For all the talk of class warfare dominating Beltway politics and the popular press an equally important issue seemingly gets little to no mention – war between the generations.  No, we’re not talking about the old man yelling at the kids to stay off his lawn nor do we mean the teenager who knows everything and struggles under the iron fists of stupid mom and dad.  More and more the generational divide is being defined on financial terms with Boomers siphoning benefits, jobs and resources from future generations.

We need to get beyond our past.  It’s not a matter of how we got here, of who did what and who is and isn’t deserving of a financially secure future.  We need to look past ideas such as fairness.  We need not discuss what should be.  None of these ideas have a place in a capitalistic system.  Instead we need to focus on our current reality, goals and policies as they are the determinants of where we are headed as a country and a people.

On one side of the argument are the Millennials – those in their 20s and younger.  They blame Boomers for the current economic mess.  They see Boomers as greedy with an “I’ve got mine.  Sucks to be you.” mentality.  What’s more the longer Boomers remain in the workforce they form a “gray ceiling” that impedes career advancement of Millennials as fewer managerial and higher salaried jobs become available through attrition.

On the other side of the argument are the Boomers – those in their late 40s to mid 60s.  They see the economic situation as beyond their control.  As the income and wealth gap widens they see themselves as part of a growing financially insecure middle class – a sandwich generation trying to prepare for retirement while caring for elderly parents and educating their kids.

Who’s right?  Those young whippersnappers?  Those old crusty folks?  Both?  Neither?  Right or wrong, win or lose…these are philosophical points.  Reality is that the current pace is unsustainable.  Rather than address the problems with effective leadership promoting sound, long-term solutions Washington tries to put a Band-Aid over the bullet wound.

Europe is doing much the same at the moment.  Greek unemployment is bumping up against the 20% mark and pushing higher.  For every Greek retiree there are 3 workers.  In 10 years that figure is projected to shrink to 1.5 workers for every retiree.  Who will pay for the benefits?  European leadership speaks not of these issues.  Instead they argue over the terms of short-term fixes.

Japan has been in a 20+ year economic decline.  The graying of Japanese society is well documented.  The majority of adult diapers sold globally are in Japan.  Where is the Japanese long-term fix?

We can argue ideology and fairness until we’re blue in the face but it will get us nowhere.  Economic and demographic reality is painfully obvious.  Long-term solutions must include increasing taxes and cutting benefits.  And yet in a recent McClatchy-Marist poll 81% of registered American voters are not in favor of cuts to Social Security and Medicare.  We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again:  The welfare and entitlement state destroys personal responsibility.

As the 2012 election process begins to ramp up the career politicians and the media will ask us to choose sides.  Without a viable third party we’ll have to buy into the Democratic camp that the wealthy are sticking it to all of us and we should punish them (as if that solves the problem!) or we can sing the Republican song of wild overspending by the government that must be curtailed (as though we can cut our way to prosperity).

It’s pure weapons grade BS.  We need an honest assessment.  We’re getting old, we expect too much and we pay too little.  We either admit it and fix it or we go the way of Europe and Japan.

Sadly this type of honesty won’t win anyone an election so we’re naive if we expect issues to be addressed intellectually.  We’re headed for generational warfare plain and simple.  Anyone seen my battle fatigues?