There is an emerging pattern in the political landscape of Western countries.
In Britain, the Labour party has elected Jeremy Corbyn as its leader. The undisguised amusement of the commentariat only barely covers their red-faced fury at such impudence.
Some days ago, Corbyn was criticised by the Prime Minister, a former Eton boy, for wearing shirts and trousers that were less than a perfect fit. There were a few squeals, but Cameron got away with it.
In America, the Democratic party has been caught sleeping by the sudden rise of Bernie Sanders. Just to remind you: Sanders is the son of Jewish emigrants from postwar Poland, he is in his 75th year and is a veteran of the civil rights campaigns of the mid-century.
You might remember those happy times — long-haired hippies on pot, marches on Washington, sit-ins, the whole shebang. Do you ever wonder what happened to those troublemakers? Most of them joined me to become the boomer generation. And now they — we — run things.
Part of the problem is that the generations that came after us, our children, can't work out the rules that we boomers have developed for running the country. Take taxation for example.
At present, there is an argument between the two sides of politics about negative gearing. According to one side, changing the rules would reduce the cost of housing — and this is their strongest argument against such a change.
A member of Gen X or Gen Y — someone in their 20s or 30s, not long out of education and in a first or second job, saving in the hope of one day being able to afford a home of their own — might not read it the same way.
They read that the median price of houses in Sydney is over one million dollars and because they paid attention in their maths classes, they understand what this means: more than half the houses in Sydney cost in excess of one million dollars.
It actually doesn't matter which side of politics we are talking about, because if these young people have learned anything since leaving school it is that the two sides of Australian politics are interchangeable. They are two sides of the same coin.
More than 30 years ago, when this writer bought a house, the cost was a little over three times his gross wage. It wasn't Sydney, but imagine a teacher or a nurse or a policeman trying