our safety net programs, particularly social security, medicare, we're not going to have the money to pay for them. we'll never be able at that point to tax the nation sufficiently enough to keep all those promises. that's going to be, to me, an economic catastrophe of some order, but even worse than that, a moment of social betrayal. people are going to want to know who was at at the switch when we ran down that track. >> here's some of the thinking that you cited in your piece in the post. i'll put it on the screen. in the fourth turning is here, demographic historian neil howe arrived at a similar conclusion. his view springs from a conviction that human history follows highly predictable cycles based on the typical human life span of 80 years or so, and the differing exp