Parties need a kick in the pants

Michael K. Casler, Las Vegas

Thursday, Aug. 23, 2012 | 2 a.m.

Neither party is offering a plan to really address our financial mess. When financial disaster struck in 1929, many rich and powerful people were financially decimated, and some survived relatively intact. Nearly everybody else was ruined. Our civil society just sucked it up for the most part and did not attack the wealthy and powerful.

I wonder what the calculus of the rich and powerful is today. Do they think that if financial disaster strikes, it won’t affect them? Do they believe it won’t strike? Do they believe that civil society today will act as it did in the 1930s, suck it up and not attack the rich and powerful?

If I were rich and powerful, I’d look closely at the woefully inadequate economic plans of the Republicans and the Democrats, look at $16 trillion in debt and $1 trillion deficits, and I’d look really closely at our society today. I’d seriously have to wonder, if financial disaster does strike, am I immune from its effects, and what will the civil backlash be like today, versus in the 1930s?

The rich and powerful are closest to the levers of power. Perhaps they might consider kicking the two parties in the you-know-what and telling them to come up with a “real” economic plan instead of “fake” ones.