50 Times The Simpsons Saw It Coming Before the World Did

As Homer stumbles into conservative punditry and influences national policy, a news ticker rolls along the bottom of the screen with a grimly absurd headline: “Europe puts Greece on eBay.” It played as a surreal gag about economic desperation, too ridiculous to ever occur.

Then came the real 2010s debt crisis, when Greece was nearly pushed out of the eurozone, forced into austerity, and subject to international bailouts. Though Greece wasn’t auctioned off online, the metaphor rang uncomfortably close.