Saving Sam: An illustrated state of the union

Editor’s Note: SAVING SAM is an extraordinary assemblage of 64 original illustrations by international businessman Thomas C. Ramey who offered them to GlobalPost for publication. We are delighted to bring them to our readers. We were impressed with the style and art Mr. Ramey brought to this work as well as the exceptional research that lies behind it. This is a political narrative done in classic cartoon style illustrating how America got into the current economic crisis and how Mr. Ramey believes we can get out of it. He uses a combination of humor and statistics to weave an engaging narrative about our misperceptions of the current global economic situation and the numerous problems America faces at home. We hope you enjoy and learn from it.

Visit the Saving Sam website to learn more about the book

Author’s Note:
I created this book because I'm deeply concerned about my country. I first traveled to China and India to do business in the early 1980's; my involvement with Latin America began more than a decade earlier. Since that time, an emerging nations revolution has occurred; the number of people, globally, who've stepped out of poverty to become true middle class has grown to over 500 million, or more than one and a half times the size of the U.S. population. They are highly motivated, and determined not to return to poverty. More importantly, they want what we have enjoyed for more than half a century. While I've been impressed with what the Chinese, Indians, and Brazilians, among others, have achieved in less than twenty years, I've been frustrated, angry, and anxious about how we in America have declined in areas that used to be a source of national pride and an unequalled platform for competing. We've never had a comparable threat, or opportunity.

Thomas C. Ramey is former Chairman and President of Liberty International, Liberty Mutual Group, former Director of Liberty Mutual Insurance Company, and former Executive Vice President, Liberty Mutual Group. He retired from Liberty Mutual in 2009 after building a profitable Liberty International to $20 billion in assets with operations in 26 countries. He serves on the boards of the Brookings Institution, Axis Capital Holdings, and The Warranty Group as well as serving as Chairman of the Board of the International Fund for Animal Welfare. Until 2009, he was a member of the Mayor's Economic Advisory Council in Chongqing, China. In 1983 he illustrated the book Alice in Blunderland by Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Jack Anderson. He and his wife divide their time between Massachusetts and Washington, DC.

Colorist: Jim Long