If we're lucky - really lucky - there still might be time to reverse polarity, which will make everything run backward until that time when it all went wrong.

Then, everything will be A-Okay!

The End?

The "Krugman" is priceless.

Preaching to the choir.

... is for someone with better eyesight than me (the hand, maybe?) to tell me who's on the "Wanted" poster behind Krugman.

... is giving us the finger!

It's supposed to be an invisible hand vs. I really want to draw a giant angry hand

Seriously, how many of you have actually lived in a top down planned centrist quasi communist country? How many Americans, or any westerners for that matter are swimming illegally to enter those countries by hook or by crook?

Show of hands...you over there with the new Macbook Air...you?

"The Invisible Hand is giving us The Finger," is an inspired post. Did you, Nancy, think of this on your own, or are you quoting Thomas Jefferson or Dietrich Bonhoffer or Virgil or, ?...

If this is an original inspiration, trademark it, copyright it tomorrow! It is one of the niftiest things I ever have read. Hosanna!

This invisible hand isn't related to the Disembodied Hand that Strangles People from a Calvin & Hobbes strip of a couple of decades ago is it? This one sounds even scarier. Will civilization survive this manic, fingerative rampage?

This cartoon is all the more ironic with the Paul Krugman interview appearing this week in How the World Works.

This is the best dramatic appearance of Paul Krugman in a comic since he showed up as a suitor for Mary Worth back in '03.

...look at who's feeding it its "steady diet of subprime loans." Perhaps, instead of "regulating its consumption of mortgage backed securities," the economists (who look a lot like government funded scientists) should have simply removed the tubes, let it out of the tank, and allowed it to fend for itself. Then maybe it wouldn't have eaten so many subprime loans and mortgage backed securities.

Sept. 11, 2001. Terrorists attack World Trade Center and Pentagon. Numerous officials state, "No one could have seen this coming." Later it is revealed that on Aug. 6, 2001, President Bush received a memo titled, "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US."

Aug. 29. 2005. Hurricane Katrina devastates the Gulf Coast of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. Much of New Orleans floods when the levees are overcome by flood waters resulting from the storm. Though days of warnings had gone unheeded by both officials and citizens - and the storm had first reached land six days earlier before growing to Category 3 status - later Pres. Bush and others state, "No one could have seen this coming."

Economic Crisis of 2008....

Reptillian:

I'm not sure what countries you have in mind, but actually there are quite a few ex-pats living in northern European countries such as Sweden, Amsterdam and the like. No, we are not stowing away on freighters or building our own Kon tiki rafts to get there, (and impliing the more troubled areas of Latin America seems to be setting a pretty low bar, don't you think?) But many who actually have a viable choice either way, have found they rather like the health care coverage, education, vacation time and high quality Government services.

You know, there is more than one reason why "the immigration problem" doesn't seems to apply Europeans anymore.

What's the sound of the lone Invisible Hand of the Market clapping?

What was the name of the Invisible Hand of the Market before there was a market?

Has the Invisible Hand of the Market Buddha-nature or not?

Who handles the marketing of the Invisible Hand of the Market?

If the Invisible Hand of the Market is indeed invisble, how does one know that it exists?

Answer to all the above: Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!

... is where all the money went. That is, how much of the aggregate pre-crash value (including stocks, bonds, and other real and declared assets) of the world economy just evaporated (and wasn't really there) and how much is now cash somewhere? And who has that cash? In particular, who are the major players, and what roles did they play? Is there evidence of large-scale manipulation? Are there adequate records to answer such questions? Who has them? We need a little divine retribution around here.

And is the face on the WANTED poster that of Tom Tomorrow himself?

Well, here in the Netherlands we spend half as much per person on health care with our centrally planned quasi-socialist system. And nobody has to worry about "pre-existing" conditions, nobody loses access to their doctor because they lost their job.

Sure, I lived in the States for a while (although I confess I didn't swim, the Pacific is kind of big), because that's where my career took me. When I compare Europe with the US, what strikes me is the lack of humanity in your free market obsession. I regularly read articles complaining that Europe lags behind because high government spending retards economic growth, as if growth was the one and only important thing that people should worry about.

It's disingenuous to rate an economic system by looking at the number of foreigners who want to work there. Saudi Arabia is full of westerners attracted by boatloads of cash. It's called being used. Don't make the mistake of thinking that all those H1Bs actually like it there.

In fact there's no other issue anywhere in western Europe. so tell me again why it is there is serious public debate in Belgium to divide the country into Flemish speaking and French speaking separate countries. Or how Holland is on the fast track to be the first EU nation to be predominately Muslim and ethnically non European. By the way, the so called solutions of Scandanavia each with fewer people than NY City don't actually translate well to 300 million people. Singapore is a socialist state, Israel is a socialist state. So is Cuba, Venezuela, China, South Africa, Mozambique and so on. The UK's magical free infinite healthcare system rations care in ways you would probably find unacceptable - such as denying dialysis to over 50's who have other 'self induced' health problems.

Be very very careful before you salute the magic of state controlled economies in all cases. That is, unless you're actually willing to live with it.