2012-02-28
Explanation
This comic uses a simple graph format to satirize how politicians view the stock market compared to ordinary people. The top half, labeled "How Most People View the Stock Market," shows a standard price-over-time chart with the typical ups and downs of market fluctuations -- just a line going up and down with no special interpretation.
The bottom half, labeled "How Politicians View the Stock Market," shows the same kind of fluctuating line but with annotations. Every upward movement is labeled "Our Fault" (in yellow/gold, matching the upward line color), while every downward movement is labeled "Their Fault" (in green, matching the downward line color). The joke is that politicians always take credit for economic gains and blame the opposition for economic losses, regardless of whether either party actually had anything to do with the market'''s movements.
This is a sharp commentary on political opportunism and the tendency of politicians to claim credit for things that go well while deflecting blame for things that go badly, even though the stock market is largely driven by complex economic forces that no single political party controls. The votey shows the cartoonist smugly saying "Oh yes, ladies. Graph joke." -- a self-aware, self-deprecating nod to the fact that SMBC frequently uses graph-based humor, and a joke about the supposed sex appeal of being someone who makes graph jokes.