Baby boomers did not set out to choke the economy. They simply rode one of the great demographic waves in American history. Now that wave has lodged in place. Houses stay put. Careers stretch on. Power lingers in the same hands. And when a Fortune columnist described the resulting squeeze, the replies poured in. They revealed something raw. Anger. Defensiveness. Sadness. A deep sense of insecurity. Many older Americans feel just as trapped as the generations that follow them. The responses were not polite rebuttals. They were outbursts. One reader wrote, “I apologize for not dying soon enough for you, so your generation can pick over my financial bones.” Another asked if the piece proposed “putting boomers on ice floes or turning them into Soylent green.” A third declared that critics “should all be shot in the head and dumped in a ditch.” These were not fringe voices. They captured a mood. Nick Lichtenberg, the author, expected a discussion of demographics and markets.…