I developed this cartoon following the see-sawing stock market earlier in the week. I wanted to do something with the Depression-era cliche of the ruined investor jumping from a building, but since it seemed corporate stocks were bound to weather the debt-ceiling storm better than the average American, I also wanted to show a character symbolizing average Americans bearing most of the burden.

I have to admit I wasn’t totally happy using Uncle Sam in this cartoon, because I feel like I’ve been resorting to that too often, lately. I did sketch some alternatives, but I didn’t like how they looked, and decided none of them would be quite as clear as the more well-known character. What do you think? Does this get the idea across well?