If the Baby Boomers want the state, and by state I mean nation (not in the Marxist sense, where the state is some impersonal entity)...and by nation I mean tax-paying younger generations to pay for their retirement than they need to do this: travel back in a time machine, forego education and career achievement and have large familes double the replacement population rate. Also, instead of engaging in ridiculous medical treatments to avoid aging and travelling around the world like some 20s-something backpacker, they need to retire quietly to the garden, like their forebears did, if they want to receive their pensions.

Tom Peters would be proud of my pro-active prose.

Well, of course, I do know who he is. What he is, is another matter entirely. I am inclined to conclude he is nothing more than 'yet another rich American kid' who refuses to grow up. A motor mouth; and someone who is responsible for more crank business trends and fashions than a blind researcher working in the nearest psychiatric ward. Do you think he would fly if we threw him off the Eiffel Tower? Peters' comments (above) are just guess work delivered at supersonic speed; just like his management lectures: maximum (frenetic) style; little lasting substance.

Tom Peters' comment sounds like nothing else so much as reassurance to the faithful in the scientific inevitability of socialism.

Nice to know that, according to certain people, some voters are more equal than others.

I was too busy thinking about girls (and 20 years later I still am) to be brainwashed into marxist propaganda....Plus I went to a Catholic University, so I was immune..That's not to say that it wasn't present on campus, but I never was swayed and/or avoided such classes that may have had that kind of influence.....

susceptible to socialist propaganda - but who wasn´t at 20?

REPLY: Not me! I was hell bent on making money after graduation...Little did I know that the joke field I majored in (which will be left unrevieled) paid barely enough to feed a family of bumble bees. Ya live and learn once reality hits you in the face!

Age 18-24: still wet behind the ears, hardly own experiences of the real world yet, hence susceptible to socialist propaganda - but who wasn´t at 20? Votes Sego.
Age 25-34: old enough to have realized the current socialist system offers them dole money, but no future - young enough to still want to have a future. Votes Sarko.
Age 35-44: neither here nor there, it seems.
Age 44-59: grew up in the 70s, the Golden Age of the welfare state - irredeemably addicted to the system, though it´s falling apart around them. Votes Sego.
Age 60+: too old to really worry about their own future, old enough to worry about their grandchildren´s - also still can remember the times before welfare bureaucracy. Votes Sarko.

They must be the boomer marxist hippy 1960s peace nick hold overs who bought into the propaganda machine of the day.  I guess that makes sense, but you would think that that age group would grow up and would be the ones going to work and detest paying through the nose in taxes.  Guess again!

If I read the Independent article closely, Sarkozy still won in the 25-34 category and was dead even with Royal in the 35-44 category. Royal only won the 18-24 and 45-59 categories (and overall in 18-59).

I personally will move to India or Siberia before I pay any more money into baby boomer retirement schemes such as US Social Security and the burgeoning Medicare scam. After creating a wonderful muliticulural socialist utopia for us everywher in the west we X'ers are now holding a much less than empty bag plus angry minorities everywhere who hate us and are constantly on the verge of rioting. Thanks to the "Worst Generation".