800 Words: A Modest Proposal for Baby Boomers - Part 1

It is a melancholy object to those, who walk through this great country, or travel through the shopping malls, when they see Walmart, Kmart, and Target crowded with babies and toddlers, followed by three, four, or six adults, all with blackberries, importuning every service representative for a pricecheck. These parents, instead of being able to work for their honest livelihood, are forced to employ all their time in strolling to buy x-boxes and i-pads for their helpless infants who, as they grow up, either turn businessmen for want of work, or leave their dear native suburbs, to fight the evils of commercialism in Berkeley, or sell themselves to middle management.

I think it is agreed by all parties, that this prodigious number of adults at the hand, or at the foot, or at the beckon call of their children, and now frequently of their grandchildren, is in the present deplorable state of the republic, a very great additional grievance; and therefore whoever could find a fair, cheap and easy method of making these consumers sound and useful members of the common-wealth, would deserve so well of the publick, as to have his statue set up for a preserver of the nation.

But my intention is very far from being confined to provide only for the parents of professed blingers: it is of a much greater extent, and shall take in the whole number of adults of a certain age, who have birthed a generation as little able to support them, as those who demand our charity in the streets.

As to my own part, having turned my thoughts for many seconds, upon this important subject, and maturely weighed the several schemes of our projectors, I have always found them grossly mistaken in their computation. It is true, when seventy-nine point six million baby-boomers retire and the pre-Boomer generations die off, they shall make up a greater proportion than one-third of the commonwealth. And therefore upon their turning the advanced age of 62, they shall therefore each to each do their part to inflate the cost of Social Security and Medicaid from 7.3% of current Gross Domestic Products to 17.5% by the year 2030. And it is exactly at sixty-two years old that I propose to provide for them as, instead of being a charge upon their children, or the state, or consuming food and raiment for the rest of their lives, they shall, on the contrary, contribute to the sustenance, and partly to the production of many millions more.

There is likewise another great advantage in my scheme, that it will prevent those voluntary suicides, and the horrid practice of children murdering their parents to collect insurance, alas! soon to be too frequent among us, sacrificing the poor innocent elderly, I doubt, more to avoid the expence than the shame, which would move tears and pity in the most savage and inhuman breast.

The number of souls in this kingdom being usually reckoned 308,745,538, of these I calculate that there are 79.6 million people born between the years 1946 and 1964, of these I calculate that 60% of them lost money in investments during the current economic depression; of these I add that 42% are delaying retirement; from which number we must add that 25% claim that they shall never retire, although I apprehend that our current economic crisis may one day see resolution; but this being granted, there will remain approximately 48 million Boomers whose ability to retire must at least be called into question.

I am assured by our merchants, that an unemployed American man or woman over 55 years of age is no employable commodity; and will at best yield but ten-to-fifteen years of decent work before they must be fired so that they do not qualify for pensions and their jobs can be outsourced to a third-world country where a person will be all too happy to work for one-fourth the value of their paycheck.

I shall now therefore humbly propose my own thoughts, which I hope will not be liable to the least objection.

I have been assured by a very knowing green energy expert of my acquaintance in Washington, that an elderly, decrepit person, well-nursed for a year is a most energy efficient, clean-burning fuel with low carbon emission, whether burned alive, harvested after death, embalmed in fluid, or preserved alive after dismemberment, and I make no doubt that such people would serve equally well as fuel if they had pre-existing conditions such as heart disease, diabetes, or cancer.

I do therefore humbly offer it to public consideration that of the 79.6 million Boomers already computed, up to 13 million may be registered by persons of succeeding generations with the means to do so as house pets - to be fed, cleaned, and, if necessary, clothed by their masters. Like other pets, they must be registered to animal services so as to prevent animal cruelty, impounded if lost, and put down if proven hazardous to the community. That the remaining sixty-six point six million may, upon the attainment of social security age, be offered to the sale of quality energy companies for supply, fueling, research, and development purposes with the aim of bequeathing America with a new solution to its ever more arduous energy crisis. These energy companies, having needlessly absorbed so much of the present mature generation’s money over its lifetime’s course, will surely be obligated to provide their fuel supply with all the comforts and privileges after which they were always told was their right as Americans until such time as their personage is required for harvest.

After inducing general anesthesia in the fuel supply, I would then advise the energy corporations to puree their harvest into a homogeneous liquid - as such a liquid would be a most practically conducive solution, and would also absent the publick from such unpleasantness as may be incurred by the insertion of dismembered parts into automobiles wholesale for the purpose of combustion. I have reckoned that the amount of fuel that can be harvested from such liquid as can be secreted from a 150 lbs homosapien is roughly equal to 6 barrels of crude oil - and therefore enough to fuel 12 mid-size sedans to capacity.