gold-3
Explanation
This comic satirizes gold as an investment vehicle, specifically the "gold bug" mentality common among certain economic doomsayers.
In the first panel, a TV commentator warns that "civilization may collapse at any moment," and the scene shows apocalyptic destruction with someone screaming "DOOOOM!" In the next panel, the pitch continues: "That's why we sell GOLD -- the one asset you can depend on! Surviving world-spanning free-market-based economic collapse, gold is available to you at low, low prices."
The final panels reveal the absurdity: the gold being sold is for the buyer's "egon-to-be" (a play on words suggesting it is essentially worthless in a real collapse), and a customer is shown sitting comfortably with their gold, noting it is "the pinnacle of a scam."
The humor targets the logical contradiction at the heart of gold-bug advertising: if civilization truly collapses, gold is just a shiny, soft metal with limited practical utility. The ads essentially ask you to trade something of real current value (money that can buy food, shelter, tools) for something whose value depends entirely on the same societal structures the ads claim are about to collapse. If free markets cease to exist, there is no market to establish gold's value. The comic also pokes fun at the fear-mongering tone of gold commercials, which have been a staple of cable news and AM radio for decades.