Explain SMBC — the wiki for Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

This comic presents an alternate history of economics framed as a series of magical transmutations. In the first panel, alchemists discover transmutation and turn dirt into gold. In the second, economists "ruin it" by pointing out that if gold can be created freely, supply curves would make it worthless -- transmuting gold into "who gives a shit."

Politicians then "save the day" by using copyright law to transmute the now-worthless substance into fiat money -- currency that has value because the government says it does. Finally, the stock market "makes things right again" by using deflation to transmute fiat currency back into dirt, completing the absurd cycle. The comic is a satirical commentary on the nature of money and value, suggesting that the entire history of economics is just a series of increasingly elaborate shell games where things of value are made worthless and worthless things are given artificial value, ultimately ending up right back where everything started.