Finally, the feds grew a backbone and said no to taxpayer bailouts of financial giants Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch and (maybe) AIG after ill-advised federal rescues of mortgage financiers Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and the investment bank Bear Stearns.

But tackling the financial ills of Wall Street is kid's stuff compared with the real economic apocalypse that threatens us all -- the national debt. Today the debt stands at $9.6 trillion, give or take a few hundred billion.

Now the bad news. The nation's structural debt -- the difference between the bills we know are coming due and the money needed to pay them -- has been estimated at $53 trillion. The accountants call that an unfunded liability. I call it geezer debt, since the vast majority of the liability stems from Social Security, Medicare and, to a lesser extent, Medicaid.

The unwillingness of the baby boom generation to pay its own way is the moral equivalent of selling our children and grandchildren subprime loans. Here's a real-world breakdown of that incomprehensible $53 trillion we're putting on our kids' credit cards.

As soon as little Johnny or Maria sets up a household, imagine adding a $454,000 mortgage to the family budget. And unlike a traditional mortgage, the family doesn't get to live in the house or count it as an asset.

The deal gets worse. The law will require them to pay this mortgage first, before paying their own bills. Yet despite these forced remittances, the mortgage principal they shoulder will continue to grow.

No one in his or her right mind would voluntarily enter into such a rotten deal. That's why we boomers don't give the kids any choice about the generational balloon payments that will fund our golden parachutes.

Continued denial by boomers of the financial maelstrom we're passing on to our kids is evidence of an even more fundamental deficit found in the "Me" generation -- honesty.

There are no quick fixes to make the debt go away. Tax hikes on the rich sufficient to make a dent in the debt would cripple the economy and chase jobs and investment abroad. Tax cuts to spur the economy to grow ourselves out of debt would require real annual growth rates in excess of 10 percent for decades, according to David Walker, former comptroller of the United States. That type of growth is unprecedented.

Presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain continue the political tradition of offering Band-Aid solutions. Even if we eliminated earmarks as McCain champions and got out of Iraq and allowed the Bush tax cuts to expire as Obama advocates, that money would pay for only 15 percent of the structural deficit, according to Walker.

If Obama and McCain were serious about being meaningful agents of change, they would call for serious Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid reform.

Walker identifies the third rail of American politics, Social Security, as the easiest program to reform. He proposes reducing benefits to younger workers, and as a tradeoff, older workers would stay on the job longer. Retirement age would be indexed to life expectancy. He would put full retirement eligibility at 72, based on U.S. life expectancy of 78.

That's hardly a bitter pill to swallow, and it's still generous, considering that when Franklin D. Roosevelt set Social Security retirement eligibility at 65, life expectancy was 62. Franklin knew how to save a buck.

The more difficult fix will come with paring back Medicare and Medicaid, since paying for one's own medical expenses has become downright un-American. But without fundamental changes in Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, Walker warns that in 30 years, U.S. debt could swell to ratios common in Third World countries.

The United States. has been in serious arrears before. The national debt ratio was at an all-time high after World War II, and the greatest generation that won the war worked like hell to pay the tab.

Such a commitment is missing from today's boomers. Most seem unconcerned that without fundamental entitlement and tax reform, their children could be the first in our history not to equal the financial success of their parents. What a shameful, but fitting legacy for boomers, who are on track to becoming America's greediest generation.

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