BABYBOOM.CBS 10/15/04 8:50 AM-DLR   1:25
From boom to bust.  This is Dave Ross on the CBS Radio Network.
It comes up again and again - the reason we're in trouble.  The reason that the deficits are so scary.
The reason we're headed for a health care crisis.  The reason we're headed toward a social security crisis.
It all comes down to two words.  Baby Boom.
My generation of post world war II babies, now all grown up - and about to move from our role as the most productive workforce in history to our new role as check cashing retirees sapping the nation's economic strength.
I hear it all the time from people who are as young as I used to be - "what's going to happen to MY social security, they say, when YOU retire."
Well, my generation will make sure it's protected, I say - but let's face it, no one knows exactly how that will happen, because the demographics look daunting.  Once upon a time, you had 16 workers for every retiree.  Now we're moving toward TWO workers for every retiree.  If that continues we may have ONE worker for every retiree- sort of a social security buddy system.
But this is all we baby boomers have heard our whole lives - we forced school districts to build bigger elementary schools, then bigger high schools, then we flooded the colleges, then we flooded the work place, then we flooded the suburbs, then the expressways, and soon we'll flood the hospitals the retirement homes and finally the graveyards where I suppose they'll just have to start stacking us.
So before that happens, I have just one piece of advice for the next generation.  X, Y, or whatever we're calling it these days.
Don't reproduce all at once, OK.  
Check with a neighbor.  PACE yourself.
Now this.
~C:\works\files\BABYBOOM.CBS