Boomers' Good Life Tied To Better Life for Immigrants - WSJ.com

Boomers' Good Life Tied To Better Life for Immigrants - WSJ.com

Fascinating article, as we all get older and ratio of the retired to workers increase -- and too many of those workers are coming from the children of poor Hispanic immigrants, who need to be better educated and trained if we want to keep from slipping into being a third world country (slim silver lining for our children, I guess). This article reminds us all that our leaders had better focus seriously on several things:

1. Investing in education as if our lives depend upon it, because they will.

2. Preparing for cutbacks in government benefits for the rapidly expanding elderly, because in all but the most optimistic cases, such cuts will be necessary. Allied to this idea is the need to come up with some sort of sensible plan and government policy on health costs and supports for all, not just the elderly (a good start in reducing health cost inflation, of course, would involve taking on the lawyers' medical malpractice lobby and the pharma industry, at the same time).

3. Tweaking immigration policy to promote the immigration of skilled and wealthy individuals, like Canada and so many other countries do (enough with the unwashed and poor immigrants yearning to be free, Ms. Lazarus). Massively increasing the H-1B visa allotment would be a good start at accomplishing this, as well as helping our balance of trade issues by keeping high value-added industries onshore.

Where are the politicians?