It is a problem money or social security lock boxes, strangely enough, probably can’t solve and that having more babies and stepped up legal or illegal immigration can. But the babies take 20+ years to grow into worker bees and we’ve long passed that point of no return. Immigration, as we all know, is a political hot topic and not likely to lead to rational conclusions or solutions anytime soon. So the boomers will be left it appears with a generational conundrum of gigantic proportions: who will take care of them?; who will still feed them – when they’re 64? Fauna Kane, a Southern California boomer quoted by John Tierney in a recent article in The New York Times, says that people she knows aren’t “thinking ahead, but nobody does…you think the good Lord’s going to take care of you.” Perhaps Mrs. Kane, but absent a miracle, it will be up to younger generations to do the Lord’s work and there aren’t enough of them to provide health care, a comfortable retirement, and to compete head-on with the Asian invasion at the same time. Something has to give way. In financial terms alone, Laurence Kotlikoff, a Boston University economist has estimated the unfunded liabilities of Americans associated with healthcare and retirement amount to $80 trillion, over seven times our annual GDP!
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- Vooch
Read the complete commentary
- Vooch
