wishing-well
Explanation
The Joke
A man tells a woman about how, as a boy, he would throw pennies in the wishing well and his wish would always come true. Now he has come back to the well to wish again. The woman then walks him through the economic reality: the last time he visited, he was a kid with a huge percent rate of inflation working in his favor -- he lost four-fifths of the value of his pennies. Meanwhile, the wishes he made as a child (toys) were cheap, but the things he wants now as an adult are far more expensive. She concludes he is "saving a fraction of what you need" and his wish-granting is "really fifty-fifty at best" given the economics.
The man responds that he has turned to wish-based financial planning to address his patterns, and the woman calls him "garbage" as he throws more coins in. The punchline is that despite having the economics explained to him, he continues to rely on the wishing well rather than rational financial planning.
The Humor
The comic works by applying rigorous economic analysis to something inherently magical and irrational -- a wishing well. The woman's breakdown of inflation, purchasing power, and cost analysis treats wish-granting as if it were a legitimate financial instrument with quantifiable returns. The deeper joke is the parallel to real-world financial illiteracy: many adults essentially engage in "wish-based financial planning" through lottery tickets, gambling, or magical thinking about retirement, and when confronted with the math, they double down rather than change behavior. The final insult of "you are garbage" captures the frustration of anyone who has tried to explain compound interest to someone who would rather buy scratch-offs.