A mixture of greed and wishful thinking got us into this mess, and so far a mixture of incompetence and hypocrisy (plus more greed) isn't working very well to get us out of it.

...but eventually the Invisible Fist will assert itself.

is STILL giving us the finger.

Money is, indeed, the root of all evil.

So which addiction is harder to break, money or drugs? Money, baby. And by a mile. There is no hope that our elected leaders, or the rich people who funnel money to them, will ever speak, vote, or care for us, the poor common people.

It was ever thus.

The Patriotic Investments Group. Very nice :-)

"Look for an excuse to blame democrats, even if it menas going back 30 years to the Carter administration and some obscure piece of legislation to do it."

That way, you don't see it while it's picking your pocket.

I'm not sure what to think when a giant talking hand tells me he loves happy endings. Even Tom Tomorrow's fiscally-minded comics have sex appeal!

Is very visibly jerkin' us off..

All free markets and free will must be destroyed. Everything must be micromanaged by socialist supermen.

Yup...and we're all going to go blind because the Invisible Hand did it way too often, against the wishes/demands of his nanny, i.e., regulations.

What the hell does free will have to do with free markets? I've been in social-democratic countries in Europe, and, somehow, despite the fact that they had, say, universal health coverage, I still retained my free will and freedom to speak. Are you saying you're defined by the products you buy?

Besides, for the last few decades, everything in our country has been micromanaged by our capitalist supermen. The result? The near-collapse of the world economy.

And... This Invisible Hand appears to be a LEFT Hand. Are you a cryto-RIGHT-winger? I expect to to the next Invisible Hand cartoon with a RIGHT hand, or we will know... (something...) :-)

Love the "petty cash drawer". They are living in a different world from ours, for sure.

Yeah, free will

I live in one of those humane,socialized FULL OF FREE WILL countries. (Although a US citizen as well).

My back (lower sacrum discs) went out again just the other day.

Sort walk to a doctor- who told me he could have made a HOUSE CALL INSTEAD ( I had no idea!).

My BKK Insurance ( the cheap kind for us wage slave plebes) paid full, including the extensive psiotherapy- ongoing!

Doc wrote me a pass for work- told me he could make it a month long one!

My cost (yearly no matter what all happens health-wise) a few hundred €uros (pay for my orth work shoes and hearing aids, too).

Post back again, c-x when the FREE WILL -loving US decides to start treating lower income patients without breaking their meager savings accounts.

You can find out more on my link.

Good luck with that getting hurt and ill thing- maybe AIG or Bernie Madoff can help maintain the FREE WILL back home.

So laissez faire capitalism has failed

Democratic Socialism has been all but abandoned

Democracy itself seems increasingly unfit to deal with 21st century problems like terrorism and global warming and plutocracy.

Totalitarianism came up snake-eyes

And Communism was a massive washout.

So what are we left with? Any ideas?

Me, I'm pulling for some good old fashioned feudal chivalry. A nice hierarchical system with reciprocal obligations. Anyone else?

The old saying you refer to is actually "The Love of Money is the root of all evil." As the lampooned events make clear it what people are willing to do to acquire money that is the problem, not money itself which is pretty much morally neutral.

I think the current situation can be described as what happens when the invisible hand is giving us a reach-around. Do we really want to know what else is going on?

Why does Peter Lorre in that barely-B movie "The Beast with Five Fingers" (or some such title) keep coming to mind? Great cartoon, TT!

This would be funny if it weren't true or the joke wasn't on us.

I notice that the character handing out the bonuses--one of the "bad guys"--is Uncle Sam. But the character scolding the bankers--the "good guy"--is President Obama. Would it not be more accurate and/or honest to show President Obama handing out the bonuses? The suggestion is that "the government" is giving our money away, and that President Obama is somehow above the fray and in position to preach. But isn't "the government" following President Obama's plan?

Now back to your wrenches, tovarish.

I notice that the character handing out the bonuses--one of the "bad guys"--is Uncle Sam. But the character scolding the bankers--the "good guy"--is President Obama. Would it not be more accurate and/or honest to show President Obama handing out the bonuses?

-- knisley

The first Uncle Sam handout was Bush's, so using Uncle Sam to do both is more accurate. Still, TT doesn't let Obama off the hook, as he is just fine with getting back "only" $165 million.

And yes, Cannibal, we hear you: The only problem is that the free hand wasn't kept free enough to strangle us all first. Now excuse us while we adults try to fix the mess you made.

We all got slapped hard by that invisible hand. And the people who drove us into this mess have learned nothing. Absolutely nothing. They're vermin, and they'll be back to their old tricks the second things start to recover.

Must represent the Criminal Federal Reserve Bank, that cannot be removed, since they are the actual owners of the United States.

If only a President would come along with the nutsack to eliminate them and allow the Government to create it's OWN currency, backed by an actual physical thing of value, free from these interest charging, "air-money" printing, criminals......they could call it,...oh, I don't know,...Executive Order 11110, and it could state we'll start to print our OWN currency, without interest, backed by silver bullion, and finally end this nightmare........what??.....he did??....back in June of 1963???......right before they blew his brains out for doing it???........my bad