In our heyday in the 1950s, manufacturing accounted for 25% of GDP. In 1980, it was still 22% of GDP. Today it’s 12% of GDP. By 2010, it will be under 10%. Our government bureaucracy now commands a larger portion of GDP than manufacturing. Services such as banking, retail sales, transportation and health care now account for two-thirds of the value of the US GDP.

Past US generations invented the airplane; invented the automobile; discovered penicillin; and built the interstate highway system. The Baby Boom generation has invented credit default swaps; mortgage-backed securities; the fast food drive-through window; discovered the cure for erectile dysfunction; and built bridges to nowhere. No wonder we’re in so much trouble.

Now that I’ve laid out our bleak future, I can tell you that, as in Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, this is only a vision of what might be. There’s still time to change our course.

David M. Walker, former Comptroller of the United States, at a recent Fiscal Wake-Up Tour at the University of Pennsylvania, described what’s been happening in this country for the last 25 years in one word - laggardship. Our leaders have floundered from crisis to crisis, overreacting and blustering rather than leading. True leaders are proactive, not reactive.

The facts: We have a $10.5 trillion national debt; $53 trillion of unfunded liabilities; a military empire that has US troops in 117 countries and has spent $700 billion on a pre-emptive war that has killed over 4,000 Americans; a $60 billion trade deficit; an annual budget deficit that will exceed $1 trillion in the next year; a crumbling infrastructure with 156,000 structurally deficient bridges; almost total dependence on foreign oil; and an educational system that is failing miserably. We can’t fund guns, butter, banks and now car companies without collapsing our system.

Ultimately, it‘s up to the Baby Boom generation to change our country’s course. The oldest Boomer is 62 years old; the youngest is 45 years old. It is time for Boomers to take a hard look in the mirror and rethink their priorities. It is time to cast aside the $88,000 Range Rovers, $1,200 Jimmy Choo boots, $5,000 Rolex watches and daily double lattes at Starbucks. It’s time to live within your means, distinguish between needs and wants, reduce debt, save 10% of your income, make sure your kids get a good education, show compassion for your fellow man, and possibly pay more taxes and get less benefits, for the good of the country.