The caption of this cartoon is only two words: economy and oil. These two distinct words are being used to describe the cartoon because oil affects the economy in various ways.
The two words themselves are symbolic enough. Here, the word economy only takes up a small portion of the image, while the word oil takes up a lot of space. But at the same time, there is a downward arrow connecting to the word, representing the downfall and struggles of the oil industry. Because the oil industries are going down, the economy will suffer as a result. I think the artist means that if oil keeps going down exponentially, not just our economy, but economies worldwide will plummet drastically.
The action taking place here is the economy is currently suffering because oil industries are struggling.
The message of the cartoon is the government needs to do something to help the struggling oil industries, or else both the economy and oil will continue to drop. The ideological perspective represented by the cartoonist is liberal because he wants to government to regulate businesses and help preserve the economy.
This cartoon does indeed relate to a current political event, particularly the event happening in Libya at the moment. The United States get most of its oil from Libya, and since Libya is in the middle of a Civil War, their oil trade with the United States has been deteriorating. This relates to our class discussions because we talked about how oil is struggling at the moment, which is why prices are soaring up.
Satire and irony definitely influence the topics covered in this cartoon because it shows that if we all just sit and watch, then both the economy and oil that we depend on so much will drop and eventually cease to exist.
:)
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