Economic growth has long depended on grabbing someone else's stuff for free. Stuff like Aztec gold, prairie topsoil, old-growth forests, and, most recently here in B. C., the water flowing down mountain creeks gets turned into Spanish doubloons, ship-loads of wheat, millions of copies of the Times, and exportable electricity. But the frontier has closed and the free stuff is almost gone. We baby-boomers are a treasure trove however, and we will be exploited. The pension funds we paid into will be gutted and the money we saved or inherited will be appropriated. My banjo teacher, for example, made do on a disability pension from Nortel, but the company went tits up and the pension is about to disappear so she has to sell her house.

It's a good thing we had lots of practice living communally and taking our grievances to the streets back when we were youngsters. Those skills are going to come in handy as we go down fighting.