2014-07-20
Explanation
The Joke
A man presents himself as having been a good, devout person, but then a test causes a gold coin to fly from his hand. Thirty seconds later, he discovers that a counterfeiter is printing trillions of duplicate coins that will be randomly distributed to people across the country. As more time passes, people realize what has happened and the coins become worthless. The man panics because all his money is in coins like this. Another character offers to trade "this nice stable American dollar" for his "rapidly deflating piece of metal." In the final panels, it is revealed that the whole scenario was supposed to be a test of the man's spiritual oneness, expressed via bodily perfection — and also to "change your hat too and those shirts."
The Humor
The comic is a parable about the nature of currency, inflation, and faith, wrapped in a religious-test framework. The man is given a gold coin as part of a spiritual test, but the scenario quickly devolves into an economics lesson about hyperinflation and fiat currency — when coins are mass-duplicated, their value collapses, mirroring real-world monetary policy concerns. The joke subverts expectations by having what appears to be a religious or spiritual test turn into a lesson about economics and the arbitrary nature of money's value. The final punchline adds another layer of absurdity by revealing the test was actually about "spiritual oneness expressed via bodily perfection" — and trivially also about the man's fashion choices — making the entire economics tangent a red herring.