We're not just going to mop a floor

We're gonna be cleaning up a peep show booth type-of-mess with semen running down the walls and ankle deep in urine.

I believe the heavy impact of this ­recession on what has been called the lost generation of young people is part of a wider pattern. In my new book, The Pinch, I argue that my generation – the baby boomers – are in danger of dumping too many problems on the younger generation.

The boomers – roughly those who were born between 1945 and 1965 – have done, and continue to do, some great things, but now the bills are coming in, and it is the younger generation who will pay them. We have a good idea of what at least some of these future costs are: the cost of climate change, of investing in the infrastructure our economy will need if we are to prosper, paying pensions when the big boomer cohort retires – on top of the cost of servicing the debt the government has built up.

When nothing gets done despite his warnings he'll throw up his arms and say "whelp, at least I tried" and then clear his conscience of the disaster the baby boomers passed along.