The Joker presents the second in his series about a fictional character based on a well-known Kootenai County character in “Spensah Tales: The Waterboarding”:

Larry came to in complete blackness. He was sitting on steel chair, his arms bound behind his black. His felt the steel shackles on his legs. He realized he was completely naked as the cold air of the room hit his skin. He couldn’t see a thing. Some one had placed a black bag over his head. Suddenly, the bag was yanked off his head. A bright spotlight shone on his face. He squinted as his eyes slowly adjusted. “Good morning, Larry. I trust you slept well,” a voice came from the darkness. It was Cliff. “We’re going to have a little talk about where you live exactly.” Larry straining against the ropes on his arms quickly realized there was no hope of freeing himself. “So Larry, what roads can you use to get to Costco?” Cliff asked. “What? Come on,” Larry stammered. “I, I, I don’t have to answer that.” Then two middle-aged women from the clerk’s office emerged from the shadows carrying a large metal tub with water in it. More below.

Obama’s stimulus package has good things and bad things. Nobody will be perfectly happy with it. The bigger questions regard society’s values. Americans are addicted to merchandise. We’ve been busily buying things with money we don’t have for a long time. We’ve leveraged our selves with credit cards, second mortgages, and loans. Mix out of whack wage structures, soaring health care costs and corporate greed and you’ve got middle class families struggling to make it. The more we buy, the futher we fall into debt. It’s cliche, but the rich get richer and poor get poor. At some point, the whole thing has to collapse/The Joker.

Question: Do you agree w/The Joker that the financial collapse reflects the condition of many households in America today?