Bankrate:
As you point out in "Boomsday," Social Security is surely headed for a
major adjustment when the ratio of working to retired Americans goes from
15-to-1 to 2-to-1.
Christopher
Buckley: Consider the economic ramifications of that, and also the
cultural ramifications of having 77 million seniors. Of course, it won't
happen all at once. Unless certain things are done, it's going to have
calamitous economic ramifications for the poor dears following us who
have to pay for all this. The kernel of anger in the book is the idea
that we try to leave the world better off for the next generation -- that
would be the American ideal, you work hard to provide for the next generation
-- but what we're actually doing is writing checks on their bank accounts.
At some point, there's going to be a reckoning, and do we trust the government
to make correct decisions?
Lesson learned:
Think about what life will be like for future generations.
