by his sons after he admitted to them that his investment advisory business was “a giant Ponzi scheme.”  Although both sons worked for Madoff’s company, it seems they were in the dark on the fraud… until Madoff decided to tell them about it, that is.

While many would assume that Madoff would be in custody, he is instead back at home in Manhattan with his wife Ruth.  But he has a curfew, so apparently bilking investors for $50 billion dollars gets you the same punishment as taking the skinny kid’s lunch money on the playground.  No word on whether he was made to stand in the corner before heading home.

And so it is that Bernard Madoff wins a Fantasy T-Wearer award, with the “Cook The Books” sweatshirt here at left.  And we’ll give a second award to SEC Chairman Christopher Cox for, quite literally, passing the buck.  Or $50 million of them.

Congratulations, gentlemen.  You’ve certainly earned it.

Well, so much for that whole bailout plan.  The House soundly rejected the Paulson plan yesterday, despite assurances (and a nationwide address) from President Bush and (the former from) John McCain that the Republican members of Congress were on-board to pass the $700-billion plan.

The final votes came in at 205 to 228, with the Republicans voting 65 for and 133 against, and Democrats voting 140 for and 95 against.

The financial crisis is complicated, and was made more complicated yesterday as news of the votes trickled in.  World Markets fell and the Dow Jones plummeted a record 777 points in a single day, which is about 90 points more than first post-9/11 trading day.

The market showed some sign of recovery today, as the sentence in the “pass it on” game of telephone from Washington to Wall Street seems to have something to do with a bailout revival.  (Or perhaps it’s about purple monkey dishwasher – that game never gets easier.)

What will happen with the bailout plan is still up in the air.  The one bright spot we’ve seen on this end is that your creativity isn’t stifled even in what many have been calling The Worst Financial Crisis Since The Great Depression.

And to that end, the Fantasy T-Shirt Wearer this week is President Bush.  With so much on everyone’s minds, you can pick whatever shirt you feel appropriate to afford him – hey, it’s a free country.

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson raised some eyebrows when he announced his plan for a taxpayer-funded bailout of Wall Street, most notably because of the clauses that would allow him to spend $700 billion in taxpayer money without any oversight.

While political pundits managed to avoid head-on discussion of the financial crisis for the past 6 months by arguing back and forth on semantics as to whether or not this kind of action (i.e. the Bear Stearns rescue) is a “bailout,” those days are over.  It’s bailout time.

In a nutshell: The Paulson plan proposes to use American taxpayer money to buy distressed mortages in order to prevent a banking collapse.

So: *will Main Street bail out Wall Street?  And, if so: will we all get personalized thank-you notes from Freddie and Fanny?