inflation-2
Original: inflation-2 on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Transcript
Panel 1 (top): A small street-corner cafe with a striped awning, two silhouetted figures standing in front of it.
Caption (narration): "Lately the price of everything but commodities has been skyrocketing."
First figure: "It's the greatest thing in history."
Second figure: "It sucks, right?"
Panel 2 (middle left): A woman with dark hair and glasses sitting at a cafe table, speaking.
Woman: "Ten years ago, if I skipped my morning coffee, after a few years I could save a high percentage of a mortgage downpayment."
Panel 3 (middle right): The same woman, gesturing emphatically, mouth wide open.
Woman: "Now? I could skip a gigantic designer coffee drink every morning for the rest of my life and it wouldn't make a microscopic dent in the cost of healthcare, education, or housing."
Panel 4 (bottom left): The woman standing, grinning gleefully, holding cash up in the air, with another woman beside her holding a coffee cup.
Woman: "Longterm investment is off the table, baby! I am free to binge on minor luxuries!"
Panel 5 (bottom right): A barista hands over an elaborate frappe-style drink topped with whipped cream to a customer.
Barista: "Here's your caramel chocolate mint gold-leaf supreme-accino, sir."
Customer: "Bless you, inflation! Bless you!"
Votey:
A close-up of a smiling face (the customer) looking up.
Customer: "Could you give me an extra pump of gold?"
Caption (narration): "Lately the price of everything but commodities has been skyrocketing."
First figure: "It's the greatest thing in history."
Second figure: "It sucks, right?"
Panel 2 (middle left): A woman with dark hair and glasses sitting at a cafe table, speaking.
Woman: "Ten years ago, if I skipped my morning coffee, after a few years I could save a high percentage of a mortgage downpayment."
Panel 3 (middle right): The same woman, gesturing emphatically, mouth wide open.
Woman: "Now? I could skip a gigantic designer coffee drink every morning for the rest of my life and it wouldn't make a microscopic dent in the cost of healthcare, education, or housing."
Panel 4 (bottom left): The woman standing, grinning gleefully, holding cash up in the air, with another woman beside her holding a coffee cup.
Woman: "Longterm investment is off the table, baby! I am free to binge on minor luxuries!"
Panel 5 (bottom right): A barista hands over an elaborate frappe-style drink topped with whipped cream to a customer.
Barista: "Here's your caramel chocolate mint gold-leaf supreme-accino, sir."
Customer: "Bless you, inflation! Bless you!"
Votey:
A close-up of a smiling face (the customer) looking up.
Customer: "Could you give me an extra pump of gold?"
Alt text
A five-panel SMBC comic about inflation and giving up on saving. Panel 1: a street-corner cafe; narration reads "Lately the price of everything but commodities has been skyrocketing," while one silhouetted person says "It's the greatest thing in history" and another says "It sucks, right?" Panel 2: a bespectacled woman at a cafe table says that ten years ago, skipping her morning coffee for a few years could have saved a high percentage of a mortgage downpayment. Panel 3: the same woman, now animated, says that nowadays skipping a gigantic designer coffee drink every morning for the rest of her life wouldn't make a microscopic dent in the cost of healthcare, education, or housing. Panel 4: she grins and waves cash in the air, declaring "Longterm investment is off the table, baby! I am free to binge on minor luxuries!" Panel 5: a barista hands over a towering whipped-cream drink, saying "Here's your caramel chocolate mint gold-leaf supreme-accino, sir," and the customer cries "Bless you, inflation! Bless you!" The joke: since responsible saving is now pointless, people lean fully into absurd indulgences. Votey (aftercomic): a close-up of the smiling customer looking up, asking "Could you give me an extra pump of gold?"
Transcribed by Claude Opus 4.8.