Everyone understands the criticality of nuturing and training our young people. It is obvious that we need an intelligent and capable workforce to ensure that our society continues to function into the future.

At the other end of the scale, not too much thought and effort is applied to keeping the Baby Boomer generation self-sustainable.

This issue promises serious social and economic problems that appear inevitable and should be of serious concern to all of us. BRW on 8/4/13 stated that "over-65s will nearly treble from 8.8 per cent in 1971 to about 21 per cent by 2026 and 28 per cent by 2056."

1. Most Baby Boomers came into the superannuation environment too late. According to APRA, the average superannuation balances a couple of years ago for men aged 60-64 was only $198,235 and only $112, 632 for women - clearly not enough to live on - particularly at today's interest rates.

Inevitably, this will force many/most Baby Boomers onto the pension at some stage. How is a decreasing proportion of tax-payers going to fund a higher proportion of people drawing on the state's resources?

2. To add insult to injury, the Baby Boomers are also getting a really rough deal in their employment environment - if they are lucky enough to be working. The contemporary organisation promotes 'youngsters', (and fair enough too) but ignores or marginalises the mature worker. It is often assumed that the older worker won't stick around, won't or can't learn new skills and is not flexible. In some cases that is certainly true, but it is equally true of some younger workers too.

Today's reality is that the average career changes for the typical worker is six or more times over one's working life. Therefore, the expectation that the current career beginner will stick around long-term is unrealistic in the face of the facts.

Mature workers don't have the career ambitions that the younger generation but are generally more content to do their job and do it well.

3. When it's time to lay off workers, it's the older worker who gets the chop first - and at a time when getting another job is much harder than for the younger worker.

4. And when mature-age applicants with a life-time of experience apply for an advertised position, they don't stand a chance. This is because the people processing the applications are generally younger than the children of the applicants who apply for the position; and they have absolutely no appreciation for experience, mature judgement and an understanding of people.

It is common that people in their late forties, fifties and sixties are in their intellectual prime - and they are being put on a scrap heap.

Time to fight back folks - next time you are considering buying something, ask the vendor what proportion of that company's staff are over fifty. If they don't know or answer with a low number, then take your business to an establishment that values experience and maturity.